Bullet Calibur

@Walter Hinteler,

Thanks.

Good to see they got it right.

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@roger,

Naval guns are by caliber in inches.

@roger,

roger wrote:

Oh, okay. I was kiddin' too, since some people are charged with (at times, rightly)
turning everything else into a gun thread.

I confess, but since the victory in D.C. v. HELLER,
that the historical points that I advocated have been vindicated by America's highest Court,
I have been more moderate and more self-restrained in doing that.

That is not to say that I have refused to answer a direct queston
or comment on the point of 2A or of the morality of self-defense,
but I am somewhat more sensitive to reducing the incidence thereof.

I can be magnanimous in victory (sometimes).

David

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

Naval guns are by caliber in inches.

Army guns r too,
if thay = or exceed an inch.

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@gungasnake,

In the USA - 4"/50 caliber Mark 9 gun - otherwise they are in centimeters - 28 cm SK L/40 (40 (a longer quick load gun with a 40 caliber barrel)

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Uzi nine millimeter.

I'll be bek.

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MP5 9mm is sweeter.

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@gungasnake,

Old answer, and kind of fast and dirty research.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080529110711AAbNv29

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
The word 'caliber' has different meanings depending on what type of firearm you are discussing.

One definition of the word 'caliber' is for small arms that are measured using English units. (".38 Caliber revolver" for example means that the bore is 0.38 inches in diameter.)

The other definition is used for large bore weapons such as naval guns, tank guns and artillery. When used in this term the word 'caliber' is ratio of bore diameter to bore length. So in your example a 5" 45 caliber gun would mean that the bore diameter is 5" and the bore length is 225" long (5 inches times 55).

Note: there are two main parts of a gun tube - the 'chamber' and the 'bore.' The chamber is where the round and propellant are prior to firing and the bore is the part of the gun tube that the projectile travels down prior to 'shot exit' and ballistic flight.
2 years ago

1 Reply

@roger,

Quote:

Calibre
firearms measurement
also spelled Caliber,
in firearms, unit of measure indicating the interior, or bore, diameter of a gun barrel and the diameter of the gun’s ammunition; or the length of a gun expressed in relation to its interior diameter (now used only of naval and coastal defense guns).

Quote:

Bore
firearms
in weaponry, the interior of the barrel of a gun or firearm. In guns that have rifled barrels, e.g., rifles, pistols, machine guns, and artillery or naval guns, the diameter of the bore is termed the calibre. (The term “calibre” also designates the outside diameter of the projectile or ammunition used in the gun.) In these weapons, the calibre is normally obtained by measuring between the faces of opposite lands (i.e., the ridges between the grooves in the barrel). In the traditional Anglo-U.S. system, calibre (or caliber) is measured in inches for cannons and hundredths of an inch for small guns. Thus the bore diameter of a .30-calibre rifle is 30/100 of an inch, and that of a .50-calibre weapon is 1/2 inch. In Great Britain it has been common practice to carry the figure to another decimal point, as in the calibre .303 Lee-Enfield rifle, which was widely used in both World Wars. In the armed forces of both Britain and the United States, however, the trend since 1950 has been to follow the metric system, in which millimetres and occasionally centimetres are the units of measurement. The use of this system allowed NATO weapons of various makes and national origins to use ammunition of standardized size. In comparing the two systems, a rifle or pistol with a calibre of 7.62 mm corresponds to one of calibre .30 in the old Anglo-U.S. system.

The measurement of the bore in shotguns is expressed in terms of gauge. The gauge of a shotgun originally was expressed as the number of round lead balls of bore diameter necessary to make a total weight of one pound. Thus, if eight lead balls of bore diameter added up to one pound, the shotgun was designated an eight-gauge gun. The smaller the gauge number, therefore, the larger the bore. Gauge, however, later became standardized in terms of diameter and no longer relates directly to the original method of determination. Under this standardized system, a 12-gauge shotgun has a bore diameter of .729 inch.

The word calibres (always in the plural) has also been used by some navies to indicate the length of big guns in relation to their bore diameter. The number of calibres is determined by dividing the length of the bore (from muzzle to breech face) by the bore diameter. Thus a gun with a bore diameter of 5 inches and a length of 200 inches is said to be 40 calibres long.

Source for both: Encyclopædia Britannica 2010.

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@Seed,

The different ammunition sizes are because some are measured by inches (i.e. .22, .38, .45, .50, etc.) and some in millimeters (5.56, 7,62, 9, etc.). An inch is equal 25.4 millimeters, thus a .50 cal bullet is 12.7mm... so that's how it's larger than the 7.62mm.

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I want to buy bullets?

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@roger,

Back in the day many agencies and companies forbade using .357 mag loads in .38 special duty revolvers simply because of the legal aspect. "Oh a .38 special bullet wasn't lethal enough?" I myself got that when choosing rounds. But we all went .357 anyway as it was the most effective round then, and probably still is with an FBI one-shot stop rating of about 95%. That is, in actual duty related shootings, 95% of the time a suspect shot with a .357 magnum didn't need to be shot again.

1 Reply

@HesDeltanCaptain,

Yeah, and for many departments, the only bullet allowed was the jacketed round nose. I guess the theory was it was sometimes okay to shoot someone, if you only shot them a little bit.

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@OmSigDAVID,

you need to use your local library's interlibrary book loan. Search under "subject" for books about guns. The info given here is accurate, but very, VERY Limited

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@OmSigDAVID,

there are over 100 type of gunpowder available to reloaders. about 1/3rd of them are suitable for loading handgun ammo. Use your local library's interlibrary book loan or e book system. There's tons, and I mean tons, of info about guns. anything told to you here is very fragmentary.

MOST, but not all modern gunpowder is much more potent (per gram) than black powder was. A 44-40 had 40 grs of black powder loaded under a 200 gr bullet. Today, that same ballistic performance is attained with 10 grs of smokeless powder. 10 grs of a very fast powder, such as Alliant Bullseye, intended for use in 380 pocket pistol load, would blow apart the 44-40 revolver.

No, +P+ .38 ammo did NOT replicate 357 full load performance, not even close, actually. It was 110 grs at 1200 fps, while the full charge 357 load is 1500 fps, both from a 4" long barrel. that "extra" 300 fps adds quite significantly to the likelihood of a man's being shot with it also being stopped instantly.

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