Maybe it is stupid question but English is not my primary language . . .

.44 Magnum is fortyfour magnum or not ?
9mm Luger could be nine milimetres Luger . . .

but what about 30-378, .700/.577 Nitro Express or 45-70 or .450 #2 Nitro Express 31/2", how do you read this calibers ?

Thank you

Jiri

30-378...thirty-dash-three-seventy-eight

.700/.577 Nitro Express...seven-hundred-by-five-seventy-seven Nitro Express

45-70...forty-five-seventy

.450 #2 Nitro Express 31/2"...four-fifty-number-two-Nitro-Express

I'm not sure if you mean how to say them? For example, thirty-three-seventy-eight: a thirty caliber based on the .378 Weatherby case. The thirty-thirty is a thirty caliber and the cartridge held thirty grains of black powder, originally. The thirty-ought-six is a thirty caliber adopted in 1906 by the U.S. armed forces. Obviously, no hard fast rules in cartridge nomenclature.

Jiri,
English has so many dialects that it is sometimes mutually unintelligible. I speak a mixture of Northern and Southern Californian with a bit of Pedagoguese contaminating that.
English uses a zero plural sometimes. In the U.S. one would never hear "nine milimeters Luger" but "nine milimeter Luger." (We have that problem with game animals, too.)
Often we use juncture (as an unpronounced pause for a comma or semi-colon.)
I would say "five+seventy+seven++four+fifty."
My Canadian friends say "five+seven+seven++four+five+oh," and "thirty++three+seventy+eight," not "thirtythree+seventy+eight."
# is spoken "number" in this setting. Thus "four fifty number two Nitro Express three and a half" (The inch is not spoken.) Again in England it would be "four five oh....three an one half."
The "X" in 9.3x72R is spoken "by," the R is "are" or "rimmed" about equally in this area.
In the U.S. you hear both "thirty ought six," and "thirty oh six," but more commonly just "ought six" without the thirty.
For .38 S&W, we say "thirty eight ess and double you," or "...Smith and Wesson." South Africans call it the "three eight oh++two hundred."
And you thought Chinese was complicated!
Cheers from Darkest California,
Ross

Thank you much all . . .

It will take some time to me

Now, I will start train with easy .50BMG and end with "7mm/.308 Ackley improved 15/8" benchrest 25�"

Daryl,

The .30-30 did not originally use 30 grains of black powder. It was the first cartridge designed to use smokeless powder, and the caliber designation indicated a 30 caliber bullet with 30 grains of smokeless powder...a holdover from black powder days. When this caused confusion Winchester "renamed" it the .30 WCF. As black powder died off, the original .30-30 name began to re-appear.

1995 edition of Gun Digest,page 13, article titled"All those other 30-30s", to quote" Authorities generally agree that the 30-30 cartridge itself was introduced in 1895, in the summer of the year after the rifle's introduction. Obviously, Winchester had developed the cartridge some time before, and there is some claim that the company actually introduced the cartridge in 1894, loaded for a short time with blackpowder."