Pistol, Rifle and Intermediate cartridge 3

A fully powered cartridge, also called full-power cartridge or full-size cartridge, is an

umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In othe ...

describing any

rifle cartridge A rifle cartridge is a firearm cartridge primarily designed and intended for use in a rifle/carbine, or machine gun. Types Full-powered A full-powered cartridge is a rifle cartridge used interchangeably between service rifles, sniper rifle ...

with a

caliber In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore matc ...

greater than , a maximum

effective range Effective range is a term with several definitions depending upon context. Distance Effective range may describe a distance between two points where one point is subject to an energy release at the other point. The source, receiver, and conditions ...

of at least , and intended for engaging targets (

large Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms ...

game animals) beyond . The term generally refers to traditional

cartridge Cartridge may refer to: Objects * Cartridge (firearms), a type of modern ammunition * ROM cartridge, a removable component in an electronic device * Cartridge (respirator), a type of filter used in respirators Other uses * Cartridge (surname), a ...

s used in

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles ...

s and bolt action and semi-automatic

service rifle A service rifle (or standard-issue rifle) is a rifle a military issues to regular infantry. In modern militaries, this is typically a versatile and rugged battle rifle, assault rifle, or carbine suitable for use in nearly all environments. M ...

s and select fire

battle rifle A battle rifle is a service rifle chambered to fire a fully powered cartridge. The term "battle rifle" is a retronym created largely out of a need to better differentiate the intermediate-powered assault rifles (e.g. the StG-44, AK-47, M16, ...

s prior to, during, and immediately after the

World War A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World WarI (1914 ...

s and the early

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

era, and was a

retronym A retronym is a newer name for an existing thing that helps differentiate the original form/version from a more recent one. It is thus a word or phrase created to avoid confusion between older and newer types, whereas previously (before there were ...

originally made to differentiate from

intermediate cartridge An intermediate cartridge is a rifle/ carbine cartridge that has significantly greater power than a pistol cartridge but still has a reduced muzzle energy compared to fully powered cartridges (such as the .303 British, 7.62×54mmR, 7.92×57 ...

s that gained widespread adoption into military service after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Most modern fully powered cartridges have their origin in the late 19th century and early 20th century with the advent of

smokeless powder Finnish smokeless powderSmokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to gunpowder ("black powder"). The combustion products are mainly gaseous, compared t ...

. Examples include the

6.5×55mm Swedish 6.5 × 55 mm Swedish, also known simply as , or in its native military as ' ('), meaning "6.5 mm cartridge model 1894", is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was introduced in the 1890s, and is still ...

7×57mm Mauser The 7×57mm Mauser (designated as the 7 mm Mauser or 7×57mm by the SAAMI and 7 × 57 by the C.I.P.) is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed by Paul Mauser of the Mauser company in ...

, 7.5×55mm Swiss,

7.5×54mm French The 7.5×54mm French, 7.5 French, or 7.5 MAS (designated as the 7,5 × 54 MAS by the C.I.P.) is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed by France as an update to the 7.5×57mm MAS mod. 1924 cartridge. It replaced the obsolete ...

7.62×51mm NATO The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries. First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first been introduced in U.S. service f ...

7.62×54mmR The 7.62×54mmR is a rimmed rifle cartridge developed by the Russian Empire and introduced as a service cartridge in 1891. Originally designed for the bolt-action Mosin–Nagant rifle, it was used during the late tsarist era and throughout th ...

.30-06 Springfield The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...

.303 British The .303 British (designated as the 303 British by the C.I.P. and SAAMI) or 7.7×56mmR, is a calibre rimmed rifle cartridge. The .303 inch bore diameter is measured between rifling lands as is the common practice in Europe which follows th ...

7.65×53mm Mauser The 7.65×53mm Mauser (designated as the 7,65 × 53 Arg. by the C.I.P.) is a first-generation smokeless powder Rim (firearms), rimless bottlenecked rifle Cartridge (firearms), cartridge developed for use in the Mauser Model 1889 rifle by Paul Maus ...

, 7.7×58mm Arisaka,

7.92×57mm Mauser The 7.92×57mm Mauser (designated as the 8mm Mauser or 8×57mm by the SAAMI and 8 × 57 IS by the C.I.P.) is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was adopted by the German Empire in 1903–1905, and was the Ge ...

8mm Lebel 8 mm or 8mm may refer to: ;Film technology *8 mm film, a photographic cine film format principally intended for domestic use. The term may also refer to later variants: ** Super 8 mm film ** Single-8 film ** 8 mm video format, a type of video recor ...

cartridges. The US military's Next Generation Squad Weapon Program selected the 6.8×51mm Common Cartridge in 2022 for testing in a new carbine, new light machine guns and possibly in converted general-purpose machine guns. This does not guarantee actual widespread future issue of the brass-steel hybrid cased 6.8×51mm Common Cartridge. Despite the ubiquitous adoption of assault rifles and intermediate cartridges as the standard

infantry weapon Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) refers in arms control protocols to two main classes of man-portable weapons.https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52142.htm NATO, Small arms and light weapons (SALW) and mine action (MA) * "Small arms", ...

system, full-powered cartridges are still widely used today in

designated marksman rifle A designated marksman rifle (DMR) is a modern scoped high- precision rifle used by infantrymen in the designated marksman (DM) role. It generally fills the engagement range gap between a service rifle and a dedicated sniper rifle, at aroun ...

s (DMRs),

sniper rifle A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long-range rifle. Requirements include accuracy, reliability, mobility, concealment and optics for anti-personnel, anti-materiel and surveillance uses of the military sniper. The modern sniper rifle is a port ...

general purpose machine gun A general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) is an air-cooled, usually belt-fed machine gun that can be adapted flexibly to various tactical roles for light and medium machine guns. A GPMG typically features a quick-change barrel design calibered f ...

s (GPMGs), and conventional

hunting rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with bo ...

Long-action vs. short-action

In the first half of the

20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nucle ...

, the practice of civilian sportsmen experimenting and modifying existing cartridges to suit different ballistic needs, known as "

wildcatting A wildcatter is an individual who drills wildcat wells, which are exploration oil wells drilled in areas not known to be oil fields. Notable wildcatters include Glenn McCarthy, Thomas Baker Slick Sr., Mike Benedum, Joe Trees, Clem S. Clarke, a ...

", really took off, and the result was the number of newly available cartridges exploded from a couple of dozen to well over one hundred. Having dozens of different cartridges all with unique dimensions was a headache for rifle manufacturers, and still wanting to reach the widest consumer market possible, they had to find a way to economically produce rifles that could be adapted to accept every chambering on the market. While barrels could be custom-made affordably,

action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

s required more complex

machining Machining is a process in which a material (often metal) is cut to a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme are collectively called subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes ...

and thus expensive to make, so it made sense to produce the action dimensions so 3 or 4 standardized lengths that could reliably use most (if not all) of the cartridges on the market. The so-called "standard length" cartridges are traditional rifle cartridges with a cartridge overall length (COL) between , which is best exemplified by the

. Most of today’s long-action cartridges had their cases designed around .30-06's measurements, such as the

.270 Winchester The .270 Winchester is a rifle cartridge developed by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1923 and unveiled in 1925 as a chambering for their bolt-action Model 54The Complete Reloading Manual for the .270 Winchester, Loadbooks USA, Inc., 2004 ...

.280 Remington The ''.280 Remington'', also known as the 7mm-06 Remington and 7mm Express Remington, was introduced in 1957 for the Remington model 740, 760, 721, and 725 rifles. History Having been released 32 years after the .270 Winchester, it had somewhat ...

.35 Whelen The .35 Whelen is a powerful medium-bore rifle cartridge that does not require a magnum action or a magnum bolt-face. The parent of this cartridge is the .30-06 Springfield, which is necked-up to accept a bullet diameter of . This cartridge is m ...

.264 Winchester Magnum The .264 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. Except for the .244 H&H Magnum and .257 Weatherby Magnum, it is the smallest caliber factory cartridge derived from the Holland & Holland belted magnum case. It was introdu ...

, and

7mm Remington Magnum The 7mm Remington Magnum rifle cartridge was introduced as a commercially available round in 1962, along with the new Remington Model 700 bolt-action rifle. It is a member of the belted magnum family that is directly derived from the venerable .3 ...

, as well as much newer cartridges like the .26 and .28 Nosler. The

.308 Winchester The .308 Winchester is a smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge widely used for hunting, target shooting, police, military, and personal protection applications globally. It is similar but not identical to the 7.62×51mm NATO ...

debuted in 1952 and its militarized version, the

, was adopted by the U.S. military in 1954 for the new

M14 rifle The M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M14, is an American selective fire battle rifle chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO (.308 in) cartridge. It became the standard-issue rifle for the U.S. military in 1959, r ...

. By the 1960s it had displaced the .30-06 as the popular cartridge in both the hunting fields and in the battlefields. With a much shorter COL of and using the improved

propellant A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the ...

s available in the 1950s, it could do nearly everything traditional cartridges such as the .30-06 did, but was cheaper to make, lighter and more compact and had lower recoil energy. More importantly, while the .30-06 has produced roughly a dozen

wildcat cartridge A wildcat cartridge, often shortened to wildcat, is a custom cartridge for which ammunition and/or firearms are not mass-produced. These cartridges are often created in order to optimize a certain performance characteristic (such as the power, si ...

s, only the

, and the

.25-06 Remington Considered by many as the most balanced of the "quarter bores" for hunting medium-sized game, the .25-06 Remington remained in obscurity as a wildcat cartridge for nearly half a century before being standardized by Remington in 1969. Its design ...

enjoyed widespread commercial support; in contrast, the .308 Winchester served as the parent case for the wildcat .243 Winchester,

.260 Remington The .260 Remington (also known as 6.5-08 A-Square) cartridge was introduced by Remington in 1997. Many wildcat cartridges based on the .308 Winchester case had existed for years before Remington standardized this round. Because 6.5 mm ( ...

7mm-08 Remington The 7mm-08 Remington is a rifle cartridge that is almost a direct copy of a wildcat cartridge developed around 1958 known as the 7mm/308. As these names would suggest, it is the .308 Winchester case necked down to accept 7 mm (.284) bullets wit ...

.338 Federal The .338 Federal is a rifle cartridge based on the .308 Winchester case necked up to .33 caliber. It was created by Federal Cartridge and Sako in 2006 and intended as a big game cartridge with reasonable recoil for lightweight rifles.''Cartridg ...

, and

.358 Winchester The .358 Winchester is a .35 caliber rifle cartridge based on a necked up .308 Winchester created by Winchester in 1955. The cartridge is also known in Europe as the 9.1x51mm. History This cartridge came over 30 years later than the .35 Whe ...

, all five of which are used by hunters even today. The result was a new series of ''short-action'' cartridges, typically with a COL between , that tend to use bullets of different calibers rather than using a wide variety of the same caliber to achieve the same ballistic effect. The success of short-action cartridges led to the original and longer "standard length" cartridges to be

ously named ''long-action'' cartridges. The

s, which later gained ubiquity over the short-action cartridges as the mainstream service ammunition for both military assault rifles and civilian

modern sporting rifle An AR-15-style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the Colt AR-15 design. The original ArmaLite AR-15 is a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's ArmaLite AR-10 design. The then Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation ...

s, have a COL averaging around , much less than 2.8 in, and are thus also sometimes referred to as ''super short-action'' or "''mini-action''" cartridges.{{cite web, url=https://blog.gunassociation.org/short-action-vs-long-action-rifles/, title=Short Action vs Long Action Rifles Explained, date=3 August 2020, publisher=American Gun Association, accessdate=2021-10-01

List of Full power cartridges

Service cartridges

Service cartridges are cartridges the

s of armies were or are chambered for. *

of Germany *

of NATO *

of Russia *

of Britain *

of France * 8×50mmR Lebel of France * 7x57mm Mauser of Spain *

of Turkey and Belgium *

.30-40 Krag The .30-40 Krag (also known as .30 U.S. and .30 Army) was a cartridge developed in the early 1890s to provide the U.S. armed forces with a smokeless powder cartridge suited for use with modern small-bore repeating rifles to be selected in the 1 ...

of the United States *

of the United States * 7.5×55mm Swiss of Switzerland *

6.5×50mmSR Arisaka The 6.5x50mmSR Arisaka is a semi-rimmed rifle cartridge with a 6.5 mm (.264 in) diameter bullet. It was the standard Japanese military cartridge from 1897 until the late 1930s for service rifles and machine guns when it was gradually repl ...

of Japan * 7.7×58mm Arisaka of Japan *

8×50mmR Mannlicher The Austro-Hungarian 8×50mmR Mannlicher or 8×50mmR M93 is a service cartridge dating back to the days of semi-smokeless powder. It was later replaced by (and many weapons were rechambered for) the 8×56mmR cartridge. History M90 In appr ...

of Austria and Hungary * 8×56mmR of Austria and Hungary *

6.5×52mm Carcano The 6.5×52mm Carcano, also known as the 6.5×52mm Parravicini–Carcano or 6.5×52mm Mannlicher–Carcano, is an Italian military 6.5 mm (.268 cal, actually 0.2675 inches) rimless bottle-necked rifle cartridge, developed from 1889 ...

of Italy * 7.35×51mm Carcano of Italy *

of Sweden and Norway *

8×58mmR Danish Krag The 8×58mmR Danish Krag also known as the 8×58mmRD is a late 19th-century rimmed centerfire military rifle cartridge similar to other early smokeless powder designs. It was briefly adopted by Norway and Sweden and remained the standard Danish se ...

of Denmark *

6.5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer The 6.5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer also known as 6.5×54 Mannlicher–Schönauer Greek or simply 6.5 Greek is a 6.5 mm (.264" cal.) rimless rifle cartridge used in the Mannlicher–Schönauer rifle. It is the direct descendant of the 6.5� ...

of Greece * 6.5×53mmR of the Netherlands * 6.5×58mm Vergueiro of Portugal *

.277 Fury The .277 Fury or 6.8×51mm Common Cartridge, (designated as the .277 SIG Fury by the SAAMI) is a centerfire rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge announced by SIG Sauer in late 2019. Its hybrid three-piece cartridge case has a steel case head an ...

(6.8x51mm Sig) of the United States

Prototype cartridges

References

Pistol and rifle cartridges

Long-action vs. short-action

List of Full power cartridges

Service cartridges

Prototype cartridges

See also

References