Ammunition

O

oldknotty

New member
I have a question about ammo , when a round is called a 30-06 or 30-30 what does that denote besides the caliber ?? i was told the first two numbers were the caliber the second the date it was developed .I find this a bit hard to believe ???
martin
 
cartridge names are tricky.
in the case of 30-06 it means that it's a 30 caliber cartridge adopted by the military in 1906.

in the case of 30-30, it is a 30 caliber bullet loaded with 30 grains of powder(early measurement practices).

when you start getting into metric and all of the very inaccurate bullet diameter names, it starts to get really fun and confusing.
 
This is also the information I have been told and a quick Google search confirmed the information from several places but here is the Wikipedia page for reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield

The ".30" refers to the caliber of the bullet, and the "06" refers to the year the cartridge was adopted—1906. It replaced the .30-03, 6 mm Lee Navy, and .30-40 Krag cartridges.
 
Sometimes that true. The 30-06 is a 30 cal that was adopted by by the US Army in 1906. Others, not so much. 7mm Mag, 338-06, .270, .308 and many others.
 
The hyphenated ones are easy at first but then it gets confusing.

30-30
30-40
30-06

Eventually you move to ones like 7.62x54 6.5x50 and those are "Caliber" or rough caliber and then the length in millimeters.

Reloading books usually have a brief explanation of history and what is meant.
 
now old scot stop trying to confuse the OP any worse than he already is... he was clearly just asking for information on 7.62x63mm and 7.62x52R.... I mean 30 springfield and 30 winchester center fire...
 
Many cartridge names carry over from black powder days.

.25-20, .38-40, .30-30 and .45-70: The second number denotes the weight in grains of black powder as loaded by the factory. (These are just a few. Many more...)
 
Well, the first one is roughly the caliber, as in the case of the 222 Remington (which fires a .224" bullet) or the 444 Marlin (which fires a .429" bullet). Wait, that is just more confusing. But it gets easier as you move into pistol cartridges: for example, there is the venerable 38-40 (which is a .40" bullet over 38 grains of powder) and the 44-40 (which is a .427" bullet over 40 grains of powder). Okay. those may not be the best example. Hmm, how about 38 Special, which fires a .357" bullet . . .no, that isn't any good either.

Sounds to me like the OP is trying to start a fight! ;)
 
Or scorch, how about this. There's the .218 bee, the .219 zipper, the .220 swift, the .221 fireball, the .222 remington, the .223 remington, the .224 weatherby, and the .225 winchester, all of which take .224 bullets.

When is comes to guns and the shooting sports, the only valid generalization I can find is this: "You can't make any generalizations."
 
If you want to know (sans experience) then you just google it on Wickipedia.

The famous 270 is .277 caliber. Hmm, why not 280, who knows.
 
"Many cartridge names carry over from black powder days.

.25-20, .38-40, .30-30 and .45-70: The second number denotes the weight in grains of black powder as loaded by the factory. (These are just a few. Many more...)"

Art,

The .30-30 was never a black powder cartridge, it just used the old naming convention.

I had always said that there were 3 cartridges that started out life as smokeless powder cartridges but which, for various purposes, were saddled with the old blackpowder nomenclature.

Those were the .25-35 Winchester, the .30-30 Winchester, and the .30-40 Krag.

Those are only the ones that have stuck with us.

Over the years I've learned that other cartridges were so named...

.30-30 Remington and .25-35 Remington were the rimless cartridges for Remington's self-loading rifles.

Early Model 8 Remingtons are so marked, but it didn't last for long because of the confusion that was caused.

Imagine if you had a Model 8, walked into a gun shop and said "Give me a box of .30-30 Remington."

You very likely would get a box of Remington loaded .30-30 Winchester ammunition.

Remington dropped the -30 and -35 from its cartridges and rifles within a few years.

I've also come across a very few references to the early .30-03/.30-06 being called the .30-45. I had never seen that until researching some information for another post here about a year ago.

In the case of the Winchester cartridges, Winchester didn't call them -30 and -35, other makers did (Marlin, maybe Savage) who didn't want to put the competitor's .25/.30 Winchester Center Fire (the proper name for the round) on their guns.
 
Hey Hammie,

How about the .22 Savage High Power, which used a bullet diameter of...

.227.

As far as I know, only Hornady produces those bullets regularly.
 
In the beginning, when the American cartridge Gods first created them, "caliber" referred to and meant the bore (not groove) diameter in hundredths of an inch.
 
Bart B. said:
"caliber" referred to and meant the bore (not groove) diameter in hundredths of an inch.
Click to expand...


Don't forget "Caliber" is also barrel length as a multiple of the bore diameter :D

On edit, Wikipedia actually has a decent overview of the naming conventions, and their changes over time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliber

Also, They have lists of rifle and handgun cartridges most of which will explain the choice of name.
 
Last edited:
emcon5, gun calibers on naval ships sure do have caliber length barrels. I had to laugh at such an issue aboard a ship I was privy to. I was the Officer of the Deck on the quarterdeck and my Petty Officer of the watch was giving our Messenger some instructions regarding his .45 ACP he wore. He told our messenger that Colt semiauto's barrel was measured in calibers just like the 5"/54 caliber gun on our stern. To which the messenger replied "I thought is was measured in inches; 5, to be exact." "Not exactly." Replies the POOW. That gun mount on our stern uses 5"/54 ammo because its a 5" fifty-four caliber long barrel. Right? Divide 5 by that M1911's bore diameter then tell me the answer."

The messenger took paper and pencil, did the math then said "Eleven something." The POOW then stated: "That pistol was finalized on the 19th day of the month and its barrel is about 11 calibers long; close enough for government work. Hence the model number decided on was "nineteen eleven."

That young, inexperienced messenger just stood there quietly and I had to walk away a bit doing my best to keep from bursting out laughing as those two just stood there looking at each other.

We all soon went back to routine duties on that mid watch. At at 0345 hours after we'd been relieved by the morning watch, that young Seaman came up to me and seriously asked it all that was true. I answered as I winked at him: "Yes, I suppose so. But ask him sometime if any Navy ships have 80 caliber gun barrels. If he answers 'no,' clue him on that our Small Arms Locker has several that were designed by John Garand." He smiled then replied that he'd been tricked and understood my '80 caliber' barrel reference. Then said he's looking forward to pulling that one on some shipmates starting with that POOW on our mid watch.

A few days later our paths crossed and I asked him if he had done so. He grinned saying: "Yes, and with all his buddies watching!! I got him good."
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top