Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What is a magnum cartridge?

Some REAL magnums IMO that are LESS than .333 cal.

The 22RFM certainly is a mag over the 22 LR, @1200 fps VS 2000 or so.

The 240 Wby IS a mag over 243/6mm.

The 257 Wby is a mag over smaller 25s but ???

The 270 Wby IS a mag over the 270 Win.

The 7 RM IS a mag over several lesser 7mm carts.

The 308 NM / 300 WM / 300 WBY ARE mags over 300 Sav/308W & 30-06. krap how could I forget the 303 B, OH, it's .311 that's how.

These FEW come to mind rather quickly.

We have some SO CALLED "magnums" today that I personally don't believe DESERVE the title. JMHO

YMMV, but I don't drive your truck. <G>

MD,
And what if that is exactly where the term came from and was meant to mean?!

Consider that if the Brits were the first to use it, the people targetted for their firearms and cartridges would have been military officers and aristocracy, ie those with time/circumstances and the money to hunt. These people presumably would of had some idea of what a magnum bottle of bubbly etc was ... ie an oversized and twice larger than normal bottle.

Say we date the term magnum to about the 1860s, and to cartridges in the 1880s/90s ... a time when cartridges were starting to develop long necks and gentle sloping shoulders relatively far down the body, rather than being straight walled, and long and large physically as BP was still ruling the roost. Certainly the 350Rigby Magnum, 425WR and 375H&H fit that bill, likewise the two flanged earlier cartridges.

Maybe the connection was that visually they superficially appeared similar to the magnum bottles, and that was something the intended target audience probably knew as being 'twice as good'. A sign of excess and of wealth and privilege.

The original Coca-Cola bottle I believe was also to be designed/selected to be "a bottle which a person could recognize even if they felt it in the dark, and so shaped that, even if broken, a person could tell at a glance what it was." Eventually the coca bean may have been its inspiration, but instant recognition of the product through its shape was obviously an important factor.

Now if that's all too deep and meaningful, bear with me ... its the middle of summer down here and with 46 days to go before New Years eve (Duck season eve) ... minds tend to go a bit screwy.
Cheers...
Con

I dunno how I'm gonna write this so maybe some of you guys can straighten me out...

But to suggest the 30-06 is the baseline against which magnum status is awarded, is to say that North America is the only place where magnums live.

The 30-06 is not the standard the world over. Con, AGW and others of my countrymen might help me with this, but I would have pegged either the 243 or the 308 as the "standard" in our country. Does that make the 270 or the 30-06 a "magnum" for Aussies. Nup.

I reckon the term magnum is firstly just a marketing naming gimmick - which is to say it means nothing - and secondly and perhaps of greater utility, is just another descriptor by which to differentiate all of the cartridges. Eg 44 Special vs 44 Magnum.

Hmm, just read back my post. Not very helpful. I apologise; I am presently at the back end of an Australia Day bbq which has been going for 24 hours or more and am probably not at my best!

Regards.

- Bob

But..... THIS one goes to 11! That's one more, idn't it?



"Magnum" means a little more than normal. Or a lot.


Now define "normal" and you'll have it pegged.

Bob,
I reckon in Australia the 303British was our standard for a long time, and if you look at range templates the 8mm (presumably 8mm Mauser ie 8x57) and its capabilities is basically what seems to have set our bigbore range standards in terms of fall-out distances etc...

Out of interest, which US derived cartridge first used 'magnum' as part of its name?
Cheers...
Con

Or is a magnum cartridge like one of the old definitions of pornography: "I know it when I see it."? - MD

That's as close as anything so far...and a bit more of the bubbly from a really big bottle with a small neck might shed new light on this.

As a U S citizen and lifelong hunter and loooong time gun nut, that is an interesting ? to me. I feel like I should know the answer to that and IF I do, it's not coming to me.

This is going to be a very long day for me and it will be this evening before I can follow up.

I think you've got THE starting point for us ... Yanks

Gaday Mates

If case capacity determines the use of the word Magnum why is that a 454 Casull,475 &500 Linebaugh are not magnums.I mean a 125MM Howitzer is a rifle(Look down the barrel) and its not a magnum.So to me it is a Term used by The Manufacturer that has nothing to do with size and every thing to do with sales.Just my humble opinion,Huntz

The 475L and the 500L, 500 JRH and the 454 were named after the people that developed. To compare small arms artillery is ridiculous

It is a word dreamt up by salesmen that means absolutely nothing when applied to cartridges.

Bottles of plonk are another matter all together.

since magnum was first used to describe large bottles of wine , then it must be used in ammo to just describe a larger case

It's a gimmick to sell more guns

For me in my OLD AGE and BAD HEALTH now I cut most things down
to the simple terms for my feeble mind!
To me Magnum means WEATHERBY!!!!!!!!!!
The rest are just pretenders.
ARMA

So why is it not a 475 Linebaugh Magnum????It is after all larger than a Ruger 480.which also brings up this question why is the 480 smaller than a 475???And yes an Artillery piece can be called a Rifle.If ridiculous is not allowed in the thread,I don`t think JB would have started it.Thats the point,right JB???

The question may need to be sharpened to arrive at an unambiguous answer. The problem is deciding the meaning of "US derived".

In the US during the 1930s, dozens of wildcat cartridges were developed with the 300 H&H as the parent case, and most of them were labelled as "Magnum". Some made it to popular proprietary status (e.g. Mashburn and Weatherby), and some were eventually blessed by SAAMI. Do these count as "US derived", even though they were based on the British 300 H&H?

Would an answer naming a wildcat cartridge be acceptable, assuming the parent case obviously originated in the US?

If you exclude wildcat cartridges, and also factory cartridges based on non-US parent cases, then the earliest cartridge designated as a magnum may be the 357 Magnum revolver cartridge, which was introduced in 1934.

--Bob

The classic Magnum cartridge is the 45 ACP:

Here's a cartridge deserving mention in a SADD-based thread: The 350 JAWS Micro Mag. You can buy brass from Midway.



In the late 1990s, the Jordan Arms and Weapons System was set up in the Kingdom of Jordan. They designed a series of pistol cartridges necked down from the 45 Win Mag ctg, including the 225, 250, 300, 350 and 400 Jaws Micro Mags. They were intended for a pistol, the VIPER, designed by Wildey to be manufactured in Jordan.

The name may be the ultimate firearms oxymoron: "Micro Magnum".

--Bob

Bullshooter,
You got it, I meant US designed and commercialised cartridge to first use the 'magnum' label, though the wildcats are also of interest. Just wondering how that word came into the gun language for the US hunters/shooters?
Cheers...
Con

Frist that I rember is the 357 S&w mag.

Isn't Magnum that PI in Hawaii that lives with Higgins and flies around with TC in a little helicopter?