A person's answer also usually is colored by the chamberings he/she already owns.
Here's a variation on the theme....
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
What if you had no guns to start with, and you could assemble a collection of handguns and long guns of either bottleneck or straight cases, and wanted the fewest caliber and cartridge cases to meet reasonable needs for normal 'gun' tasks - hunting, self-defense, home/ranch protection, and to preserve social stability (i.e. the 'militia' function)...?
It is fair to assume you'd have a .22 LR handgun, carbine, and rifle, plus a shotgun or two, but what handguns and rifles and chamberings/calibers would you 'invent' if none already existed?
I think that for instance, you could do with the .22 rimfires, plus 6mm (.243), 8mm (.324), and 10mm (.408), & 12mm (.486) bores, using short-straight cases in the 8mm, 10mm, and 12mm for CCW handguns and carbines (lever, of course
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Anyway, perhaps part of my OCD firearms interest is that I wonder if the whole gun industry started from scratch, today, given modern components and materials, what would we be shooting?
Maybe three calibers in three cartridge body styles could do it all, instead of four...?
Feel free to muse along with me. (...or just assert that we already have what we have, so what's the point...).