Manufacturers have adopted "standard" ignition systems to sporting cartridges not because of superiority but simply because of affordability. This is a matter of scale, as the size of the cartridge increases, the additional cost of these priming systems diminishes, as a function of total cost, until the ballistic advantage becomes worthwhile.

Background & Definitions has been discussed in previous articles by both this author and Byrom Smalley, particularly those works pertaining to the short-fat case concept, ideally, to maximize both cartridge performance and ballistic uniformity, several primer blast (or plume) related factors are critical. With this in mind, the ideal primer blast would:

1. Not move the bullet; else each blast would move the bullet in each load exactly the same distance and leave it moving at precisely the same velocity at that instant when nascent gas production from burning propellant created sufficient force to accelerate the bullet – the former may be possible, the latter is most unlikely;
2. Ignite every propellant granule before bullet begins to move (considering quenching effects and other factors discussed hereafter, this is generally unlikely to happen);
3. Pulverize no propellant granules (seems possible);
4. Uniformly ignite all propellant granules (seems possible);

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