The buffalo is a large animal and difficult to take down reliably, which has led to a demand for cartridges designed specifically for buffalo hunting. The .50-90 was created with this purpose in mind. As a result, the cartridge became immediately popular with the professional buffalo hunters on the Western plains. At the time of its invention, there were no special powders or bullet types, and the knowledge of ballistics was fairly limited. Thus, when trying to create a more effective big game cartridge, the designers simply expanded the dimensions of prior cartridges.