For the same reason that guns (especially British armor) have traditionally been referred to by their “poundage” (i.e. the weight of a spherical shell that filled the bore)–'cause that was the accepted standard for manufacturing guns and shells, and was an easy value to increment and calculate. Modern (20th Century) naval artillery and cannon didn’t use round shells and shot of regular weight, but the nomenclature continued to be used; for instance, the main guns on the Iowa-class battleships (USS Iowa, USS New Jersey, USS Missouri, and the USS Wisconsin) were 16in/50 caliber guns, and the famed WWII-era British Ordnance QF 25 pound field gun (88mm/31 caliber) referred to by its “poundage” (though it did actually fire a 25 lb shell).
Today, large naval guns, and the capital ships they rode on, have fallen out of favor for reasons obvious to any student of WWII naval battles, and most land artillery is simply referred to by bore and make/model, i.e. a 155mm M198 towed howitzer (which may actually fire smaller “bore” rounds that are jacketed in a sabot), but you still see the old nomenclature pop up once in a while.
It may seem amazing that obsolete nomenclature hangs on for so long, but if you study engineering and science you see it all over the place, and it causes no end to problems for aspiring students, i.e. electromotive “force” for voltage or British Thermal Units and Therms (which seem like they ought to relate to temperature) for energy.
When caliber refers to the ratio of barrel lingth/bore it distinguishes between rifles and howitzers. For example a 6"- 50 caliber would be a rifle and the barrel would be 25 ft. long. A 6" (approx 155 mm) canon with a 10 ft. barrel (20 caliber) would be a howitzer. The difference is in the trajectory. Rifles tend to have a flat trajectory because of higher muzzle velocity and are useful in shooting at targets that are visible to the shooter, like on a tank. Howitzers have a high, arcing trajectory and are usefull for getting at those cowardly and unfair opponents who hide behind hills or other obstacles. The ultimate in the howizer type is the mortar which has a large diameter in relation to the barrel length and more or less tosses shells on a very high arc and low velocity so that the shell comes almost straight down and is hard to hide from.
Might this also be the source of a couple of the older ammunition sizes? In the old days of spherical bullets everything was measured this way, and I can imagine say 70gauge mutating into .38 or whatever.
Yep, and pretty popular in our area too! My club hosts 3-4 shoots a year for cowboy action.
More info here:
To find out more information please visit www.sassnet.com and White Mountain Regulators: www.shootingbums.org
I’ve only been to one, but wow. These folks have vintage weapons (some real antiques, some magnificent reproductions) clothing and the whole shebang!
I’m pretty sure that the .30-30 was originally intended to hold 30 grains of black powder, and that’s how it got its name. But I’m also pretty sure that it was never sold as a black powder round, smokeless powder having become available by that time.
I think that the .30-30 was designed for smokeless from the start. The .32 Winchester Special, a near twin, was designed to be reloaded with either black or smokeless.
I don’t have my reference books available, so you may be right. I was under the impression that the nomenclature was a product of the timing of the switchover from black powder to smokeless powder.
Incidentally, I have a Winchester Model 1892 rifle (made in 1897) chambered for .32-20. Was the .32-20 originally designed for black powder? I think so, but the (modern) rounds I have are all smokeless.
On the (M)1911(A1), Pulling the slide back both loads a round into the chamber, and cocks the hammer. You are then ready to fire. You would only need to cock a 1911 if you were carrying a round in the chamber, and chose to decock by holding the hammer and pulling the trigger and lowering it gently. Most carry the 1911 in what’s called ‘Condition one’ a round in the chamber, hammer cocked. This sounds dangerous, but the 1911 has a slide safety you release with your thumb, and a grip safety that doesn’t allow the gun to be fired unless someone is holding the weapon. It’s reasonably safe to carry in condition one.
Yes, I’ve read that in Napoleonic warfare musket ball size referred to in terms of “X many per pound.” Obviously, 25-per-pound balls were bigger than 28-per-pound. It wasn’t as much of a problem then since tolerances weren’t as tight, but some officers and soldiers preferred the larger balls for accuracy and the smaller ones for quick loading. Quick loading was important when it meant a 25% increase in shots per minute.
I recommend Phillip J. Hawthornethwaite’s “Napoleonic Infantry” to anyone looking for more on this.
Actually, for someone properly trained, it’s much safer to carry a 1911-pattern pistol in Condition One (“locked and cocked”) than Condition Two (hammer down, chamber loaded), due to the possibility of an accidental firing from impact. Condition Three (chamber unloaded) is safer yet but a slow draw. Consider that the Glock, one of the most widely used pistols in law enforcement, is always in Condition One (or “Condition One-Half” according to some, as it has no manual safety) whenever a round is chambered.
Sadly, most people who carry sidearms as part of their daily job are, IME, woefully undertrained and underqualified in their safe use and storage, police included; the exceptions being those who undertake additional training on their own time and initative.
Right, so long as there’s a round in the chamber. I’m not a big Glock fan, but I do own the Walther P99QA, or “Quick Action” model, which has a near clone of the Glock system. The following applies to the P99QA and most (all?) Glocks:
When the magazine is inserted and the slide is racked, a round is chambered and the striker is partially cocked. On a Glock, it’s slightly more cocked than the P99. The gun is ready to fire. When you begin squeezing the trigger, you bring the striker to “fully cocked” and it breaks away, firing the round. This is similar to a double action pistol, except that you’re not having to do ALL the effort; the striker was already primed.
IIRC, the Glock needs roughly 4 pounds on the trigger to fire, while the P99QA needs 6-7. Another difference is that the QA has a small decocking button on the top of the slide. When pressed, the striker is released and the gun is useless. The P99AS will fire decocked (as a true double action pistol) but the QA will not. Glocks don’t offer the decock option.
I agree with Stranger, most folks carrying sidearms need more training.
Also, this wasn’t meant as a “trash Glock” post; I simply prefer the Walther.
I have a Q which might be directly related to this: if someone has a “32-20 built on a 45 frame” is that acheived by rechambering or is that a different issue?
It depends on what kind of a gun you are talking about. The .32-30 was used in both Winchester rifles and Colt’s SAA and Bisley revolvers. I’m going to presume it means a single action army revolver. Note that there is only one size of frame for that gun so “45 frame” is redundant. Since the 32 cartridge is smaller than a .45 it involved replacing the barrel and cylinder, both of which must be fitted by a gunsmith.
Some caliber conversions can be done by rechambering, usually where the bore diameter is the same and the cartridge is somewhat larger. An example might be a .44 special revolver being rechambered to fire .44-40 WCF.
The 30-30 was probably named so that it would be familiar to those used to existing Winchester black powder cartridges, 44-40, 38-40, 32-20. I think 25-20, the caliber of John Wayne’s famous big loop '92, was introduced as a smokeless round.
I reload black powder cartridges. They are different to smokeless in that they are loaded by volume, enough to fill the cartridge with no void space and usually a small amount of compression. I’ve always been told that void space can result in an explosion but I have no authoritative reference. Modern smokeless propellant is loaded to weight. Sometimes rifle cartridges will have a compressed load but more often than not there is air space and with some cartridges far more air space than powder volume.
Oh, the 38-40 is an odd duck, it’s actually 40 caliber, basically a necked down .44-40. I have no idea why it’s named the way it is.
cartridge designations like .45-70 told you something useful about the likely performance of the cartridge when you were thinking about what to buy. When smokeless cartridges like .30-30 and .30-40 appeared it seemed natural to follow the same practice for a short time until people realised that (i) the weight of smokeless propellant didn’t actually tell you anything very useful about the likely performance (ii) to achieve the ‘book’ velocity it could vary considerably from one powder to the next or even one lot of the same powder to another.
Some designations are the result of the marketing department’s input. .303 Savage isn’t a .303 like the British one at all, it’s a .30 (nowadays the firm’s lawyers would have stopped this, saying it was a lawsuit waiting to happen). .35 Smith & Wesson wasn’t a .35 at all, or anything like it, it was a .30 (users soon found that .32 Auto cartridges would work after a fashion, and were much cheaper).
Winchester were first out of the trap with a commercial version of the new 7.62mm NATO cartridge, and they decided to call it .308 Winchester, probably because they already had a .30 Winchester Center Fire and didn’t want people confusing the two.