1.
Nosler
–
The name Nosler applies to a number of companies involved in the manufacture of ammunition and handloading components, specializing in high performance hollow point and soft point hunting bullets. Noslers contributions include both new designs and new manufacturing techniques used in their production. John Nosler was born 4 April 1913 in Brawley, California, Nosler was hunting moose in British Columbia in 1946, when the bullets he was using failed to penetrate deeply enough to reach vital organs and kill the animal quickly. At the time, most jacketed bullets employed a single copper alloy envelope around a lead alloy core. The jacket on most military bullets was closed in front and opened at the base and these full metal jacket bullets offered good penetration, but often failed to expand and passed completely through an animal leaving a comparatively small wound. Soft-point hunting bullets like Nosler was using had the jacket applied in the direction to completely cover the base. These bullets would expand to leave a wound channel. The experience inspired Nosler to develop a new design, intended to expand readily at low impact velocities yet maintain integrity at high impact velocities. These Nosler Partition bullets used a specially designed jacket enclosing two separate lead alloy cores, the front core was open on the nose to expand easily, but expansion would stop at the partition. The portion of the bullet behind the partition has the integrity of a full metal jacket bullet. Bullets were originally manufactured for use, using hand made. In 1948 Nosler began to sell the partition bullets commercially, forming Nosler, the Nosler Ballistic Tip design has been copied by other manufacturers, such as the V-Max bullet by Hornady. John Nosler sold the facilities to his son in 1988. Today, Nosler makes a number of different hunting bullets for rifle, handgun and they also manufacture brass and sell loaded ammunition, and Nosler Custom has recently begun to sell limited edition and semi-custom hunting rifles. The original Partition design bullet still is the flagship product. It has undergone many refinements over the years, but the design concept has remained unchanged. Nosler experienced an explosion at their plant in Bend, Oregon on 2 June 2010. No one was harmed in the blast, construction of a 30,000 sq. ft
2.
Hollow-point bullet
–
It is also used for controlled penetration, where over-penetration could cause collateral damage. Both of these goals are meant to maximize stopping power, jacketed hollow points or plated hollow points are covered in a coating of harder metal to increase bullet strength and to prevent fouling the barrel with lead stripped from the bullet. Plastic-tipped bullets are a type of bullet meant to confer the aerodynamic advantage of the spitzer bullet and this process is commonly referred to as mushrooming, because the resulting shape, a widened, rounded nose on top of a cylindrical base, typically resembles a mushroom. The greater frontal surface area of the expanded bullet limits its depth of penetration into the target and this jacket provides additional strength to the bullet, and can help prevent it from leaving deposits of lead inside the bore. In controlled expansion bullets, the jacket and other design characteristics help to prevent the bullet from breaking apart. For bullets designed for shooting, some such as the Sierra Matchking incorporate a cavity in the nose. Match or target hollow-point bullets are designed for target use. A hollow-point boat-tail bullet is a match-grade bullet design that uses the concept of a tail to give it a lower drag coefficient. Only the base of the bullet has a boat tail-like shape – the meplat is still pointed, some hollow-point boat-tail bullets with longer, more aerodynamic profiles are known as very-low-drag bullets. Terminal ballistics testing of hollow point bullets is generally performed in ballistic gelatin, or some other medium intended to simulate tissue, Test results are generally given in terms of expanded diameter, penetration depth, and weight retention. How these factors are interpreted depends on the use of the bullet. Solid lead bullets, when cast from an alloy, will often deform. This, combined with the velocity and penetration attainable with muzzleloading firearms. The first hollow-point bullets were marketed in the late 19th century as express bullets, in addition to providing increased velocities, the hollow also turned out to provide significant expansion, especially when the bullets were cast in a soft lead alloy. Originally intended for rifles, the popular. 32-20. 38-40, with the advent of smokeless powder, velocities increased, and bullets got smaller, faster, and lighter. These new bullets needed to be jacketed to handle the conditions of firing, the new full metal jacket bullets tended to penetrate straight through a target and produce little damage. This led to the development of the soft point bullet and later jacketed hollow-point bullets at the British arsenal in Dum Dum, designs included the.303 Mk III, IV & V and the.455 Mk III Manstopper cartridges. Although such bullet designs were quickly outlawed for use in warfare, in modern ammunition, the use of hollow points is primarily limited to handgun ammunition, which tends to operate at much lower velocities than rifle ammunition
3.
Soft-point bullet
–
A soft-point bullet, also known as a soft-nosed bullet, is a jacketed expanding bullet with a soft metal core enclosed by a stronger metal jacket left open at the forward tip. A soft-point bullet is intended to expand upon striking flesh to cause a wound diameter greater than the bullet diameter, jacketed soft point is usually abbreviated JSP in the ammunition and reloading industry. Lead-alloy bullets used with gunpowder firearms were unsatisfactory at the bullet velocities available from rifles loaded with nitrocellulose propellants like cordite. The lead-alloy core was swaged into a cup of the metal covering the front and sides of the core. The bullet jacket may be described as an envelope, steel envelope, or hard envelope. Reversing the direction of jacket placement leaves the exposed core on the forward tip of the bullet creating a soft-point bullet. Soft-point bullets expose the soft lead-alloy core on the part of the bullet most likely to be deformed when striking a target. The sides of the bullet remain covered by the jacket to reliably impart stabilizing rotation from rifling, a core of pure lead is softer than a core of lead alloyed with metals like antimony and tin. Some jacket alloys have greater strength than others, and, for any given alloy and annealing process. Energy available to expand the bullet is proportional to the square of the velocity at which the bullet strikes the target, if the bullet passes through the target, the energy represented by the square of the velocity of the departing bullet has no effect on the target. Soft point bullets may not expand if they strike a target at low velocity, varmint rifle bullets with thin jackets are intended to expand rapidly and disintegrate upon encountering minimum resistance. Bullets intended for hunting are designed to increase their forward diameter while remaining intact to penetrate deeply enough to damage internal organs likely to cause rapid death. Big-game bullets sometimes have a specialized jacket including a center baffle between a forward core intended to expand and another core intended to remain intact. Alternative designs include a jacket with a thicker belt around the central part of the bullet intended to resist expansion while the thinner forward part of the bullet jacket ruptures. Some bullets have a formed from a soft alloy in the forward part of the bullet bonded to a harder alloy core in the rear of the bullet. Others have a jacket which is thicker near the base of the bullet, soft-point bullets are similar to jacketed hollow-point bullets, because both have a jacket open on the forward tip. Bullets with an amount of core exposed forward of the jacket might have a hollow point within that core. Jacketed flat point may describe either soft-point or full metal jacket bullets with a flat, until recently, flat-point bullets were required in centerfire rifles with tubular magazines, such as the Winchester rifle, where the rounds are stored front-to-back
4.
.223 Remington
–
The.223 Remington is a rifle cartridge. The name is pronounced either two-twenty-three or two-two-three Remington. It is commercially loaded with 0.224 inch diameter jacketed bullets, with weights ranging from 40 to 85 grains, a 90 gr Sierra Matchking bullet is available for reloaders. The.223 Rem was first offered to the sporting market in December 1963 in the Remington 760 rifle. In 1964 the.223 Rem cartridge was adopted for use in the Colt M16 rifle which became a standard rifle of the U. S. Army. The military version of the uses a 55 gr full metal jacket boattail design and was designated M193. In 1980 NATO modified the.223 Remington into a new design which is designated 5. 56×45mm NATO type SS109, the cartridge and rifle were developed as one unit by Fairchild Industries, Remington Arms, and several engineers working toward a goal developed by U. S. Early development work begins in 1957, a project to create a Small Caliber High Velocity firearm is created. Eugene Stoner of Armalite is invited to scale down the AR-10 design, Winchester is also invited to participate. It was then known as the.224 Springfield, concurrently with the SCHV project Springfield armory is developing a 7.62 mm rifle. Harvey is ordered to cease all work on the SCHV to avoid any competition of resources, eugene Stoner of Armalite had been advised to produce a scaled down version of the 7.62 mm AR-10 design. In May 1957 Stoner gives a live demonstration of the prototype of the AR-15 for General Wyman. As a result, CONARC orders rifles to test, Stoner and Sierra Bullets Frank Snow begin work on the.222 Remington cartridge. Using a ballistic calculator they determine that a 55 grain bullet would have to be fired at 3, robert Hutton starts development of a powder load to reach the 3,300 fps goal. He uses DuPont IMR4198, IMR3031 and an Olin Powder to work up loads, testing is done with a Remington 722 rifle with a 22 Apex Barrel. During a public demonstration the round penetrates the US steel helmet as required. But testing shows chamber pressures to be excessively high, Stoner contacts both Winchester and Remington about increasing the case capacity. Remington creates a larger cartridge which is called the.222 Special which is loaded with DuPont IMR4475 powder,1958, During parallel testing of the T44E4 and the AR-15 the T44E4 experiences 16 failures per 1,000 rounds fired compared to 6.1 for the AR-15
5.
6.8mm Remington SPC
–
Based upon the.30 Remington cartridge, it is midway between the 5. 56×45mm NATO and 7. 62×51mm NATO in bore diameter and muzzle energy. It uses the same bullet as the venerable.270 Winchester hunting cartridge. The 6. 8mm SPC cartridge was designed to address the deficiencies of the performance of the 5. 56×45mm NATO cartridge currently in service with the U. S. The cartridge was the result of the Enhanced Rifle Cartridge program, the goal was to create a cartridge that would bridge the gap between 5.56 mm and 7. 62×51mm NATO. The program started the design by using a. S, in tests, it was determined that a 6. Further tests showed that a 6.8 mm caliber projectile was a compromise between the two, providing accuracy, reliability and terminal performance up to 500 meters. The combination of the case, powder load, and projectile easily outperformed the 7. 62×39mm Soviet cartridge. The resulting cartridge was named the 6.8 Remington Special Purpose Cartridge due to the size of its projectiles, also, there is the issue of having to readjust the sights if a new barrel is placed on an existing upper receiver. The 6.8 SPC delivers 44% more energy than the 5. 56mm NATO at 100–300 metres, the 6.8 mm SPC is not the ballistic equal of the 7. The 6.8 mm generates around 2,385 J of muzzle energy with a 7. 5-gram bullet. In comparison, the 5. 56×45mm round generates around 1,796 J with a 4.0 g bullet, one of the enigmatic features of this cartridge is it being designed for a short barrel carbine length rifle that the standard rifle length is. The round only gains about 7. 6–10.7 m/s for every 25 mm of barrel length past the standard 410-millimetre barrel up to barrels length around 560–610 mm with no gain/loss in accuracy and it also does very well in rifles with less than 410 mm barrels. In recent developments the performance of the 6, the Personal Defense Weapon known as the Six8 is SPC II w 1,250 millimetres twist and is able to use all current 6.8 SPC factory ammunition. See Gold Dot below for ATKs part, typical trajectory information from carbines with drop and velocity calculated at sea level with a 91 metres zero. When the LWRC Six8 was being developed, Alliant Techsystems was contracted to develop a new 6. 8×43mm round for the weapon. Unlike smaller commercial firms, ATK is a large ammunition supplier that delivers products for the U. S. Army, so it had large resources, commercial cartridges varied in case capacity and thickness, but LWRC wanted a thick and durable case for military uses. A90 gr load was developed specifically for a muzzle velocity. Effective range would be over 300 yd and the bullet would still have enough energy to penetrate intermediate barriers, three 90 gr loads were constructed for testing that included Gold Dot, Monolithic Hollow Point, and FMJ
6.
.404 Jeffery
–
The.404 Jeffery is a large-caliber, rimless cartridge designed for large, dangerous game, such as the Big Five of Africa. Other names for this cartridge include.404 Jeffery Rimless.404 Rimless Nitro Express and it was created by W. J. Jeffery & Co of England based on their desire to duplicate performance of the. 450/400 cartridge. There are two basically similar sets of dimensions for this case, depending on the manufacturer, the.404 Jeffery as originally loaded fired a. It is very effective on large game and is favored by many hunters of dangerous game, performance and recoil are similar to other African dangerous game cartridges. The.404 Jeffery was popular with hunters and game wardens in Africa because it gave good performance with a level of recoil. Originally the.404 Jeffery was very popular with hunters in Africa, as the British Empire began to shrink, many of the popular British big-bore cartridges also dwindled in popularity, and the.404 Jeffery was one of them. By the 1960s it had all but disappeared from common firearm usage and this condition was mostly the result of the closing of the British Ammunition giant Kynoch, which was the primary manufacturer of the.404 Jeffery and many other British cartridges. Winchester also started a campaign at about this time called Winchester in Africa with much success. Renewed interest in heavy game rifles and political stability in Africa has led to a resurgence in African hunting, Kynoch Ammunition has reopened as Kynamco Limited Kynoch Ammunition. Hornady, RWS and Norma of Sweden are also offering.404 Jeffery ammunition, a more recent development by Norma of Sweden has been the introduction of 450gr ammunition under their African PH banner. The increase in weight and increase in Sectional Density turns the ballistics of the 404 Jeffery into something to behold. Fired at 2150 fps the cartridge now outperforms most of its peers with a relatively mild recoil due to the efficient design of the cartridge. The ability to do out of a standard length Mauser action makes it one of the top contenders as the greatest large-medium bore cartridge in existence today. Heavy for caliber components are available from Woodleigh, North Fork Technologies as well as Claw, in 1908 W. J. Jeffery & Co created the.333 Jeffery by shortening the.404 case, giving it greater taper and necking it down to.333 in. In 1913 Jefferys further necked down the.333 Jeffery to.288 inches, in recent times, the.404 case has seen a resurgence in use by wildcatters. The rimless design also contributes to feeding from the box magazine of bolt-action rifles. Some common commercial children of the.404 Jeffery case are the Remington Ultra Magnum cartridge family, also, the Winchester Short Magnum and the Winchester Super Short Magnum families are believed to derive from the 404 Jeffery case. Both the Winchester and Remington cartridges have also spawned many current wildcats, like the popular.338 Edge
7.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
8.
Cartridge (firearms)
–
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
9.
Bullet
–
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
10.
Grain (unit)
–
A grain is a unit of measurement of mass, and, for the troy grain, equal to exactly 7001647989100000000♠64.79891 milligrams. It is nominally based upon the mass of a seed of a cereal. From the Bronze Age into the Renaissance the average masses of wheat, rather, expressions such as thirty-two grains of wheat, taken from the middle of the ear appear to have been ritualistic formulas, essentially the premodern equivalent of legal boilerplate. Another book states that Captain Henry Kater, of the British Standards Commission, the grain was the legal foundation of traditional English weight systems, and is the only unit that is equal throughout the troy, avoirdupois, and apothecaries systems of mass. The unit was based on the weight of a grain of barley. The fundamental unit of the pre-1527 English weight system known as Tower weights, was a different sort of known as the wheat grain. The Tower wheat grain was defined as exactly 45⁄64 of a troy grain.79891 milligrams, 7000100000000000000♠1 gram is approximately 7001154323600000000♠15.43236 grains. The unit formerly used by jewellers to measure pearls, diamonds, or other stones, called the jewellers grain or pearl grain, is equal to 1⁄4 of a carat. The grain was also the name of a traditional French unit equal to 6995531150000000000♠53.115 mg. In both British Imperial and U. S. customary units, there are precisely 7,000 grains per avoirdupois pound, the grain is commonly used to measure the mass of bullets and propellants. The term also refers to a particle of gunpowder, the size of which varies according to requirements. In archery, the grain is the unit used to weigh arrows. In dentistry, gold foil, used as a material to restore teeth, is measured in grains, in North America, the hardness of water is often measured in grains per US gallon of calcium carbonate equivalents. Otherwise, water hardness is measured in the metric unit parts per million, one grain per US gallon is approximately 6995171000000000000♠17.1 ppm. Soft water contains 1–4 gpg of calcium carbonate equivalents, while hard water contains 11–20 gpg, though no longer recommended, grains are still used occasionally in medicine as part of the apothecaries system, especially in prescriptions for older medicines such as aspirin or phenobarbital. For example, the dosage of a standard 6996325000000000000♠325 mg tablet of aspirin is sometimes given as 7000500000000000000♠5 grains, in that example the grain is approximated to 6995650000000000000♠65 mg, though the grain can also be approximated to 6995600000000000000♠60 mg, depending on the medication and manufacturer. The apothecaries system has its own system of notation, in which the symbol or abbreviation is followed by the quantity in lower case Roman numerals. For amounts less than one, the quantity is written as a fraction, or for one half, therefore, a prescription for tablets containing 325 mg of aspirin and 30 mg of codeine can be written ASA gr
11.
Rifling
–
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
12.
Primer (firearms)
–
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
13.
.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, 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
14.
Action (firearms)
–
In firearms terminology, an action is the mechanism that handles the ammunition or the method by which that mechanism works. Breech-loading weapons have actions, actions are not present on muzzleloaders. The mechanism that fires a muzzle-loader is called the lock, actions can be categorized in several ways, including single action versus double action, break action versus bolt action, and others. The term action can also short, long, and magnum if it is in reference to the length of the rifle’s receiver. The short action rifle usually can accommodate a cartridge length of 2.8 in or smaller, the long action rifle can accommodate a cartridge of 3.34 in, and the magnum action rifle can accommodate cartridges of 3.6 in, or longer in length. Manual operation is a term describing any type of firearm action that is loaded one shot at a time by the user rather than automatically. For example, break action is a form of operation using a simple hinge mechanism that is manually unlatched by the operator. These are actions wherein the breechblock lowers or drops into the receiver to open the breech, there are two principal types of dropping block, the tilting block and the falling block. In a tilting or pivoting block action, the breechblock is hinged on a pin mounted at the rear, when the lever is operated, the block tilts down and forward, exposing the chamber. The best-known pivoting block designs are the Peabody, the Peabody–Martini, the original Peabody rifles, manufactured by the Providence Tool Company, used a manually cocked side-hammer. The 1871 Martini–Henry which replaced the trapdoor Snider–Enfield was the standard British Army rifle of the later Victorian era, charles H. Ballards self-cocking tilting-block action was produced by the Marlin Firearms Company from 1875, and earned a superlative reputation among long-range Creedmoor target shooters. Surviving Marlin Ballards are today highly prized by collectors, especially those mounted in the elaborate Swiss-style Schützen stocks of the day. A falling-block action is a firearm action in which a solid metal breechblock slides vertically in grooves cut into the breech of the weapon. Examples of firearms using the falling block action are the Sharps rifle, in a rolling block action the breechblock takes the form of a part-cylinder, with a pivot pin through its axis. The operator rotates or rolls the block to open and close the breech, it is a simple, rugged, a break action is a type of firearm where the barrel are hinged and can be broken open to expose the breech. The earliest metallic-cartridge breechloaders designed for military issue began as conversions of muzzle-loading rifle-muskets. The upper rear portion of the barrel was filed or milled away, an internal angled firing pin allowed the re-use of the rifles existing side-hammer. The Allin action made by Springfield Arsenal in the US hinged forward, france countered in 1866 with its superior Chassepot rifle, also a paper-cartridge bolt action
15.
Very-low-drag bullet
–
To achieve this, the projectile must minimize air resistance in flight. Demand has been greatest from military snipers and long range shooters, including F-class and benchrest competitors. Most very-low-drag bullets are used in rifles, Bullets with a lower drag coefficient decelerate less rapidly. A low drag coefficient flattens the trajectory and also markedly decreases the lateral drift caused by crosswinds. The higher impact velocity of bullets with low drag coefficients means they retain more kinetic energy, the use of driving bands originates from artillery shells and to use these driving bands correctly requires projectiles and barrels to be precision-fitted to each other. The resulting projectile should be streamlined for easier passage through the air, consistency in bullet production, allied to consistency in the assembly of cartridges should give excellent shot-to-shot consistency. The principles of design and flight are classically set out in F. W. Manns The Bullets Flight From Powder to Target. Mono-metal very-low-drag bullets are normally machined from solid bars of highly-machinable metals or alloys using CNC lathes, common materials include UNS C36000 Free-Cutting Brass, lead-free brass, oxygen-free copper and other highly machinable alloys of copper, nickel, and tellurium. Producing accurate bullets this way is not easy, to guarantee the bullets consistency and accuracy, professional quality control during and after production is needed. Mono-metal solid bullets are more expensive than traditional jacketed Hollow Point Boat Tail very-low-drag bullets, Drag Parasitic drag Boundary layer Drag coefficient Ballistic coefficient Nose cone design VLD bullets on long-range varmint hunting
16.
.260 Remington
–
The.260 Remington cartridge was introduced by Remington in 1997. Many wildcat cartridges based on the.308 Winchester case had existed for years before Remington standardized this round, although loaded to higher pressures, the ballistics of this cartridge are basically similar to the 6. 5×55mm when bullet weights do not exceed 140 grains. When loaded with bullets, the 6. 5×55mm is capable of greater velocity. Due to its overall length the.260 Remington can be chambered in a shorter length action than the 6. 5×55mm. Because 6.5 mm bullets have relatively high ballistic coefficients and it is capable of duplicating the trajectory of the.300 Winchester Magnum while generating significantly lower recoil. Also, converting a rifle chambered for the.308 Winchester to.260 Remington generally requires more than a simple barrel change. Remington has had a record of adopting successful wildcat cartridges into the Remington fold by offering rifles and ammunition. However, it was not Remington who first attempted to standardize the cartridge, LTC Arthur Alphin and his company A-Square LLC submitted the first proposal and drawings to SAAMI for the standardization of the cartridge. Remington was to file papers with SAAMI to do the same a few months later. When the dust settled it was found that the 6. 5-08 would be called the.260 Remington instead of 6. 5–08 A-Square, the 6.5 -08 cartridge was created simply by necking down the.308 Winchester. Handloaders and wildcatters can easily form.260 cases by necking down the 7mm-08 Remington or necking up the.243 Winchester. Since the parent cartridges were available for low cost, the 6.5 -08 was often an economical alternative to cartridges such as the 6. 5×55mm. Since the 6. 5-08 was a cartridge, there were variations between cartridge chambers depending on the reamer used to cut the chamber. Furthermore, depending on whether one chose to form the case from.243 Winchester or.308 Winchester influenced the neck thickness, a cartridge formed for a specific rifle may or may not successfully chamber or worse may reach dangerous pressures in another. The 6. 5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer,6. 5×55mm,6. 5×57 Mauser, starting with the.264 Winchester Magnum and later the 6. 5mm Remington Magnum, North American cartridges in this caliber have been largely failures. However, Remington continues to manufacture several types.260 Remington loads, the use of the.260 Remington brass. The.260 Remington uses the.308 Winchester case as its parent cartridge which is simply necked down to accept a.264 caliber bullet with no changes made to the case. As the cartridge follows a design, it has little taper which allowed its parent cartridge to feed reliably through auto-loading rifles such as the M14, FN FAL
17.
.264 Winchester Magnum
–
The.264 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. Apart from the.244 H&H Magnum and.257 Weatherby Magnum, Winchester had been manufacturing the shortened Holland & Holland cases under a contract for Weatherby for use in their.257 Weatherby Magnum.270 Weatherby Magnum and 7mm Weatherby Magnum cartridges. The Weatherby cases had been based on the Winchesters.30 Super cartridge and this new series of shortened Holland & Holland cases was based on the.375 Holland & Holland case. The advantages of the case were twofold, the cartridge could function through the standard length rifle action as used by the popular. 30-06 Springfield. It was also close to the limitations of powders available at the time given the case capacity of the cartridge. The longer, full length.375 H&H case would not have resulted in a performance improvement due the powders available at that time. It was similar to the reasoning behind the shortened cases used by Weatherby as DuPonts IMR4350 was the slowest burning powder available then, the.264 Winchester Magnum is a cartridge which was standardized by SAAMI, which published recommended specifications for the cartridge. SAAMI recommends a six groove barrel with a rate of twist of one revolution in 9 in, a diameter of.256 in. The recommended maximum pressure for the cartridge is 64,000 psi, the.264 Winchester Magnum gained a reputation as a very flat shooting cartridge. When introduced, it was first chambered in the Winchester Model 70 Westerner rifle, at present Remington, Winchester, HSM, and DoubleTap Ammunition produce ammunition for this cartridge. Manufacturers offer a 140 gr bullet at 3,030 ft/s and this ammunition has a maximum point blank range of 300 yd when sighted in at 250 yd. Some ammunition offers premium 140 gr Nosler Partition and 125 gr Accubond bullets driven at 3,100 ft/s and 3,250 ft/s through a 24-inch barrel. One manufacturer loads a 160 gr Woodleigh Weldcore bullet at 3,020 ft/s and 3240 ft/lb through a 26 barrel which takes advantage of this magnum load. For this reason, this cartridge is better suited for shooters who are willing to make their own rather than those who purchase over the counter ammunition. Due to the crowded nature of the market for which the cartridge competes in. In particular, the 7mm Remington Magnum release in 1962 led to the poor reception by the shooting public. The 7mm Remington Magnum shot almost as flat as the.264 Winchester Magnum, ballistically it is almost identical to the 6.5 x 68 and the 6.5 x 63 Messner Magnum. Mag. is an excellent, potentially accurate, very flat-shooting cartridge capable of taking any game in the lower 48 US states, and one of the most powerful of all.264 in cartridges
18.
7mm Remington Ultra Magnum
–
The 7mm Remington Ultra Magnum or 7mm RUM is a 7mm rifle cartridge introduced by Remington Arms in 2001. The 7mm RUM was created using the.404 Jeffery case which was used to develop the.375 RUM.300 RUM. By necking down the.300 RUM to suit the.284 or 7mm projectile, the resulting case has significantly more capacity than any conventional belted magnum. Compared to the 7mm Remington Magnum, top 7mm RUM loads deliver 25% more energy at 300 yards, such performance demands a price and in this case, that is a large muzzle blast, sharp recoil and short barrel life. The 7mm Ultra Magnum boasts the largest case of any commercial 7mm cartridge, list of rifle cartridges Table of handgun and rifle cartridges 7 mm caliber
19.
7mm Remington Magnum
–
The 7mm Remington Magnum rifle cartridge was introduced as a commercially available round in 1962, along with the new Remington Model 700 bolt-action rifle. It is a member of the belted magnum family that is derived from the venerable.375 H&H Magnum. Improved cartridge extraction reliability is desirable while hunting game, which would be of concern when needing a fast follow up shot. On its introduction, the 7mm Remington Magnum substantially usurped the market held by the.264 Winchester Magnum. Remington has recently offered Managed Recoil ammunition for achieving reduced recoil when shooting and for generating less meat damage when hunting smaller game. The 7mm Remington Magnum offers ballistics better than the. 30-06 Springfield with bullet weights of 175 grains and less and it is arguable that the 7mm Remington Magnum offers marginally better ballistics with 175 grain bullets, the heaviest bullet commonly used in the caliber. The. 30-06 Springfield can, however, be loaded with heavier bullets up to 220 grains, the 7mm Remington Magnum has 5.31 ml H2O cartridge case capacity. Americans would define the angle at alpha/2 =25 degrees. The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 241 mm,6 grooves, Ø lands =7.04 mm, Ø grooves =7.21 mm, land width =2.79 mm and the primer type is large rifle magnum. Rulings the 7mm Remington Magnum case can handle up to 430.00 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 7mm Remington Magnum chambered arms in C. I. P, regulated countries are currently proof tested at 537.50 MPa PE piezo pressure. The SAAMI Maximum Average Pressure for this cartridge is 61,000 psi piezo pressure, the rebated rim bottlenecked centerfire short magnum 7mm Winchester Short Magnum cartridge introduced in 2001 is probably the closest ballistic twin of the 7mm Remington Magnum. The 7mm Winchester Short Magnum is considerably shorter and fatter and has a shoulder angle. This makes the 7mm Remington Magnum case with its 6.89 mm long neck better suited for loading long heavier bullets, the 7mm Remington Short Action Ultra Magnum is considerably shorter and fatter and has a steeper shoulder angle and a longer neck than the 7mm Remington Magnum. This makes the 7mm Remington Short Action Ultra Magnum better suited for loading long heavier bullets and it has also been chambered in sniper rifles as the US Secret Service counter-sniper team has deployed this cartridge in urban areas. Popular online gun author Chuck Hawks calls the 7mm Remington one of the great all-around rifle cartridges, thus one would do well to use a premium bullet of some sort, for instance a bonded bullet
20.
.300 Winchester Magnum
–
The.300 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked magnum rifle cartridge that was introduced by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1963. The.300 Winchester Magnum is a cartridge designed to fit in a standard rifle actions. It is based on the.375 H&H Magnum, which has blown out, shortened. The.300 Winchester is extremely versatile and has been adopted by a range of users including hunters, target shooters, military units. It is a selection for hunting moose, elk. Military and law enforcement departments adopted the cartridge for long range sniping, as a testament to its accuracy, since its introduction it has gone on to win several 1, 000-yard competitions. Prior to the design of the.300 Winchester Magnum there were several cartridges that provided what could be best described as a level of energy. The heritage of.30 caliber magnums can be traced back to the.30 Newton in 1913, beginning with the.270 Weatherby Magnum in 1943, Roy Weatherby introduced a line of cartridges based on a standard length magnum case. This was accomplished by taking the.30 Super Belted Rimless H&H case and having it blown out and shortened so that it could be cycled through a standard length bolt-action rifle. Then in 1944 he designed the.300 Weatherby Magnum, which essentially was a version of the.30 Super Belted Rimless H&H. The Weatherby’s standard length magnum case was soon noticed, in 1958 Winchester introduced three cartridges – the.264 Winchester Magnum.338 Winchester Magnum and the.458 Winchester Magnum, all based on the shortened and blown out.375 H&H Magnum case. The popular.30 caliber’s omission from that lineup was not missed, the.300 Winchester Magnum was introduced in 1963 by Winchester for use in the Model 70 rifle. The introduction of the.300 Winchester Magnum was not unforeseen, rather, its introduction was anticlimactic. Winchester developed the.300 Winchester Magnum by taking the.338 Winchester Magnum, which was introduced in 1958 and this caused the cartridge to have a neck shorter than the diameter of the bullet. There has been speculation that if the cartridge was released earlier. Since its introduction the cartridge has remained extremely popular, the.300 Winchester Magnums high availability in popular rifles such as Winchesters Model 70 and Remington Model 700 made the cartridge a popular choice among the shooting public. Although the.300 H&H Magnum. 30-338 Winchester Magnum and the.308 Norma Magnum had a start on the.300 Winchester Magnum these cartridges soon faded into obsolescence. Only the.300 Winchester Magnum was to survive as a readily available cartridge, other cartridges, while available, are more expensive
21.
.300 Weatherby Magnum
–
The.300 Weatherby Magnum is a.30 caliber rifle cartridge created by Roy Weatherby in 1944 and produced by Weatherby. It has become the most popular of all the Weatherby cartridges, Roy Weatherby already had experience with other custom cartridges such as his own.270 Weatherby Magnum when he created the.300 Weatherby. Like most of his other magnum cartridges, this is based on a blown-out.300 H&H Magnum case, of course there are quite a few very large.30 caliber wildcat cartridges. One must note, however, when comparing the.300 RUM, performance data is often listed on the side of the ammunition box for those who wish to do an in-store comparison. On average, Weatherby factory ammo is loaded to higher pressures than Remington or Winchester magnum rounds. The Remington round can be handloaded to equal or even surpass the.300 Weatherby in power, the.300 Wby is in common use by big-game hunters all over the world. List of rifle cartridges 7 mm caliber other cartridges in the same caliber range Table of handgun and rifle cartridges
22.
.300 Remington Ultra Magnum
–
The.300 Remington Ultra Magnum, also known as the.300 Ultra Mag or.300 RUM is a 7.62 mm caliber rifle cartridge,7. 62×72mm, or.30 caliber rifle cartridge introduced by Remington Arms in 1999. The.300 Remington Ultra Magnum is one of the largest commercially available.30 caliber magnums currently being produced and it is a beltless, rebated rim cartridge, capable of handling all large North American game, as well as long-range shooting. Among commercially produced. 30-caliber rifle chamberings, the.300 Remington Ultra Magnum is second to the. 30-378 Weatherby Magnum in cartridge-case capacity and these cartridges were known variously as the Canadian Magnum or the Imperial Magnums. Rifles were built on Remington Model 700 Long Actions and used McMillan stocks, cartridges were fire formed from.404 Jeffery cases with the rim turned down, taper reduced and featured sharp shoulders. Both Remington and Dakota Arms purchased the formed brass designed by Noburo Uno for use in their own experimentation, Dakota too released their own version of the cartridge but chose not to turn down the rim and shortened the case to work in a standard length action. Remington would go on to design their own shortened versions of the Ultra Magnum cartridge which they were to call the Remington Short Action Ultra Magnum or RSAUM for short. The.300 Remington Ultra Magnum is a member of the Remington Ultra Magnum cartridge family based on the.404 Jeffery via the Canadian Magnum cartridges. The down side is this may result in feeding failures and over-ride jams as the cartridge is cycled into the chamber and is considered undesirable in a game cartridge. Unlike the belted Magnum cases based on the.375 H&H Magnum cartridge, All things being equal, a beltless cartridge would feed more reliably and more smoothly than a belted cartridge. SAAMI compliant.300 Remington Ultra Magnum cartridge schematic, All dimensions in inches, SAAMI recommends that the barrel have a 6 groove contour with a twist rate of one revolution in 10 in. The barrel is to have a width of.115 in. Bore is given as.300 in and a groove is.308 in, Maximum case overflow capacity is 122.5 gr. of water. SAAMI recommended Maximum Average Pressure is set at 65,000 psi, remington’s ultra magnum cases were made wider than the.404 Jeffery case by.006 in. The brass was made thicker so as to withstand the pressure of the new cartridge as the Jeffery cartridge had a maximum average pressure rating of 3,650 bar. Remington ammunition for the.300 RUM is available in three Power Levels, Power Level I duplicates the. 30-06 Springfield, Power Level II that of the.300 Winchester and Power Level III is the full power load. Remington offers the full power.300 Remington Ultra Magnum ammunition in 150 gr at 3,450 ft/s, the 180 gr at 3,250 ft/s and these are among the highest velocities attained by a.30 caliber production rifle cartridge. The.300 RUM is an excellent long range cartridge with the ability to deliver a useful level of energy downrange especially with the power level III ammunition, due to its high velocity it exhibits less bullet drop than most other.30 caliber cartridges. Compared to other production.30 caliber cartridges, only the. 30-378 Weatherby Magnum surpasses the.300 Remington Ultra Magnum, factory loaded. 30-378 Weatherby Magnum ammunition has a 150–200 ft/s velocity advantage over the.300 RUM cartridge with any given bullet weight
23.
.338 Lapua Magnum
–
The.338 Lapua Magnum is a rimless, bottlenecked, centerfire rifle cartridge. It was developed during the 1980s as a high-powered, long-range cartridge for military snipers and it was used in the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War. As a result of this, it more widely available. The loaded cartridge is 14.93 mm in diameter and 93.5 mm long and it can penetrate better-than-standard military body armour at ranges up to 1,000 metres and has a maximum effective range of about 1,750 metres. British military issue overpressure.338 Lapua Magnum cartridges with a 91.4 mm overall length, in addition to its military role, it is increasingly used by hunters and civilian long-range shooting enthusiasts. In Namibia the.338 Lapua Magnum is legal for hunting Africas Big five game if the loads have ≥5,400 J muzzle energy, the.416 Rigby is an English big game cartridge that was designed to accommodate 325 MPa pressures. One of the disadvantages of these old cartridge cases, which were intended for firing cordite charges instead of modern smokeless powder, is the thickness of the sidewall just forward of the web, during ignition, the cartridges base, forward to the bolt face, is not supported. The case is back against the bolt face, which results in the stretching of the case. When the sidewall resists the outward expansion against the chamber, the pressure stretches the case, thereby increasing its length, RAI found that the BELL cases did not fulfill the requirements. Pressed by military deadlines RAI looked for another producer and contacted Lapua of Finland in 1984. RAI was forced to out of the program due to financial difficulties. Subsequently, Lapua of Finland put this cartridge into limited production, the. 338/416 rifle program was later canceled when the contractors were unable to make the cartridge meet the projects velocity target of 914 m/s for a 16.2 g bullet, due to weak brass cases. Lapua opted to redesign the. 338/416 cartridge, in the new case design, particular attention was directed toward thickening and metallurgically strengthening the cases web and sidewall immediately forward of the web. In modern solid head cases, the hardness of the brass is the factor that determines a cases pressure limit before undergoing plastic deformation. Lapua tackled this problem by creating a hardness distribution ranging from the head and web to the mouth as well as a strengthened case web and sidewall immediately forward of the web. This resulted in a very pressure resistant case, allowing it to operate at high pressure, Lapua also designed a 16. 2-gram.338 calibre Lock Base B408 full metal jacket bullet, modeled after its.30 calibre Lock Base bullet configuration. The result was the.338 Lapua Magnum cartridge which was registered with C. I. P. in 1989, with the procurement by the Dutch Army, the cartridge became NATO codified. The.338 Lapua Magnum fills the gap between weapons chambered for standard military rounds such as the 7. 62×51mm NATO and large, weighty rifles firing the.50 BMG cartridge
24.
.338 Winchester Magnum
–
The.338 Winchester Magnum is a.338 in caliber, belted, rimless, bottlenecked cartridge introduced in 1958 by Winchester Repeating Arms. It is based on the blown-out, shortened.375 H&H Magnum, the.338 in is the caliber at which medium-bore cartridges are considered to begin. The.338 Winchester Magnum is the first choice among professional brown bear guides in Alaska to back up clients where a powerful stopping caliber is required on charging bears. It is also the most popular cartridge in North America and has the most widely available choice in rifles among medium bore rifles. The cartridge was intended for larger North American big-game species and has use as for the hunting of thin-skinned African plains-game species. The.338 Winchester Magnum traces its heritage to the experiments conducted by Charles O’Neil, Elmer Keith, furthermore, the.333 in were available in heavier weights than the.338 in bullets. When the cartridge was introduced, Winchester offered a 200 gr at 3,000 ft/s, a 250 gr at 2,700 ft/s, sometime later, Winchester introduced the Winchester Model 70 Alaskan chambered for the cartridge. This chambering left little doubt that the cartridge was intended for big heavy dangerous game, the.338 Winchester Magnum is based on the.375 H&H Magnum, which was shortened to 2.500 in, blown out and necked down to hold a.338 in bullet. The case has a capacity of 86.0 grain of H2O, the SAAMI-recommended average pressure for the cartridge is 64,000 psi. The CIP enforces a 4, 300-bar pressure limit for the cartridge, bullets are available in a very wide range of designs and weights ranging from 150 to 300 grains. SAAMI pressure level is 64,000 p. s. i, the.338 Winchester Magnum is capable of launching heavier bullets than the.30 caliber cartridges. The most common bullets loaded for the.338 Winchester range from 200 gr to 250 gr, typical bullet weights for factory ammunition are 200 gr,210 gr,225 gr and the 250 gr. Typical velocities for these bullet weights range from 2,960 ft/s for the 200 gr to about 2,660 ft/s for the 250 gr bullet each generating approximately 3,900 ft·lbf of energy and this is approximately 25% more energy generated than the 30-06 Springfield. Hornadays 200 gr SST Superformance load has muzzle energy of 4,076 ft·lbf @ 3030fps and it maintains 1,899 ft·lbf @ 2068fps @500 meters. Hornadays 225 gr SST Superformance load has muzzle energy of 4,029 ft·lbf @ 2840fps and it maintains 2,025 ft·lbf @ 2014fps @500 meters. This is from a 24 test barrel as compared to 27.5 test barrel for a 338 Lapua, figures would be higher if shot from a 27.5 test barrel but still over 150fps slower than a 338 Lapua if tested with the same length barrel. The recoil of this caliber is quite heavy, with about 31 ft·lbf of recoil energy in a 9 lb rifle and this is about twice as much as the recoil from an average.308 Winchester. Strong recoil like this can be mitigated with the use of properly designed stocks, by comparison, this cartridge has less recoil than other more powerful. 338-caliber rifles such as the.338 RUM.340 Weatherby and.338 Lapua
