Nah not really Jim, I'm a lifelong engineer and can appreciate technical and chemical ingenuity. Such as Forsyths experiments with fulminates to create the flash, through roll primers and the tipping flask to fill the flash pan. Things moved at a fast pace and just about stopped with the first cartridges. There has been refinements but little real innovation.
Some stuff just defies logic, like how the hell did they come up with the crazy idea of pin-fire. It's kinda like inventing a wheel with flats on so it dont roll away.
“If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?” :- Prince Philip said after Dunblane