Smokeless Powder conversions

It's not dangerous if 1. you keep your loadings under the maximum recommended and 2. the gun in question is not shit. Sure, if you stuff the case with a fast-burning smokeless powder, it's going to go kaboom. That's even true of modern rifles.
How did they figure what a safe smokeless load was? I'd guess trial-and-error.

>>34837798
by simply having good enough metallurgy and a strong action. good metallurgy equal to that found in smokeless only rifles existed prior to 1886 and those rifles built robustly enough to handle the increase in pressure were chosen to 'convert'. it wasn't always a conversion as the only thing they had to change on some rifles was the sights. I have a steyr kropatschek and I have no idea if the sights were updated but I'd assume so because they go up to 2200 meters. the steyr 1888/90 also only had new sights fitted but it's a much weaker action than the kropatschek and it was bordering on unsafe if not beating the hell out of those rifles.

>>34838084
They actually proof tested them, generally with 4 times the average load to be used.