1.
.308 Winchester
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The.308 Winchester is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge and is the commercial cartridge from which the 7. 62×51mm NATO round was derived. The.308 Winchester was introduced in 1952, two prior to the NATO adoption of the 7. 62×51mm NATO T65. Winchester branded the cartridge and introduced it to the hunting market as the.308 Winchester. Winchesters Model 70 and Model 88 rifles were chambered for the new cartridge. Since then, the.308 Winchester has become the most popular short-action and it is also commonly used for civilian hunting, target shooting, Metallic Silhouette, bench rest target shooting, palma, metal matches and military sniping, and police sharpshooting. The relatively short case makes the.308 Winchester especially well-adapted for short-action rifles, when loaded with a bullet that expands, tumbles, or fragments in tissue, this cartridge is capable of high terminal performance. Their interchange is, however, considered safe by the Sporting Arms, the.308 Winchester has 3.64 ml cartridge case capacity. The exterior shape of the case was designed to promote reliable case feeding and extraction in bolt action rifles and machine guns alike, all dimensions in millimeters and inches. Americans would define the angle at alpha/2 =20 degrees. The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 305 mm,4 grooves, Ø lands =7.62 mm, Ø grooves =7.82 mm, land width =4.47 mm and the primer type is large rifle. Rulings the.308 Winchester can handle up to 415.00 MPa Pmax piezo pressure, regulated countries every rifle cartridge combo has to be proofed at 125% of this maximum C. I. P. pressure to certify for sale to consumers. This means that.308 Winchester chambered arms in C. I. P, regulated countries are currently proof tested at 519.00 MPa PE piezo pressure. North American SAAMI maximum pressure for the 308 Winchester is 62,000 PSI, the.308 Winchester is one of the most popular hunting cartridges in the United States, and possibly the world. It has gained popularity in countries as an exceptional cartridge for game in the medium- to large-sized class. In North America it is used extensively on whitetail deer, pronghorn, clay Harvey, an American gun writer, says it is usable on moose and elk. Layne Simpson, an American who has hunted in Sweden, says he is surprised how many hunters there use the cartridge, craig Boddington was told by a Norma Precision executive that the.308 is one of Normas best-selling calibers. In Africa the.308 Win is one of the most popular calibers among Bushveld hunters and is used on anything from duiker right up to the massive eland. The.308 Winchester has slightly more drop at range than the. 30-06 Springfield
2.
.30-06 Springfield
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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, 6mm Lee Navy, and. 30-40 Krag cartridges and it remains a very popular sporting round, with ammunition produced by all major manufacturers. In the early 1890s, the U. S. military adopted the smokeless powder. 30-40 Krag rimmed cartridge, the 1894 version of that cartridge used a 220-grain round-nose bullet. Around 1901, the U. S. started developing an experimental rimless cartridge for a Mauser action with box magazine and that led to the 1903. 30-03 rimless service round that used the same 220-grain round-nose bullet as the Krag. The. 30-03 achieved a velocity of 2,300 ft/s. Consequently, the round-nosed U. S. 30-03 service cartridge was falling behind. For these reasons, the U. S. military developed a new, lighter, cartridge in 1906, the cartridge was loaded with Military Rifle 21 propellant, and its maximum range was claimed to be 4,700 yd. The M1903 Springfield rifle, which had been introduced alongside the. 30-03 cartridge, was modified to accept the new. 30-06 Springfield cartridge. Modifications to the rifle included shortening the barrel at its breech and resizing the chamber, other changes to the rifle included elimination of the troublesome rod bayonet of the earlier Springfield rifles. The M1906 maximum range was originally overstated, when the M1906 cartridge was developed, the range tests had been done to only 1,800 yards, distances beyond that were estimated, but the estimate for extreme range was wrong by almost 40 percent. The range discrepancy became evident during World War I, before the widespread employment of light mortars and artillery, long-range machine gun barrage or indirect fires were considered important in U. S. infantry tactics. When the US entered World War I, it did not have machine guns, so it acquired British. When those weapons were replaced with US machine guns firing the M1906 round. Firing tests performed around 1918 at Borden Brook Reservoir, Miami, patrone was inroduced in 1914 and used a 197. 5-grain s. S. - schweres Spitzgeschoß boat-tail bullet which had a maximum range of approximately 5,140 yd. Its maximum range was approximately 5,500 yd. Additionally, wartime surplus totaled over 2 billion rounds of ammunition. Army regulations called for training use of the oldest ammunition first, as a result, the older. 30-06 ammunition was expended for training, stocks of.30 M1 Ball ammunition were allowed to slowly grow until all of the older M1906 ammunition had been fired. By 1936, it was discovered that the range of the.30 M1 Ball ammunition with its boat-tailed spitzer bullets was beyond the safety limitations of many ranges. An emergency order was made to manufacture quantities of ammunition that matched the ballistics of the earlier M1906 cartridge as soon as possible
3.
.375 H&H Magnum
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The.375 Holland & Holland Magnum is a medium-bore rifle cartridge. The.375 H&H was only the second ever to feature a belt. On these new rimless cartridges the belt replaced the rim in ensuring the correct headspace, the British company Holland & Holland introduced the cartridge in 1912 as the.375 Belted Rimless Nitro-Express. It initially used cordite propellant which was made in long strands – hence the shape of this cartridge. The.375 H&H often is cited as one of the most useful all-round rifle cartridges, especially in shooting large and dangerous game. In many regions with thick-skinned dangerous game animals, the.375 H&H is seen as the minimum acceptable caliber, and in many places it is now the legal minimum for hunting such game. African game guides, professional hunters, and cullers of dangerous game have repeatedly voted the.375 H&H as their preference for an all-round caliber if they could only have one rifle. The 9. 5×57mm Mannlicher–Schönauer cartridge had a influence on British rifle manufacturers and was soon adopted by Westley Richards. In an effort to compete, Holland & Holland introduced the. 400/375 Belted Nitro Express, the. 400/375 H&H as it is sometimes known was the first cartridge manufactured to feature a belt. The addition of a belt to a cartridge design provided the advantage of allowing for correct headspacing of highly tapered cartridges. The introduction of the 9. 3×62mm Mauser cartridge in 1905 had a profound, compared to the British double rifles, the Mauser was a far cheaper rifle to manufacture and therefore cheaper to acquire. The double rifles gained little from industrialization whereas the Mauser rifles had gained from production due to contracts to produce military rifles for many countries. The result was cheap magazine rifles capable of firing one of the very best candidates for the all round hunting cartridge in Africa. The influence of Mausers 98 action should not be understated, British gunmakers such as Rigby were purchasing the Mauser 98 actions for use in their own rifles with their own cartridges. The 9. 3×62mm demonstrated that it was adequate for everything from the Elephant to the dik-dik and had acquired a reputation to match and this trend did not go unnoticed by British rifle manufacturers. Secondly, the cartridge would require a high velocity so as to provide this penetration at extended ranges, the high velocity of the cartridge would have the added advantage of serving as a marketing tool. Thirdly, the cartridge must function reliably through a rifle in tropical conditions. Holland & Holland had determined that to provide adequate penetration a bullet with the sectional density similar to the 9. 3×62mm required impact velocities of about 2,150 ft/s, drawing from anecdotal evidence of hunters it was also determined that high velocities provided impressive kills on game
4.
Cartridge (firearms)
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Military and commercial producers continue to pursue the goal of caseless ammunition. A cartridge without a bullet is called a blank, One that is completely inert is called a dummy. Some artillery ammunition uses the same concept as found in small arms. In other cases, the shell is separate from the propellant charge. In popular use, the bullet is often misused to refer to a complete cartridge. The cartridge case seals a firing chamber in all directions excepting the bore, a firing pin strikes the primer and ignites it. The primer compound deflagrates, it does not detonate, a jet of burning gas from the primer ignites the propellant. Gases from the burning powder pressurize and expand the case to seal it against the chamber wall and these propellant gases push on the bullet base. In response to pressure, the bullet will move in the path of least resistance which is down the bore of the barrel. After the bullet leaves the barrel, the pressure drops to atmospheric pressure. The case, which had been expanded by chamber pressure. This eases removal of the case from the chamber, brass is a commonly used case material because it is resistant to corrosion. A brass case head can be work-hardened to withstand the pressures of cartridges. The neck and body portion of a case is easily annealed to make the case ductile enough to allow reforming so that it can be reloaded many times. Steel is used in some plinking ammunition, as well as in military ammunition. Steel is less expensive than brass, but it is not feasible to reload, Military forces typically consider small arms cartridge cases to be disposable, one-time-use devices. However, case weight affects how much ammunition a soldier can carry, conversely, steel is more susceptible to contamination and damage so all such cases are varnished or otherwise sealed against the elements. One downside caused by the strength of steel in the neck of these cases is that propellant gas can blow back past the neck
5.
Bullet
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The word bullet is a firearm term. A bullet is a projectile expelled from the barrel of a firearm, the term is from Middle French and originated as the diminutive of the word boulle which means small ball. Bullets are made of a variety of materials and they are available singly as they would be used in muzzle loading and cap and ball firearms, as part of a paper cartridge, and much more commonly as a component of metallic cartridges. Bullets are made in a numbers of styles and constructions depending on how they will be used. Many bullets have specialized functions, such as hunting, target shooting, training, defense, a bullet is not a cartridge. In paper and metallic cartridges a bullet is one component of the cartridge, bullet sizes are expressed by their weight and diameter in both English and Metric measurement systems. For example.22 caliber 55 grain bullets or 5. 56mm 55 grain bullets are the same caliber, the word bullet is often used colloquially to refer to a cartridge, which is a combination of the bullet, paper or metallic case/shell, powder, and primer. This use of bullet, when cartridge is intended, leads to confusion when the components of a cartridge are discussed or intended, the bullets used in many cartridges are fired at a muzzle velocity faster than the speed of sound. Meaning they are supersonic and thus can travel a substantial distance, bullet speed through air depends on a number of factors such as barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature, and wind speed. Subsonic cartridges fire bullets slower than the speed of sound and so there is no sonic crack and this means that a subsonic cartridge such as.45 ACP can be effectively suppressed to be substantially quieter than a supersonic cartridge such as the.223 Remington. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the target by impact. The first use of gunpowder in Europe was recorded in 1247 and it had been used in China for hundreds of years. Later in 1364 hand cannon appeared, early projectiles were made of stone. Stone was used in cannon and hand cannon, in cannon it was eventually found that stone would not penetrate stone fortifications which gave rise to the use of heavier metals for the round projectiles. Hand cannon projectiles developed in a similar following the failure of stone from siege cannon. The first recorded instance of a ball from a hand cannon penetrating armor occurred in 1425. In this photograph of shot retrieved from the wreck of the Mary Rose which was sunk in 1545, the round shot are clearly of different sizes and some are stone while others are cast iron. The development of the hand culverin and matchlock arquebus brought about the use of cast lead balls as projectiles, bullet is derived from the French word boulette, which roughly means little ball
6.
Rifling
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In firearms, rifling consists of helical grooves in the internal surface of a guns barrel, which impart a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one revolution, such as 1 turn in 10 inches. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a spin rate. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, extremely long projectiles such as flechettes may require high twist rates, these projectiles must be inherently stable, and are often fired from a smoothbore barrel. Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle. Consequently, on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired, barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work, though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol, the grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, polygonal rifling, a throwback to the earliest types of rifling, has become popular, polygonal barrels tend to have longer service lives because the reduction of the sharp edges of the land reduces erosion of the barrel. Supporters of polygonal rifling also claim higher velocities and greater accuracy, polygonal rifling is currently seen on pistols from CZ, Heckler & Koch, Glock, Tanfoglio, and Kahr Arms, as well as the Desert Eagle. Such guns have achieved significant increases in velocity and range. Examples include the South African G5 and the German PzH2000, gain-twist rifling begins with very little change in the projectiles angular momentum during the first few inches of bullet travel after ignition during the transition from chamber to throat. This enables the bullet to remain undisturbed and trued to the case mouth. After engaging the rifling the bullet is progressively subjected to accelerated angular momentum as burning powder propels it down the barrel. By only gradually increasing the rate, torque is spread along a much longer section of barrel. Gain-twist rifling was used as early as the American Civil War, colt Army and Navy revolvers both employed gain-twist rifling
7.
Primer (firearms)
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In firearm ballistics, the primer is a component of pistol, rifle, and shotgun rounds. Early primers were simply the same black powder used to fire the weapon and this external powder was connected though a tube in the barrel that led to the main charge. As powder wont burn when wet, this led to difficulty, or even the inability, modern primers are shock sensitive chemicals. In smaller weapons the primer is usually integrated into the rear of a cartridge, in larger weapons like cannon the primer is a separate component placed inside the barrel to the rear of the main propellant charge. The first step to firing a firearm of any sort is igniting the propellant, the earliest firearms were cannons, which were simple closed tubes. There was an aperture, the touchhole, drilled in the closed end of the tube. This hole was filled with finely ground powder, which was ignited with a hot ember or torch. With the advent of firearms, this became an undesirable way of firing a gun. The first attempt to make the process of firing a small arm easier was the matchlock, the matchlock incorporated a lock that was actuated by a trigger, originally called a tricker. The lock was a lever which pivoted when pulled. The match was a burning fuse made of plant fibers that were soaked in a solution of nitrates, charcoal, and sulfur. This slow-match was ignited before the gun was needed, and it would slowly burn, after the gun was loaded and the touchhole primed with powder, the burning tip of the match was positioned so that the lock would bring it into contact with the touchhole. To fire the gun, it was aimed and the trigger pulled and this brought the match down to the touchhole, igniting the powder. With careful attention the slow-burning match could be burning for long periods of time. The next revolution in technology was the wheel-lock. It used a spring-loaded, serrated steel wheel which rubbed against a piece of iron pyrite, a key was used to wind the wheel and put the spring under tension. Once tensioned, the wheel was held in place by a trigger, when the trigger was pulled, the serrated edge of the steel rubbed against the pyrite, generating sparks. These sparks were directed into a pan, called the flash pan, the flashpan usually was protected by a spring-loaded cover that would slide out of the way when the trigger was pulled, exposing the powder to the sparks
8.
.378 Weatherby Magnum
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The.378 Weatherby Magnum was designed by Roy Weatherby in 1953. It was an original belted magnum design with no parent case, inspired by the.416 Rigby, the 215 magnum rifle primer was developed by Federal specifically for this round. The cartridge can hold upwards of 7.13 g of powder, the 378 Weatherby Magnum cartridge also has the double radius shoulder design found on the first and smaller proprietary line of Weatherby magnum cartridges. The motivation behind the development of the.378 came from the performance gains of the improved.375 Weatherby over its parent case. Roy Weatherby in 1953 killed an African elephant with one shot while on safari, however, in using this event as a marketing tool, it was revealed some African countries have a minimum 10.16 mm bullet size for hunting dangerous game. Weatherby responded by necking up the.378 to 11.63 mm and called the new cartridge the.460 Weatherby Magnum and it is considered a Safari grade cartridge. The.378 Weatherby Magnum is appropriate for taking all African game animals from large African antelopes, Nile crocodile, hippopotamus, some hunters on the North American continent employ the.378 for American elk, Brown bears, and polar bears. The.378 Weatherby will generate considerable free recoil, an average of 104 J from a 4.1 kg rifle and this compares to 27 J from a rifle chambered for. 30-06 Springfield or For the 375 H&H Magnum. The.378 has been responsible for numerous wildcat cartridges, being necked-down as the.22 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer, some of the.378 Weatherby Magnum wildcat cartridges are shortened versions, like the. 30-378 Arch and the.460 Short A-Square. Some. 378-based wildcats have gone on to be part of the Weatherby line. 30-378. 338-378.416 and.460
