The 7.62 mm caliber is a nominal

caliber In guns, particularly firearms, but not #As a measurement of length, artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge ( ...

used for a number of different cartridges. Historically, this class of cartridge was commonly known as .30 caliber, the equivalent in

Imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imper ...

and United States Customary measures. It is most commonly used in hunting cartridges. The measurement equals 0.30 inches or three decimal lines, written ''.3″'' and read as ''three-line''. The 7.62 mm designation refers to the internal diameter of the barrel at the lands (the raised helical ridges in rifled gun barrels). The actual bullet caliber is often , although Soviet weapons commonly use a bullet, as do older British ( .303 British) and Japanese ( 7.7×58mm Arisaka) cartridges.

Pistol cartridges in 7.62 mm caliber

Many pistol cartridges are in this caliber; the most common are: *

7.62×25mm Tokarev The 7.62×25mm Tokarev cartridge (designated as the 7.62 × 25 Tokarev by the C.I.P.) is a Soviet rimless bottleneck pistol cartridge widely used in former Soviet states and in China, among other countries. The cartridge was largely superseded ...

, also known as 7.62 mm TT, is used in the Tokarev pistol, and many of the World War II Soviet

submachine guns A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an automa ...

* 7.63×25mm Mauser, which was the basis for, and has nearly identical dimensions to, the Tokarev, but has different loading specifications. *

7.65×25mm Borchardt The 7.65×25mm Borchardt cartridge was designed by Georg Johann Luger for use in Hugo Borchardt's Borchardt C-93 pistol. It was the first successful rimless pistol cartridge. History and design With a rimless, bottlenecked case using smokeles ...

, from which both the Mauser and Parabellum cartridges were developed *

7.65×21mm Parabellum The 7.65×21mm Parabellum (designated as the 7,65 Parabellum by the C.I.P. and also known as .30 Luger and 7.65mm Luger) is a rimless, bottleneck, centerfire pistol cartridge that was introduced in 1898 by German arms manufacturer Deutsche Waff ...

* 7.65×17mm Browning, more commonly known as .32 ACP * 7.62mm SP-2, used only in the

TKB-506 __NOTOC__ The TKB-506 () was a small handgun designed to look like a cigarette case, developed by Igor Stechkin, allegedly on the orders of the KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agen ...

cigarette case pistol * 7.62x35mm Lahti, used in the AL-43 submachine gun

Revolver cartridges in 7.62 mm caliber

Some of the

revolver A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...

cartridges in this caliber are: *

7.62×38mmR 7.62×38mmR (also known as 7.62 mm Nagant and Cartridge, Type R) is an ammunition Cartridge (firearms), cartridge designed for use in the Russian Nagant M1895 revolver. A small number of experimental submachine guns (e.g., Tokarev 1927), d ...

is used only in the

Nagant M1895 The Nagant M1895 is a seven-shot, gas-seal revolver designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Fabrique d'armes Émile et Léon Nagant, Léon Nagant for the Russian Empire. The Nagant M1895 was chambered for a proprietary cartridge, 7.62×38 ...

revolver. * .32 Long Colt – originally chambered for small-frame Colt revolvers and the Marlin model 1892 rifle, this cartridge uses a heeled bullet with a case the same diameter as the major diameter of the bullet. It shares dimensions with the .32 rimfire cartridge of the same length. It is not to be confused with the .32 Colt's New Police cartridge. * .32 S&W Long is also known as .32 Colt's New Police when chambered in Colt revolvers. The original loading for this cartridge used a round nose, or flattened round nbered widely in revolvers made in the US and Europe through World War II. This cartridge is used in several modern target pistols (not revolvers) with flush-seated wadcutters. The short version of this cartridge (.32 S&W) was chambered in many break-top revolvers at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries in the US and Europe. * .32 H&R Magnum is the only revolver cartridge in this caliber in wide use today, mostly in small-frame revolvers. This is an extended version of the much earlier .32 S&W Long, which is an extended version of the .32 S&W. *

.327 Federal Magnum The .327 Federal Magnum is a cartridge introduced by Federal Premium Ammunition and also sold by Sturm, Ruger & Co. It is intended to provide the power of a .357 Magnum in six-shot, compact revolvers, whose cylinders would otherwise only hold f ...

is a new cartridge developed jointly by Ruger and Federal. This cartridge is an extended version of the .32 H&R Magnum.

Rifle cartridges in 7.62 mm caliber

The most common and historical rifle cartridges in this caliber are: * .30 carbine, used in the M1/M2/M3 carbines, is sometimes called the 7.62×33mm. * 300 AAC Blackout (7.62×35mm), also known as 300 BLK, is designed for the

M4 carbine The M4 carbine (officially Carbine, Caliber 5.56 mm, M4) is a 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle developed in the United States during the 1980s. It is a shortened version of the M16A2 assault rifle. The M4 is extensively used by the US mi ...

and

STANAG magazine A STANAG magazine or NATO magazine is a type of detachable firearm magazine proposed by NATO in October 1980. Shortly after NATO's acceptance of the 5.56×45mm NATO rifle cartridge, Draft Standardization Agreement ( STANAG) 4179 was proposed i ...

. * Soviet

7.62×39mm The 7.62×39mm (also called 7.62 Soviet, formerly .30 Russian Short) round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the global proliferation of the AK-47 rifle and related Kalashn ...

, also known as 7.62 mm Soviet, M43, or occasionally .30 Short Combloc, is designed for the

SKS The SKS () is a semi-automatic rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov in the 1940s. The SKS was first produced in the Soviet Union but was later widely exported and manufactured by various nations. Its disting ...

and used in the

AK-47 The AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is an assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kala ...

AKM The AKM () is an assault rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1959. It was developed as the successor to the AK-47 adopted by the Soviet Union a decade prior. Introduced into service with the Soviet Army in 19 ...

RPK The RPK (, English: "Kalashnikov's hand-held machine gun"), sometimes inaccurately termed the RPK-47, is a Soviet 7.62×39mm light machine gun that was developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the early 1960s, in parallel with the AKM assault rifl ...

and RPD light machine guns. *

7.62×40mm Wilson Tactical The 7.62×40mm Wilson Tactical (7.62×40mm WT) is a centerfire rifle cartridge introduced in 2011 by Wilson Combat. The goal was to produce an accurate, low-recoil .30-caliber hunting cartridge that could be used in an AR-15-type rifle using a ...

. *

7.62×45mm The 7.62×45mm (designated as the 7,62 × 45 by the C.I.P.) is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate rifle cartridge developed in Czechoslovakia. It is fired by the Czech Vz. 52 rifle, Vz. 52 light machine gun, and ZB-530 machine gun. The c ...

vz. 52, made solely for the Czechoslovak

vz. 52 rifle The vz. 52 rifle is a semi-automatic rifle developed shortly after the Second World War in Czechoslovakia. Its full name is 7,62mm samonabíjecí puška vzor 52. Vz. 52 is an abbreviation for ''vzor 52'', meaning "model 52". It fires the unique ...

, was replaced by 7.62×39mm. *

7.62×51mm NATO The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, straight walled, bottlenecked, centerfire rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries. First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first be ...

and its civilian variant .308 Winchester, sometimes described as .308 NATO by people mixing Imperial and Customary measurements, is used by some civilians, with metric measurements used by NATO. * 7.62×53mmR, Finnish design based on the Russian 7.62×54mmR round. * 7.62×54mmR, another Russian cartridge, it was first used in the

Mosin–Nagant The Mosin–Nagant is a five-shot, Bolt action, bolt-action, Magazine (firearms), internal magazine–fed military rifle. Known officially as the 3-line rifle M1891, in Russia and the former Soviet Union as Mosin's rifle (, ISO 9: ) and inform ...

rifle in 1891. The modern versions of the cartridges are now in wide use in numerous world armies as sniper rifles (particularly the SVD family) and machine guns (numerous types, many developed from AK family, such as the PKM). *

.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 us ...

, is a US military cartridge used in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, as well as hunting game, is known as the 7.62×63mm in metric measurement. * .303 British, used in

Lee–Metford The Lee–Metford (also known as the Magazine Lee–Metford) is a British bolt action rifle which combined James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt system and detachable magazine with an innovative seven-groove rifled barrel designed by William Ell ...

and

Lee–Enfield The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the standard service rifle of th ...

rifles, is known as 7.7×56mmR in metric measurement. * 7.7×58mm Arisaka is used in the Type 99, Type 2 and Type 4 rifles. * 7.65×53mm Argentine is used in various

Mauser Mauser, originally the Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik, was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols was produced beginning in the 1870s for the German armed forces. In the late 19th and ...

bolt-action rifles, primarily in Belgium, Turkey, and Argentina. * .308 Norma Magnum * .300 Norma Magnum * .300 Winchester Magnum is used by many hunting and sniper rifles, sometimes called the 7.62×67mm. * .300 Winchester Short Magnum * .300 Lapua Magnum, 7.62×70mm * .30-30 Winchester, a popular deer hunting cartridge, is typically used in lever-action rifles, such as the

Winchester Model 1894 The Winchester Model 1894 rifle (also known as the Winchester 94 or Model 94) is a lever-action repeating rifle that became one of the most famous and popular hunting rifles of all time. It was designed by John Browning in 1894 and originally ...

and

Marlin Model 336 The Marlin Model 336 is a lever-action rifle and carbine made by Marlin Firearms. Since its introduction in 1948, it has been offered in a number of different calibers and barrel lengths, but is commonly chambered in .30-30 Winchester or .35 ...

, and is adapted to European sporting guns as 7.62×51mmR. * .30 R Blaser, used in break-action rifles for hunting medium to large game. * .30 Thompson Center (.30 TC)30TC
{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110924133718/http://www.tcarms.com/firearms/venture.php , date=2011-09-24 * .30-378 Weatherby Magnum *

30-40 Krag The .30-40 Krag, also known as the .30 U.S. and .30 Army, was a rifle 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 select ...

References

Pistol and rifle cartridges 7.62 mm firearms

Pistol cartridges in 7.62 mm caliber

Revolver cartridges in 7.62 mm caliber

Rifle cartridges in 7.62 mm caliber

See also

References