Rifle Sizes

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bobstreit

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I have a question that has been nagging at me for quite some time. How am I to tell how powerful a gun is by hearing the name. For instance, I have been told that a 30-06 is quite a bit more powerful than a 30-30, and much more powerful than a .243. SO, is there any correlation that goes with these numbers??? And, I know it is difficult to explain everything, so does anyone know of a book that I could get that would explain these things?
 
You might try getting some ammo catalogs from Remington, Federal and Winchester--useful illustrations and tables to give you an idea of relative "size", IE power, trajectory, etc.

I'd also recommend any books by Jack O'Connor; I think the best one in particular is called "The Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns". Best, weegee.
 
Go buy Speers 13 ed. reloading manual and read it cover to cover. When you are done you will know a huge amount about handgun and rifle cartridges. That book is my first source to campare what performances I can expect from a cartridge.
 
Remington's site also shows loadings for their various ammo.

Slight variations from manufacturer to manufacturer; but mostly within different bullet weights etc.

Go to ballistics info on remington's site and browse.


Battler.
 
To oversimplify things:
The caliber is basically the measurement of the bullet diameter. The case size helps determine the power. In general a larger case will have more powder to help propel the bullet.

So a .45acp bullet is larger than a 30-06 bullet, but the larger case of the 30-06 helps give it more power.
 
Don't forget your Library!

Hey bobstreit, I live in the Carolinas and have found that our Libraries have a wealth of information related to Hunting and Firearms. Only problem is that the info is a bit dated and some of the older "theories" have changed a bit.

But, I do completely agree with "KilgorII" about the Speer Reloading Manual. Many people have the mistaken impression that the only things in Reloading Manuals are useful to reloaders - not true at all. Lots of good information about all the current crop of calibers plus charts for External Ballistics (bullet trajectory, retained energy, retained velocity, wind drift, time of flight, etc.).

I normally recommend the Speer and Hodgdon Manuals to beginning reloaders. Or, to get Manuals from the folks who make the Powder and Bullets they intend to use. But for your question, I'd go along with KilgorII's recommendation because of the specific information it contains.

Occasionally you will see some older Reloading Manuals at places like ebay or Gun Shows and they can be bought quite reasonably.

Good hunting and clean 1-shot kills, Hot Core
 
I agree with the previous posts...a reloading manual is a handy reference. But, "Cartridges of the World" (I forget the author's name, maybe it's Barnes) has even more general information on many more cartridges than any reloading manual I have ever seen. Obsolete, current, civilian, military, American, European, rifle, handgun, rimfire...you name it, it's in there.
 
If I remember correctly, in the old days of black powder cartridges, they named the round by bullet diameter and volume of case, by grains of plackpowder. This is where you get cartridge names like: 45-70, 30-30, 44-40, etc. When the switch was made to smokeless, the previous names remained.

Cartridges like 30-06 are bullet diameter and year of adoption by the US military, in this case 1906.

In other cases, the cartridges are proprietary and the manufacturer names them as they please, like .300 Whisper, .35 Whelen, etc.

To compare one directly against another, unless they're NATO standards, you'll probably want some sort of ballistics chart.
 
Generally, a good rule of thumb is "the bigger the brass = the more it's gonna kick when you shoot it."
 
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