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| One of Us |
Gentlemen, Need your assistance: can't find the requirements during invention and adoption of new bullets and calibers in 1890s. At those times different countries moved to smokeless powders and smaller calibers - France and Germany to 8mm, while the USA, UK and Russia to .30. but why .30 and not .270/280/260 or 6,5mm and smaller and faster? I think that the priority among targets at those times was given to cavalry and then to the range. Means the bullet must stop a horse at certain distance. So .30 was the optimal one. Please point me in the right direction - prefer to read the documents not articles. Many thanks in advance. | ||
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Be curious to hear the answers. The US had switched to the 30-40 replacing the old 45-70 so 30 caliber was a small bore. Funny that after we almost got our butts kicked by the 7x57 Mauser in the Spanish/American war we stayed with the 30 cal and changed to the 30-03 then 30-06. The Mausers were changed from 7x57 to 8x57. As usual just my $.02 Paul K | |||
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Mausers started out as 8X57. GOOGLE HOTLINK FIX FOR BLOCKED PHOTOBUCKET IMAGES https://chrome.google.com/webs...inkfix=1516144253810 | |||
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| One of Us |
Ahh! Now the UK went from the 577/450 to 303 and in 1913 seriously considered .276 and after WWII wanted to adopt .280 so we were never voluntary members of the ".30 Club" until America and NATO imposed it on us in the 1950s! So had WWI not arrived in 1914 the now world famous 303 British cartridge would have only had an actual service life of just 1889 to 1913...not even twenty-five years! But as to why it was 303 at an actual bullet size of .311" I do not know at all. | |||
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i'm pretty sure the 1893 mauser in 7x57,came before the 1898 in 8x57 with it's higher pressure and pointy bullet. smaller calibers with their angeled shoulders raised presures too much with black powder. once the guns were able to handle the higher pressures then the smaller calibers were more feasible. copper jackets come along to compensate for the pressures and velocities. many of the calibers that come along were done so just because of fighting tactics at the time,you could volley out further,aim more accuratly etc. the 174gr 30 was just better ballistacly than the 174gr 8mm bullet. the boat tail later added allowed the weight to drop to 150 grs. | |||
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Actually during that time period remember that in 1895 the Navy and USMC went with the 6mm Lee Navy (commercially called the .236 Lee Navy). I have one and every thing I have read about it states that they liked the ballistics of the 112gr bullet, but one of the primary factors was to go a different way from the 30 cal the Dept. of War (e.g., that time the US Army) was heading. As to "why 30" closest reference I could find is here: http://www.grandarmyofthefront...articles/m1892.htm#1 I suspect it was a combination of looking at what Germany (8mm), France (8mm) , and Great Britian (.303) were doing with a preference towards Great Britian. Barstooler | |||
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Metrics? We don't need no stinking metrics! | |||
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Sure thought the early Mausers were 7x57 and the 8x57 (actually 7.92x57) mauser was adopted in 1905. Then again other things say at least some type 8x57 was designed in 1988. So was the 1905 version of the 8x57 simply a different bullet or dia than the 1988. I would have bet serious $ the 93 was the 7x57 used in Cuba and the 98 was the 8x57. As usual just my $.02 Paul K | |||
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Germany adopted the .318" 8x57J in 1888. The .323" 8x57 JS came along in 1905. Early J bullet was a 226gr RN, JS bullet was a 154gr pointed (spitzer). So, all Mausers made for the German Miltary were one or the other of the two 8mm variations and the 8x57J came first in 1888. | |||
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That is the one I forget about all the time. What I read tonight seemed to state that the Germany army went from between the two 8x57 versions and the other countries di the 7, 7.62 etc. Well I can see I need to open my mind and do some more reading and don't get hung on what the various Mausers were chambered in. As usual just my $.02 Paul K | |||
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Where does one begin with this one ? Mausers first rifle to be adopted for military use was the model 71 rifle designed in 1871 and adopted as an infantry rifle in 1872. This was the rifle used in Africa by Von Lettow Vorbecks troops and likely the rifle that killed Selous. It was chambered in the 11 x 60 cartridge. It underwent changes with variants designated by the year introduced , over time even was rechambered into the 6.5 x 53.5 Then came the Commission Rifle 88, this was not a Mauser nor was it's cartridge a Mauser design. So the 7.9x57 was born, not a Mauser but a bastard. Mauser did answer the call to counter the Commission 88 in trails in the form of the Mauser model 88, but this was not a 7.9x57 but a 7.65 Rimmed. This never saw adoption it remained experimental. Mauser now follows with the model 1889. or known as the Belgian 89 in 7.65mm x53 Some of these were rechambered to the 7.9x57 by the Belgians. Then follows the Model 90 Turkish in 7.65 the model 91 Argentine , the Model 91 Spanish in 7.65 The 7.65 was Mausers answer to the M88 9.7x57. This had a very short case neck and this became the basis for the so called "Short neck" 7mm's of the Boer war. Now comes the US 30 cal ! In 1892 the US military commisioned testing of 53 rifles to rearm the US military to a new non BP standard. Mauser submitted 5 different models for the test, none were accpepted however the choice fell on what can be called a Mauser clone. One has to remember this is 1892, this years befor model 98 Mauser and Mausers adoption of the M88 Comission cartrdige. The Model 93 is the 7x57, or Spanish Mauser. The 7mm cartridge was concieved in 1892 but the the 30 cal Krag actually preceeds the M93 7x57 by a year. So the forerunner of the 30-06 in the form of the Krag came before Mauser's famous 7mm ?? The 30-40 Krag was issued as the Model 1892 Springfield. The Krag fell short of the 7x57 in terms of range and though the US military tried to increase charge weight on the 30-40 they could not match the 7x57 hence then the call for an improved 30 cal. The prerequisites called for a 1000 yard capable cartridge, shooting from a 8 pound gun, with a recoil of less than 20 ft pounds. Hence the adoption of the 30-03 and later the 30-06. What is very interesting about this prerequisite was later during WW1 and WW2 this notion of a 1000 yard capable round was proved to be moot, simply from a point that infantrymen seldom shot a people they could not clearly see and further that your actual chances of being shot and killed by a bullet fired from a rifle was very slim....... this held true for the two major world wars but not for conflicts that followed. Perhaps another point of interest, many here refer to the two versions of the 8mm Mauser ie the J and the JS as having two different bores, this is not strictly true. The bore of a gun is the hole drilled into the barrel before cutting the grooves.... so the bore diameter is actual the land to land measurement. The bore on the Original M88 remained the same, the difference between the J and the and the S was that the J had shallow grooves and the S had deep grooves...... so the bore remained the same ! | |||
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| One of Us |
Tnx for the link! "So it is quite ironic Springfield Armory chose to basically copy the Mauser design with its next rifle, the United States Rifle, Caliber .30, M1903." - was interesting to me. But still not clear why .30. So strange : quite a simple question but difficult to find an answer. | |||
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For the same reason the 30-06 has an actual bullet size of .308. It is the bore diameter before rifling. GOOGLE HOTLINK FIX FOR BLOCKED PHOTOBUCKET IMAGES https://chrome.google.com/webs...inkfix=1516144253810 | |||
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| one of us |
The first military .30 was the British .303, followed by the Russian 7,62x54. They were both allies of the US, with parts and rifle contracts going to US companies. It is highly possible that the US then adopted a .30 caliber rifle simply to keep production facilities in line with our allies (the barrel was the most difficult part to machine). Britain tried to switch to a 7mm just after the turn of the Century, but the outbreak of WWI forced them to stick with readily available .303. They tried again after WWII, but had the 7,62 NATO forced upon them instead. The US tried to convert to 7mm between the World Wars, but one particular hard-nosed General at the War Department killed the project with a stroke of a pen. As to why the Russians and British went with a .30 instead of a 7mm or 8mm, it might have been a logical compromise, or just a political statement to be different than their potential enemies at the time. | |||
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If you look at the ballistic tables for a 7x57 using a 175 grain round nose and a 3040 Krag using a 2200 grain round nose the 7x57 isn't much better. I believe the problem was that the Spanish had a superior position atop San Juan hill and the all the Americans didn't have Krags, many of the had 45-70 Springfield. Couple that with the Krags weren't stripper clip fed thus slower to load. I think had all the Americans had a stripper clip fed rifles chambered in the 30-40 Krag and both sides had equal field positions the U.S. would have dispatched them much faster. | |||
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The actual decision of caliber arose from the application of physics. Cartridges and calibers at the time were not deisgned simply copying others but application of ballistics theory. They used empirical formulae to calculate what they were trying to achieve to come up with what the military asked for. It was a practice common to all major designs of the time. After the losses incurred during the Spanish -American war the US war department called for a caliber that would outperform the Mauser 7mm and that meant a 1000 yard capability as I have stated. The negated anything of caliber smaller than 7mm including the 7mm . The British did exactly the same. The Mauser 7.65 was tested in 1892 as part of the big gun test but the case was to small, the 30 cal was basically the same bullet 7.62 but with a bigger case and longer neck. The 30-40 Krag had the right bullet but to small a case capacity. The 3006 gave enough case capacity to push the bullet to have enough residual energy at 1000 m to kill a man and yet produce only 20 pounds of recoil. Incidently the US Surgeon Generals Office has kept hard casualty data from it's inception on each and every battle fought by the US . This data is used to predict and calulate what weapons need to be employed in future wars. Examples of this data can be found in Coates and Byers Wound Ballistics published by the Surgeon Generals Office..... The data is graphic and quite disturbing if one thinks that it represents los of human life. The problem was that though | |||
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I suppose part of the reason could be that a 30cal can accommodate an armor piercing or tracer projectile more easily than something of a smaller diameter. | |||
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thanks a lot for your imput! this is exactly what I'd love to read: what exactly the then military asked for! the US or British or Russian or German makes no diference - just because they were going to use their weapons in similar tactics then. | |||
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Most of the answers seem to center on the 30-06, but the real issue is why .30 was chosen for the Krag. I think the 06 question is easy. The Krag was in service, and Springfield had all the equipment needed to manufacture 30 caliber barrels. I doubt that they wanted to look at a retooling, so they naturally stuck with the 30 bore that worked with their recently upgraded equipment they had installed to make the Krag. | |||
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 REALLY????  rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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| one of us |
Forgot to add that I suspect their was a lot of theory floating around concerning bore fouling in those days. This was during the era when black powder was being phased out. Winchester at about this time developed the 30 WCF for smokeless. They however marketed the 32 Winchester in the same line of rifles for people who wanted to reload their spent cases with black powder, the thought being that the 30 caliber bore fouled too readily with black powder, but the 32 was a proven target bore at the time. This perception of the 30 being the "biggest smokeless smallbore" and the 32/8mm being the "smallest blackpowder bore" may have influenced the decision at the time of the Krag development. | |||
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Bore diameter is .30 (the diameter of the finished hole size before rifling). Groove diameter is .308 typically (.30 + the depth of two opposing .004" deep grooves). | |||
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What do you mean the British did the same thing? They used the 303 all through WWII. If they changed anything it was bullet...so how did they do the same thing we did after the Spanish American War? Hate to tell you the 30-40 Krag will kill you at a 1000 yards very efficiently and so will a 7x57 Mauser. | |||
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The above comments contain a lot of good information. I want to add that back in 1886 - 1891, the different countries military experiments with the new "white powder" or smokeless powder was found to be highly errosive to barrels. The bigger bores were found not have the same level of errosion wear when compared to the smaller bores. The 8mm Lebal - 1886 and 7.9x57J-1888 used the first generation of smokeless and then 8mm was the smallest that could be used for satisfactory wear. The 7.62X54-Russian 1891, and the 30-40 Krag 1892, used the second generation of smokless and reflect the military's reasearch indicating that 30 caliber was the smallest they could go. By 1893, the German's powder development had came far enough that 7mm bore could be used. The Swiss refined smokeless powder some more, so the 6.5mm could be used by 1894. When the relatively "soft" steels used then and 40,000 psi of hot gases of burning at about 1200 degrees is taken into account, the bigger bores were the way to go. | |||
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SmokinJ: The Point is not whether a 30-40 Krag or a 7mm is capable of killing a human at 1000m it has to do with the probability of scoring an incapacitating wound , should a GI actually manage to hit a target at 1000m. There is whole world of difference between you and I picking up our rifles and shooting at targets at 1000 m and combat. The statistics of war injury proves this. Depedending on the campaign fought the actual number of personel killed or wounded by rifle fire varies and almost in all instances the rifle actually scored very low. With the exception of jungle warfare campaigns of WW2 where only rifle, submachinegun, machinegun, mortar and grenades were employed and here the squad machinegun carried the lion share of the actual wounding. In some campaigns one can argue that the GI though essential to the occupation of enemy real estate could just as well have been issued with broomsticks.... it would have made no difference because the war was fought and won not by rifle fire but by canon fire. To this end the military's mandate for personal arms in terms of type and caliber was and still is dicated to by recent experiences in terms of casualty causal factors. Let me give you some examples: Korea 1950 to 1951: of 4600 battle casualties 92% are the result of bomb fragments and only 7.5% the result of bullet wounds. Other campaigns fared way worse. Fact was that during the European campaign the average GI seldom engaged the enemy beyond 100 yards, not only that during significant battles many never fired their personal weapons. The current war in Iraq already has shown it's influence, where the small 5.56 NATO was developed for the battlefields of Vietnam where combat ranges seldom exceded 100 yards it has been proven to be inadequate for the ranges needed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the military are once again seeking longer range weapons. What is even more telling is that the current war is not a war of bullet wound injuries but a war of head injury and casualty caused by blast injury. | |||
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As far as the .311-.312 bullets go English speaking people have a thing for rational fractions and 5/16 = .3125 inches in decimal form. So I suspect the .303 British round might have well originated as a fraction. BTW try to find an original arsenal drawing (fully dimensioned and tolernaced) of a .303 British round. | |||
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I didn't mean to go into the whole art of war. I merely posted saying the 7x57 was not wonder weapon/caliber as compared to a 30/40. The Spanish American war was a classic example of some involved in it not being trained or even regular soldiers. The writing was on the wall near the end of WWII that battles weren't going to be fought at long distances with rifles. I believe the STG44 said that and the AK 47 that followed soon after. True about the 5.56 but the very short barreled M4's sure aren't helping to enhance the performance of the 5.56. | |||
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| One of Us |
That is a darn good question. I don’t know exactly why 308 was chosen. I have not found any records on why 308 versus 310 or 311 or 313. The final decision on caliber may have been due to available tooling. If you want to get an idea of some of the analysis behind velocity, bullet weight, range estimation error, mid range trajectory, probability of first round hits, dispersion and deflection errors, dig up your May 1965 article in the American Rifleman titled “Capabilities of Magnums” by Dr Harold O Davidson. This gentlemen had “experience in military weapon system effectiveness analysis”. With so many variables involved in a cartridge selection, and don’t forget recoil, combat load, lethality, variables get weighted. Some are considered more important than others and the weighting of these things is always different with different groups of people. Which is why there are so many service rifle cartridges. But if you notice, WW1 era service cartridges are grouped around one average, black powder era cartridges around another, with post WWII intermediate rounds around a different average. Over time as tactics, technology, expectations changed, the “average round” changed, and the population of service rounds changed. I would not doubt that after analysis the agreement was that a “30-31” caliber round was considered the best over all, for the US, and the board looked around at what barrel/bullet tooling was commercially available and 308 was it. | |||
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A rational theory that makes perfect sense. As for .308 being chosen over .311", I think that was a calculated choice to prevent the British from recycling ammunition to use against us should another Anglo-American war erupt. It might sound nuttier than a fruitcake, but this was a real possibility with our naval buildup and I believe the British viewed any major Navy as a possible threat to their trade. | |||
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| one of us |
To get to the OP's question, I remember reading a history of American Firearms at the NRA's American Firearms Museum that stated that the mindset of the current commanders in the military were all 'old school'. That is, they grew up in the military with the heavy 45-70 slugs normal in the day. The idea of dropping 'all the way down' to a 'puny' 30 caliber was similar to the arguments we read about hunting white tail with one of the .22 calibers. To these old school guys, the 30 cal was 'too light' and 'too weak' to do the job asked of it. Their (the old school guys) problem was they were considering black powder charges, not the modern 'nitro' powder that was loaded in the mauser's cartridges or the Krag and other cartridges. WWI proved the 'old school' guys didn't take all of that into account. When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace - Luke 11:21 Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member of Congress...But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain | |||
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As a side bar to this post: Until the war in Iraq, artillery and other forms of indirect fire have caused more casualties than all other weapon systems combined. Since Iraq, that honor has gone to air launched/dropped munitions. The historical ineffectiveness of individual combat arms such as rifles, carbines and sub-machine guns has less to do with the arms and ammunition deployed than it does with the fact that until Vietnam, the statistical majority of combat troops did not fire their issued weapons, or did so in a completely ineffective manner. 114-R10David | |||
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Easyman05, Boy have you opened a can of worms. There is not a single pat answer to why 30 cal. Have been doing a lot of historical firearms research for a project lately. No easy answer. Requirements were set by a military board. Those requirements were not always based on clear research or science. Personal prejudices of the selection board came into play, cost and financial considerations and political monkey business of all types. From a pure technical stand point military calibers are required to work in multiple platforms even in 1900. What was best in a battle rifle might not work so well in a light machine gun. Long story short we got the 30-06. Worked great in 1906, works great in 2012. chuckT. | |||
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Actually the question around the 30 cal is not really a "can of worms" it can be found in the history of the development of small caliber sidearms itself as driven by the discovery of nitro based propellants. The current 30 cal is in fact a 308 cal or 7.62mm cal. it's origens started with a arms race which was prompted by the patenting of the 7.5 Swiss by Eduard Rubin. it was not so much the caliber of the bullet that got everyone going it was the prospect of a special propellant. Rubin patented a black powder ball powder but what was novel about his propellant was that the granules or balls were vented with a hole through each granule...... this is what got the British going because there was a fear that they would be outgunned or rather "outpowdered" The British Committee for arms and explosives procured a number of Schmidt- Ruben Rifles and huge amount of ammo and ran some tests of their own. They then finally came up with a caliber and case of their own which was to be the 303 but in Black Powder. According to my sources they ran tests on various bullet sizes and settled on the original true 30 cal... ie bore size of 30 cal but groove to groove size of 7.7mm or .311. The MOD set the standard based on what Rubens' rifle / cartridge combo could offer. 1. a weight limit considered ideal as a infantry weapon. 2. A range limit ie capability beyond 1000m and the range limit was coupled with a accuracy limit at this range 3. A penetration capability at 300m of a block of hard and soft wood and a perforation capability at 1000 m 4. barrel length to utilize the new powder capabilities 5. Fire capacity such as shots fired per minute single (20) magazine load firing (30) and a destructive test 40 shots per minute unaimed. 6. and finally a recoil limit. What everyone of the time did was to use mathematical formulae to come up with the "ideal" cartridge / bullet diamter and weight to come up with candidates.. This was the golden era of ballistics science The europeans in Typical fashion ran tests on everything and could produce info such as pressure, velocity, energy ratios for every cartrdige put forward during trails. One of the data points one notices that came up was a ratio of case to bullet to bore volumes. This clearly shows that they had a grasp of how internal ballistics went down and what would give the needed downrange performance asked for by the MOD. The combination of a 30 cal whether a 7.5 or a 7.62 or a 7.7mm combined with a case capacity roughly that of the modern 30-06 gave the same result for what was asked by the MOD. | |||
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I would suggest that you need to remember that at the time the powders and bullets available then were nothing like they are now. And also that most of the first 30 cals and such began life using very large for caliber RN bullets that ran at lower velocities than the same calibers run at today. The spitzer thing didnt even begin until after the 30 somethings came about, so under those circumstances going just a bit bigger made perfect ballistic sense. Another factor might be that the 06 came about on the heels of the 30-40 Krag already in use which was originaly a black powder cartridge. A 27-40 Krag with black powder and a long RN slug would have been pretty anemic. And the ability to utilize the same bullet manufactring equipment could have been a consideration in reguards to the 06 design. AK-47 The only Communist Idea that Liberals don't like. | |||
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