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FirstFreedom · October 3, 2006, 09:42 PM

Caliber (strictly diameter):

American standard - bullet groove diameter, using an inch convention.
European standard - bullet land diameter, using a metric convention.

IINM.

Cartridge:

Much more complicated...there have been extensive threads on cartridge naming if you can find them with the search feature.

But you've got many American rounds that are simply the caliber plus the designer, which may be Remington, Winchester, Marlin, Hornady, PPC, Casull, on and on.

You've got the many old rounds which used the convention of xx-yy or xx-yy-zzz, where xx is the caliber, yy is the powder charge in either black powder, or later in smokeless powder, and zzz is the bullet weight in grains. Such as .45-70 gov't or .45-70-450, or .30-30 winchester, or .32-20, .25-20, .38-55, .38-40, .44-40, etc. The dashes are not pronounced; for example ".45-70" is just "forty five, seventy", not "forty five dash seventy". The gov't on the end of that one designates it as an official government (U.S. military) round.

You've got European and military rounds with the convention of aa x bb mm, where aa and bb are both millimeter measurements, and aa is the bullet land diameter, and bb is the cartridge case length from back to front, such as 7x57mm mauser, 6.5x55mm swede, 7.92x57mm mauser, 7.62x51mm, or 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm russian, etc. The "x" in these is read "By", as in "seven by fifty seven millimeter mauser", etc.

Then you've got random ones which like the others, start with the bullet diameter in inches or mm, but then use a random designation which one must learn on a case-by-case basis (much like learning irregular verbs in English), such as .30-'06 springfield, which means .30 caliber (actually .308 caliber), adopted officially in 1906 in that particular loading, by the U.S. government as the standard small arm / rifle round, and springfield added on the end because the U.S. arsenal in Springfield (Mass?) was the place where the round was created/adopted. Quite a few other off-the wall designations as well. Many rounds have multiple names - most with multiple names have both an American and European version of the name. For example the .380 auto in the U.S. is .380 auto or .380 acp or 9mm Browning short. In Europe it is 9x17mm or 9mm Kurz.

October 3, 2006, 09:42 PM	#3
FirstFreedom Junior member Join Date: May 31, 2004 Location: The Toll Road State, U.S.A. Posts: 12,451	Caliber (strictly diameter): American standard - bullet groove diameter, using an inch convention. European standard - bullet land diameter, using a metric convention. IINM. Cartridge: Much more complicated...there have been extensive threads on cartridge naming if you can find them with the search feature. But you've got many American rounds that are simply the caliber plus the designer, which may be Remington, Winchester, Marlin, Hornady, PPC, Casull, on and on. You've got the many old rounds which used the convention of xx-yy or xx-yy-zzz, where xx is the caliber, yy is the powder charge in either black powder, or later in smokeless powder, and zzz is the bullet weight in grains. Such as .45-70 gov't or .45-70-450, or .30-30 winchester, or .32-20, .25-20, .38-55, .38-40, .44-40, etc. The dashes are not pronounced; for example ".45-70" is just "forty five, seventy", not "forty five dash seventy". The gov't on the end of that one designates it as an official government (U.S. military) round. You've got European and military rounds with the convention of aa x bb mm, where aa and bb are both millimeter measurements, and aa is the bullet land diameter, and bb is the cartridge case length from back to front, such as 7x57mm mauser, 6.5x55mm swede, 7.92x57mm mauser, 7.62x51mm, or 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm russian, etc. The "x" in these is read "By", as in "seven by fifty seven millimeter mauser", etc. Then you've got random ones which like the others, start with the bullet diameter in inches or mm, but then use a random designation which one must learn on a case-by-case basis (much like learning irregular verbs in English), such as .30-'06 springfield, which means .30 caliber (actually .308 caliber), adopted officially in 1906 in that particular loading, by the U.S. government as the standard small arm / rifle round, and springfield added on the end because the U.S. arsenal in Springfield (Mass?) was the place where the round was created/adopted. Quite a few other off-the wall designations as well. Many rounds have multiple names - most with multiple names have both an American and European version of the name. For example the .380 auto in the U.S. is .380 auto or .380 acp or 9mm Browning short. In Europe it is 9x17mm or 9mm Kurz.