Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why not Metric in the US?

You're probably right. But still, somewhere in Washington, D.C. there is a sealed 1 oz. weight, and I'm sure others as well. Plus we have accurate weighing instruments, although no so accurate as those at the Bureau of Weights and Standards.

I read bout this some time ago. These things are vaccuum sealed so as to not get a mote of dust on them.

And since our economy is based on paper money, unlike England in 1760, it wouldn't be nearly as important as knowing what a true ounce of gold was really a true ounce.

Time is another thing the English took liberties with. About that same time, the Gregorian calendar was adopted, which accounted for leap year. It had gone so long, the months and seasons were out of whack with the date. The British refused to adopt the calendar because it was done at the behest of Pope Gregory, and the Catholics were being more or less on the outs at that time. Plus, France adopted it.

But they finally relented. I'm not sure when. To clear up the confusion, in period literature you'll see references like "This event occurred March 23, 1707 OT" which means "Old Time." Meaning the English calendar.

Why not metric here?

Americans like to think of things in feet, inches, and miles.

We might get used to Kilometers. The Army likes Klics since it translates better to moving on foot.

Who wants to be 1 meter .78
when you can be 6 ft tall?

Of course, men might like to brag about a 15,25 cm root.

Gene, I beg to disagree on all counts :
- 6 mm is a nominal diameter and not a cartridge. There are lots of metric and American cartridges with 6 mm in their name : 6x57 Mauser is a metric example and 6 mm PPC is an American example. Thus "6 mm" is not a valid example of an American cartridge wrongly presented as a metric cartridge.
- 7.62x51 is not an expression that I have ever heard of or read from the Europeans, The complete expression is 7.62x51 NATO, but because of the well known 308 Winchester civilian version, nobody in Europe uses the NATO designation and everybody knows that it was an American design. Thus the NATO round, being called 308 Winchester, is not an example of a cartridge which would pose as a metric one.
- 5.6 is also a diameter and not a cartridge.
- The 22 Hornet is the 22 Hornet on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe I have never heard anybody use the metric equivalent ; people do not even know what the equivalent is.
- 22 Savage High-Power (also called 22 High-Power or 22 Imp) was designed by Charles Newton and there is no metric designation in use.

I am not saying that one cannot find a few American or British cartridges that are also called by their metric equivalent, (the 5,6x35R Vierling / 22 WCF is one) but they are not numerous.

On the other hand there are a few British or American cartridges that originated as metric cartridges. Some examples :
- the 275 Rigby is in fact the 7x57 Mauser
- the 500 Jeffery was in fact a Schuler development : the 12,7x70 Schuler
- the 375 Rimless NE is in fact the 9,5x57 Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

I still do not understand why Lee stated that there was "a lot" of "so-called "metric cartridges" that are just just the metric dimensions of cartridges designed in England or the USA".

6mm Remington...7.62 x 51 (NATO) designed in America and called the .308 Winchester (also a nominal diameter) over here, 7mm Remington Magnum, 6.5 Remington Magnum, and the 5.6 x 52R as designated on Norma ammo boxes but a.k.a. the Savage High Power.

That's not a lot. But it's some.

Also, the Hornet is known as the Hornet, but it came from the .22 Winchester Centerfire, which is known in Europe as the 5.6 x 35R Veirling. The 25-35 Winchester is known as the 6.5 x 52R in Europe.

Gene, I have never seen a Norma box of 22 Savage High Power but if you say they also mention 5,6x52R I believe you and concede the point.

Regarding the 7,62x51 NATO I have made my point above.

As for the 6mm, 6.5mm and 7mm Remington, these are the original names of these cartridges, a combination of nominal (metric) diameters followed by the name of the American maker. Thus these cartridges are NOT "metric equivalents of American cartridges", they ARE American cartridges.

As you have found yourself, it is not easy to find "a lot" of examples which support Lee's assertion.

That being said, I find the point rather academic and it probably does not deserve more elaboration.

I recently discovered the 5.6x52R is not the same as the .22 Savage and the 6.5x52R is not the same as the .25 WCF. CIP specs call for a slightly smaller case and chamber for the metric variants. I imagine there was some round-off error at whichever European ammo company first adopted the US cartridge. The minor differences may explain why some modern shooters of the .22 Savage report problems with bulged brass near the base.

As you probably know, the High Power does not shoot a .224 bullet, but a .228. This may account for the buldged cases.

As for the other information, it came from Cartridges of the World, but it was an old edition.

No, America doesn't seem to be in love with metric cartridges that are home grown, with the exceptions noted above. The 6mm Rem has never sold really well, and the 6.5 even less. The 7mm Mag is a winner, though.

Added to favorites is the 7.62 x 39, which is getting harder to find at reasonable prices.

BTW, most Russian 7.62 x 39 has a mild steel case. Try a magnet on the bullet. While I'm sure it's softer than the barrel, it is, still, steel-jacketed.

The old measurements,weither Russian,Japanese,French or Imperial were based on the human body. Yard,a arm's length,inch,a thumb width. The Japanese were smaller than the Russian.I wonder why.Certainly good enough in middle ages,we all have arms and feet.

The first Russian bolt rifles (still used till WW II) were marked for caliber in the Russin word for "lines." In other words, the 7.62 caliber was the dimension in width of a certain number of lines. I suppose a "line" was the width of a line made with a pen. Rather arbitrary, but so long as there was a "standard" it worked fine.

This was of course before Russia adopted the metric system.

400 gradients per circle. 2 pi radians per circle.



It is, for them. The fact that we're still the largest and strongest economy in the world is quite pertinent. Whether Myanmar uses SI, Imperial, or US Standard units is completely irrelevant. Consensus, in fact, has no place in science. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is worthwhile reading particularly with respect to consensus and progress in scientific theory.



And a British nautical mile is defined to be exactly one minute of latitude. No logic there, eh?



Literacy had nothing to do with it. Decimal notation for fractions was not brought to the Middle East and Europe until the 10th century in the Muslim world and the first known use of decimal fractions in Europe was, I believe, in the late 15th century. Folks might be interested to learn that the Babylonians used a base 60 number system which of course offers wonderful leverage of whole fractions. Some of their mathematical advances diffused into the Greek world, and thus later into Europe and Arabia. Ironically the Babylonians had a positional number representation but 2+ millennia later the Romans didn't.



Not even remotely gonna happen. There are standard weights and measures stored securely in a number of locations, in fact I believe efforts have been made to preserve US standards in the event of nuclear war. But with the help of a $5 calculator and access to a metric standard somewhere, the US standards can be reproduced in a straightforward manner.

Ironically, all you SI fanatics are ignoring the one measure that is critical out to 6+ significant figures; time. Time definition and measurement has a big impact on astronomy and astrophysics, as well as being critical for radionavigation systems like GPS.

Thanks for the correction! Not being a Russian or in the navy anymore I'm a little rusty in that area.

Thanks, CouchTater, for the clarifications and facts.

Literacy had nothing to do with it. Decimal notation for fractions was not brought to the Middle East and Europe until the 10th century in the Muslim world and the first known use of decimal fractions in Europe was, I believe, in the late 15th century. Folks might be interested to learn that the Babylonians used a base 60 number system which of course offers wonderful leverage of whole fractions. Some of their mathematical advances diffused into the Greek world, and thus later into Europe and Arabia. Ironically the Babylonians had a positional number representation but 2+ millennia later the Romans didn't.

Well, yes. Twelve is also the root of the Babylonian system of 60, as 60 has far more dividers than 50. It was to their system what ten is to ours. That is the point I was trying to make.

Which seems illogical, because we have ten fingers for counting, so ten would seem to be the "natural" way of counting things, and probably was, until there came a greater need to parcel things down in smaller units...or parcel thing up in larger units, which could then be subdivided.

When I said "literacy" I mean math literacy, which may be an oxymoron. Some societies never developed it because they didn't need it. A hunter-gatherer society saw no need for math because the had no need to count more than they could immediately use. So, in most Native American tribes, after ten, or maybe 20, it became "many."

I have trouble in the Summer with reports of forest fires burning "780,000 acres," or some such. Yeah, I can get out my calculator and divide by 640 to get square miles, but why not report smaller numbers in the first place? Square miles will work, but I'll even take hectares...

Jaywalker