It was the official cartridge of the US military and tens of
thousands of surplus military rifles were sold and millions
of commercial rifles world-wide in the same caliber
[European call it the 7.62x63]

Military designations are often simple, to a supply officer
in procurement. Every nation had its own system and
commercial makers would alter names so they could be
copyrighted.

So the 7.62x51 NATO was released by Winchester as the .308
Winchester.
The Krag rifle which was adopted in the late 1890 period
used smokeless powder and the old black powder designation
system... .30-40-220 Krag 30 caliber, 40 grains of powder
and a 220 grain bullet. Just after the Civil War the Army
adopted the 1873 Springfield rifle in caliber .45-70-405
which was a 45 caliber bullet weighing 405 grain [almost a
full ounce of lead] and 70 grains of black powder.

The .38 Special uses a 35 caliber bullet and the 44 Special
and Magnum use a 43 caliber bullet. The need to have a
unique name is often more important than precise accuracy.
Some cartridges are named according to the bullet diameter
and some according to the bore diameter not counting the
depth of the rifling grooves. A .270 uses .277 bullets and
might be called 6.8 mm. The 5.56x45 is the 5.56 NATO or the
commercial .223 Remington and is chambered in the M16, Ruger
Mini-14 and a lot of other rifles and some handguns.

Of hand I can't think of any other cartridge that uses a
date, but there probably is more than one. You can look up
just about every cartridge in a book from Gun Digest
CARTRIDGES of the WORLD.


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"Jose" wrote in message
. ..
| Ok, what do the numbers mean? I've heard of a "thirty
ought six" referring to a gun, and think I know one of them
(.30 inches?) refers to the gauge (width of the bullet).
What's the other?
|
| The year, 1906.
|
| Interesting. Can you name any other bullets with this
name format that
| are as well known as the thirty ought six? What's so
special about this
| one?
|
| Jose
| --
| The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the
music.
| for Email, make the obvious change in the address.