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I wasn't really arguing the merits of the .280. I was just noting (and perhaps I am remembering badly) that the .280 was pretty comparable to the .303 in velocity and trajectory if not in energy. The point was that the British would not have been giving up any great range capability by changing to a new cartridge.
Flintlock and musket are still viable weapons . Even spears.
7.62x54R was not replaced. Doesn't mean it shouldn't have.
The Soviets did replace the rimmed cartridge with the 7.62x39 which itself was replaced by 5.45x39. So the 7.62x54R was no longer in the main infantry weapon.
But we go back to the main issue of machine gun v infantry rifle. The RPD and other AK machine guns were not cutting it as they didn't have the extreme ranges that was expected. So we get the PK.
It's a huge cost to replace one round to another especially for very specialised roles such as machine gun or DRM so using the 54R makes perfect sense as it's in production and also it means that the millions of Mosins also can be brought back to use.
However both the French and British had similar issues and scrapped their obsolete rounds in the 1920s and 1950s.
The Italians kept the bottle nosed Carcano 6.5x52 until the adoption of the Garand so keeping hold of an obsolete cartridge for production reasons can backfire.
SVD is not a sniper rifle.
The Vintorez is a sniper rifle and uses specialist rounds.
The main rifle of the WarPac was either 7.62x39 or 5.45x39, not 54R.
Ths Sniper Mosin used 54R so it would make sense to keep the round in specialist roles. But virtually every other country changed from a rimmed to a non rimmed cartridge. Either France and UK was wrong and the Soviets were right or vice versa.
By that logic the Soviets should have kept the Mosin.
And to say the 8mm Lebel or 303 is underpowered or lacking compared to the German 7.92 is nonsense.
In the military context it matters zero.
The ability of a cartridge say 8mm Lebel or 303 is going to be better than the average squaddie who can shoot it.Hello The Basket,
So if I understand you correctly, a lack of performance in a military rifle cartridge "matters zero" but the presence of a rim on the cartridge case is a better reason to replace it. That doesn't seem to make much sense.
This kind of reasoning also has a lot of other implications, but I believe folks can come to their own conclusions.
Regarding the Mosin Nagant as a sniper rifle, the Soviets chose to replace it with a more modern weapon and did so with the Dragunov. By what logic should they have kept the Mosin?
- Ivan.
The very original 1888 pattern Lee Metford continues today as the arm of the Duke of Atholl's Army.
Incidentally the amenability of the Lee to variable ammunition was no help to the over finely made Ross Rifle and led the RFC and RNAS to get specially selected .303 supplies for their aerial machine guns.
On cartridges the shape of a cartridge has darn little to do with the accuracy of cartridge, bullet, barrel combination once you go further back than the neck. Or at least very little difference in practical accuracy if you are not competing in the bench rest game where 0.010 difference in 5 shot group size is the difference between 1st and 5th place.
Bullet quality and barrel quality are by far the62 determining factors in accuracy. Both made tremendous strides in the last 100 years. At least in large quantity production.
The amount of case taper needed depends somewhat on the type and quality of the case material and the requirements for extraction. Tapered cases also tend to put more pressure on the bolt face. Really straight cases tend to stick more although the 7.62 NATO doesn't seem to have a lot of trouble in gas operated guns (I am not saying no trouble) The G3 and it's brothers/cousins use fluted chambers that float the outside of the case on a layer of gas to avoid the sticking problem (or tearing the extractor through the rim leaving the case in the chamber).
In the practical sense, I believe you are correct. Differences in cartridge shape are most likely to have a greater than 0.010 inch difference in AVERAGE group size though.
I am sure that you already know this: When the US military switched from .30-06 to 7.62 NATO, one of the interesting side effects was that the accuracy of service rifles increased noticeably. One might attribute this also to the change in the rifle from M1 Garand to M14, but the accuracy improvement also showed up in Navy M1 Garands that had been converted to 7.62 NATO (properly converted rather than just sleeved).
It appears that in general, the higher loading density and shorter powder column in the 7.62 case resulted in GENERALLY better accuracy.
The reason for so many qualifiers such as "generally" and "average" is that there exist plenty of exceptional rifles in both calibers.
Just an amusing aside. Technically the Duke of Atholls Highlanders are an actual army and neither civilian nor British. BTW I see that the last .303 cartridge to be approved for British use was the Round .303 inch Ball L1A1 which was made in the mid 1980's.The 2nd company Governor's Foot Guard of Connecticut has a number of 30-40 Krags. 2nd Company Governor's Foot Guard of Connecticut. Although the "service" rifle is the 1903 Springfield. I was a member for over 35 years.
Not sure what the "arms" of ceremonial units have to do with the discussion though.
But there are often other factors at work that confuse things. Most .30-06s use a 1-10 twist while 7.62 NATO/.308 are more varied. Often 1-11 or 1-12. Throats are often different leading to different distances/jumps for the bullet to travel before hitting rifling (the sleeved M1s to .308 have problem here, a 12mm increase in bullet travel before hitting rifling even if everything else was the same). Due to changes in propellent powders most .30-06 loads have more empty space than .308 loads which allows for more variation in the powder location, unless using bulky slow burning powders in the .30-06 and these are the ones that can screw up the gas port pressure.
The length to diameter ratio changed between the two cases but only the length really changed.
The. 303 was used quite recently by the Canadian Rangers and Bangladesh police. So Lee-Enfield rifles certainly has stuck around. Would be interesting to know where these last rounds went.Just an amusing aside. Technically the Duke of Atholls Highlanders are an actual army and neither civilian nor British. BTW I see that the last .303 cartridge to be approved for British use was the Round .303 inch Ball L1A1 which was made in the mid 1980's.