From: "Evan Williams"
Date: 7/21/2004 2:53 AM Central Daylight Time
Message-id: et


Just in case you aren't confused yet, here's some more trivia. Cartridges
such as 44/40 and 45/70 come from the old black powder days. The second
part after the slash denotes how much powder was inside the casing and that
gives you the size of the casing. It sometimes helps to know the history of
the round.



Evan Williams

If you really want to confuse things bring up calibers of artillery over the
years. The 40 mm bofors and 40 mm DIVAD rounds have the same diameter, but the
lengths vary. The largest round in my collection is 105 mm in both the howitzer
(AC-130) and cannon (tank and artillery) shell lengths.

If memory serves (and it doesn't always) the 50 caliber naval round is 5 inch
diameter.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired