>>63928016
>Nigger
It was not well understood the damage that was being done at the time.
From all accounts Bell was a decent man, if somewhat autistic. He would even contact locals to come collect the meat from his kills, which gave him a very good reputation among them.
>just barely adequate to kill some <150lb ungulate
That is the error in your thinking ultimately.
A 22lr is more than sufficient to consistently insta-kill +1000 pound cattle, I know this because it's the most common round used for that purpose. Many thousands of cattle and some bison are killed every year with one shot from a 22lr, no trouble, no thrashing around or extended painful death.
A record setting grizzly had it's skull blown through with a 22, loaded under modern 22lr standard velocity.
To say any intermediate rifle calibers are "barely" adequate for medium game is just mythology when weak-as-piss 22lr is more than adequate.
Tens of thousands of boar are killed each year with 22s, yet I've also seen one run off being hit with a cannonball several inches across only to die hundreds of feet away. There's a reason Bell said, to paraphrase, "ten grains in the right spot kills and one thousand grains in the wrong spot wounds"
