Please explain 45-70

Mossbergboogie

Why is it called a 45-70. I always thought it was a .45 cal bullet

Ronald J. Snow

Right. 45 caliber (.458 diameter) with 70 grains of black powder.

RJSnow

Tailgunner1954

45(cal)-70(gr. black powder)-405(gr. lead bullet) or 45-70-500 were the 2 origional loadings.
Todays loads are loaded to the same pressures and velocities, but with smaller amounts of smokeless powder.

B17-P51

There is also 30-30, 25-20,32-40, 30-40, 38-55, 44-40, 45-90, 50-100, 50-120. That is not nearly all of them. If there is another number it shows the bullet weight. 30-30-150 (170) Hope this helps!

TWalker

Slightly off topic, why is a .38 caliber revolver called a thirty-eight when the diameter is .357? Why is a .357 Magnum called a magnum when there is no "regular" .357? Shouldn't it be called a .38 Magnum? Maybe we should just call the 38 Special a .357, then the .357 magnum makes sense.

Tailgunner1954

TWalker
38 BP revolvers used .380 barrels, the first 38 cartridges used heeled bullets (see a 22LR for a example of this) and .380 barrels. When the later 38's came out (the ones we know today), they used the same case dimentions, but with the bullets fitted inside and the smaller barrel we are familier with today.

Xracer

Well, there's 30-30, 25-20,32-40, 30-40, 38-55, 44-40, 45-90, 50-100, etc. in which the first number is the nomimal caliber, and the second number is the number of grains of black powder (except for the .30-30 which was never made in black powder).

Then there's the .38-40 which is 40 caliber with 38 grains of black powder....

....and the .250-3000 which is 25 caliber and has a 3000 foot-per-second muzzle velocity.....

....and the .30-06 which is 30 caliber and was adopted by the U.S. Gov't in 1906....

....and the .25-06 which is a .30-06 necked down to 25 caliber.....

.....and the....oh to hell with it. If you're not confused enough now, you obviously don't understand the situation!!! [:D]

Spider7115

quote:Originally posted by Xracer
Well, there's 30-30, 25-20,32-40, 30-40, 38-55, 44-40, 45-90, 50-100, etc. in which the first number is the nomimal caliber, and the second number is the number of grains of black powder (except for the .30-30 which was never made in black powder).

Then there's the .38-40 which is 40 caliber with 38 grains of black powder....

....and the .250-3000 which is 25 caliber and has a 3000 foot-per-second muzzle velocity.....

....and the .30-06 which is 30 caliber and was adopted by the U.S. Gov't in 1906....

....and the .25-06 which is a .30-06 necked down to 25 caliber.....

.....and the....oh to hell with it. If you're not confused enough now, you obviously don't understand the situation!!! [:D]

varian

this is what marketing does after engineering is finished

1KYDSTR

Hi TWalker. The reason that he 357/38 thiung came about is when the US Army Ordnance dept put out specs for a new pistol (just before the Spanish American War), they requested "nothing smaller than 38 caliber". This prersented issues for Colt and S&W as their revolvers in that caliber were surrently being made with 357 diameter barrels, far short of the .380 requested. They simply changed the designation to call their smaller diameter barrels "38"'s. It seems the practice made it past most Ordnance officers (or they just didn't care) and the term 357 did not come up again until S&W needed to differentiate between their new "Magnum" (the 357, of course)in the late 30's and the previous S&W 38 special. Another atempt to avoid ammo interchange issues. Never ceases to amaze me how things get done sometimes!