Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Do you really need to call a cartridge or chambering a caliber?

For real? This is supposed to be the rifle looney site!

Carl, here's part of a short article I wrote on this subject a year or two ago:

In 2017 I started collecting firearms websites that use caliber when they should use cartridge or chambering. You’d think shooting industry folks would know better, but here’s the list—though some companies (including Hornady and New Ultra Light Arms) have apparently heeded the calls for caliber correctness since I started the list:

Barrett Firearms
Federal Ammunition
Fierce Arms
Franchi
GA Precision
Heym
Hill Country Rifles
Holland and Holland (calibre)
Hornady
Howa
H-S Precision
Kimber
Lapua
Lyman
Mauser
New Ultra Light Arms
Norma
Rigby (calibre)
Ruger
Sako
Sauer
Shaw Barrels
Smith & Wesson
Speer
Tikka
Weatherby Rifles
Winchester Rifles

Listing caliber-incorrect websites, however, might imply this is a recent development, caused by the general semi-literacy of the Internet. But it’s apparently traditional—and sometimes perpetrated by revered members of the shooting profession.

Col. Townsend Whelen, perhaps the best-known American rifle writer during the first half of the 20th century, misused caliber quite a bit, even well into the second half of the century, doing so several times in the 1965 book Mister Rifleman, co-authored with Bradford Angier. Ken Waters, the long-time “Pet Loads” columnist for Handloader magazine, published a column on the .300 Weatherby Magnum in 1971, where he stated the barrel on his rifle is “the No. 1 contour barrel, standard in Weatherby Mark V rifles of this caliber.”

The English language complicates this by being more flexible than some other languages. German, for instance, tends to be pretty rigid, especially the written form, though major controversies have erupted over recent attempts at uniformity. The German orthography reform of 1996 (Reform der deutschen Rechtschreibung von 1996) simplified and sometimes deleted older rules, such as capitalizing all nouns. But so many traditional Germans rebelled that a decade later the Council for German Orthography reversed many “reforms,” including capitalizing nouns.

American English is far more flexible, largely due to Noah Webster. His original 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language (which Webster called Federal English, as opposed to British English) was based on his belief that spelling, grammar and definitions should be based on how most people actually spoke and wrote—which is how he came up with his commonly understood meanings.

“Caliber” is so commonly used for cartridge and chambering at least 90% of us wouldn’t hesitate when somebody takes a look at one of our rifles and asks, “What caliber is it?” Instead of arguing about the meaning of caliber, we’d reply .243 Winchester or .30-06 or .375 H&H. Only the other 10%, who firmly believe there’s ONE definition of caliber, get as upset as traditional Germans who know nouns MUST start with a capital letter. (These percentages are just guesses, of course. In my experience the percentage of caliber Websterists is probably higher, perhaps even 99%.)

Of course, caliber-correctness has not died, despite widespread changes in American common usage since we rebelled against the British government. This is why you probably won’t see any of my articles describe the .270 Winchester or .300 Weatherby as a “caliber.” However, I am getting older and more forgetful, so won’t guarantee anything—though I still believe ranting against the “misuse” of caliber resembles trying to block a tidal wave with a sand castle.

What caliber would be best matched with a 6x18 Leupold and Hardscrambles?

Prolly 30 caliber

This has been chewed more times than I can remember since I joined in
2010.

Communication is more important than nit picking.

Jerry

^^^^^ Arkansas

Spinning projectiles down the tube.

Thanks, it's a big relief to get this out....

Damn! Now that we finally got this straight I will be able to sleep tonight 😁......Hb

Yes

You’re DANG right !!

We can read New Rifle Boxes and know what they’re talking bout.


[quote=Mule Deer]

In 2017 I started collecting firearms websites that use caliber when they should use cartridge or chambering.

Barrett Firearms
Federal Ammunition
Fierce Arms
Franchi
GA Precision
Heym
Hill Country Rifles
Holland and Holland (calibre)
Hornady
Howa
H-S Precision
Kimber
Lapua
Lyman
Mauser
New Ultra Light Arms
Norma
Rigby (calibre)
Ruger
Sako
Sauer
Shaw Barrels
Smith & Wesson
Speer
Tikka
Weatherby Rifles
Winchester Rifles


“Caliber” is so commonly used for cartridge and chambering at least 90% of us wouldn’t hesitate when somebody takes a look at one of our rifles and asks, “What caliber is it ?

——————————

We have known long before the WWW and The Hunter’s Campfire that “Caliber, 30-06, 270 Win.” et.al designated the cartridge the gun fired.

Communication buddy not nit picking.

Jerry

Calling a cartridge a caliber is nothing but ignorant,
if not willful stupidity.



Like calling a cartridge a bullet by the uninformed.

Some folks reading comprehension is lacking to say the least.


Jerry

Considering that manufacturers literally stamp "CAL. 30-06 Springfield" or "CAL. XYZ Cartridge" on the barrels of guns since forever, it's understandable people use it that way. I don't sweat the small stuff and won't nitpick someone over it generally. However, the distinction becomes more important in the context of handloading and ballistics, especially handloading since you need a proper designation for every component and aspect to properly discuss it.

I don't get worked up over somone calling a detachable magazine a "clip" either. Context makes it clear what they mean. Good enough.

Don't go there!


I found examples of Remingtoon calling their part for the 760 all three terms:
CLIP
MAGAZINE
MAGAZINE CLIP


Almost two much too bare.....

Long lost brother? AMEN

You're welcome. I felt it was time.

Clip,
shells/bullets,
groupings,
pattern (for rifles)
it goes on and on.


Unfortunately (for me) I have a long list of more important things to
waste blood pressure points on.

Stand in any gun shop on a busy day, if you can stand to.
If every customer got all of this right, how many wouldn't still show
their complete ignorance. And ignorance of that ignorance.

Don't destress, but a random old dude today asked me, at Brownells, if 22LR HP ammo was for a 22 LR..... I had to do a double-take and then figured out he was serious. Yes sir, it sure is. It's both LR and HP.....

Random peeps get a pass, not 'Fire regulars. Come'on Man.

What are you trying to say?

Only anal retentive piss ninnies worry about such trivial shyt.

WGAF. Marlin called them clips in their ads as far back as I can remember. Everybody knows what they're talkin about. Hell, I've always called them clips myself, though I do know the difference between a clip and a detachable box magazine.

^^^^^^ Spreading joy!

When I was a child, I thought only old maid schoolteachers picked on how you said it rather than what you said. I was wrong.

"I prefer 30 caliber for hunting" means exactly chit.







Did I mention the media usage of HIGH CALIBER!


















If yun's can't have fun on the 'Fire on Saturday night, what's the point....

I grew up in a part of Pennsylvania where almost to a man you either carried a pump 30-06 or a 30-30 lever. Every pump guy i ever knew including me in those days called them "Clips" rather than "Magazines". Magazines were something we read while sitting on the Can

Me too Mike

I don't remember ever hearing 'clip' referred to as a magazine UNTIL I joined the fire in 2010.

As Mtn Boomer said.....

"I found examples of Remingtoon calling their part for the 760 all three terms:
CLIP
MAGAZINE
MAGAZINE CLIP"

Some people need 'relaxed panties'.


Jerry

TRY ? nothing, I said exactly what I meant!.


Jerry

A magazine holds and feeds ammunition, a clip holds ammunition but does not feed ammunition. They are 2 separate items

But gentlemen it’s really spelled calibre 😃 at least up here.

Correct English versus the vernacular is always challenge especially when regional and national variations come into play.

Just think about what certain birds, fish and animals have for various regional names.

Burbot, Fresh water ling cod, eelpout, Mariah, coney fish etc, all are lota lota taxonomically. Should we insist that only lota lota is acceptable?

As long as we all understand each other how important are small variations in language?

"bear"

Ingwe: perhaps he meant it was too much to expose….

John, I noticed Europeans and Scandinavians almost universally refer to individual cartridges as "Caliber" (or Kaliber as the case may be).

When I was younger it bugged me. Now I figure it's not a mountain worth dying on...

Q: "What caliber you shootin?" - A: "7em-em."

Translation:

Q: "What's your rifle chambered for?" A: "7mm Remington Magnum."

Here in Montana, only the 7RM is referred to as "7 em-em" so it's easy to know it's never a 7mm-08, 7x57, etc.

Way back when I gave up explaining my metric cartridges because it always guaranteed a follow on question:

"What'd you use on the mulie? My 6.5 Swede. What's that? It's a .26 caliber."

These days in the interest of reducing cartridge question pollution I do the following:

"What'd you shoot that elk with? My .26 Creedmoor. Really? Yup."

"What's that rifle? That's my .366 Bock. Hmmm, never heard of that one. I know".

When I was a kid, if someone invited you to go deer hunting with them and said "grab your 30-30, we're goin' to meet at Wood's orchard at 6:30'", you knew where and when they wanted you to show up prepared to hunt and that you needed to bring your deer rifle, regardless of what caliber the bore diameter was, what cartridge it was chambered for, or what make, model, or style it was. Back then, "30-30" was a generic term for a hunting rifle. The Savage 340 series rifles chambered in 30-30 were very common, as they generally sold new for under $75 and used for under $50. Winchester 94s sold for less than $100 in 30-30, common, and 32 WS, much less common It seemed like nearly every house had a rifle chambered in 30-30 and a 12 gauge shotgun gathering dust in a closet somewhere, along with a handful of loose ammo in the kitchen utility/junk drawer. Years have passed and times have change

As a side note, I find it odd that very few of those rifles were equipped with receiver sights, despite the fact that most of the people who I hunted with back then had fathers and uncles who had served in WW2 or Korea and had been issued a rifle with a receiver sight, either a Garand or an M1/M2 Carbine.

Prezactly. Bearing my sole exposes me to much criticism...

Clip? Don't own a single one. Mags? Yes.

High caliber rifle? Yes, I have a few pretty decent ones.

Lets get completely annoying and praise the shotty that is a caliber....4 huner n ten!

Honestly, when i hear somebody use the term shotty, or refer to cartridges as caliber....i just write em off as dumbasses.

Somebody brings a cool rifle to my local hangout and Ill ask "What chambering ? "

The cool guys smile.

Most however just stare like deer in the headlights.

I never heard of no receiver sight, they're peep sights. Obviously because you peep through them. This was even though we lived a mere 50 miles from LEO-pold.

We also had water uzels that dipped in the crick for periwinkles. It took months at the Oregon State University re-education and indoctrination facility to convince me other terms may be more universally applicable.

Preach it cousin!

Shotty? That's pretty bad.

IMHO you can pretty well guess by such word usage... which folks think a bore sighting the night before the opener is good enough.

Flugag buwuhh mowati digumdo shatezi.

You'd think it's the off-season around here or something.

Brad,

Yep, the 7mm Remington Magnum is the ONLY 7mm caliber to many Montanans!

Ingwe used to work at Capital Sports in Helena, where I met him 30 years ago. Every year somebody would come in just before hunting season and asked for a box of Seven Em Ems. He'd ask which one, and they were always puzzle because EVERYBODY knows there's only one Seven Em Em. (Unless, of course, they called it the Big Seven, which is what many Montanans called the 7mm Remington Magnum when it first appeared in 1962, because back then everybody knew that you had to be a real man to handle a MAGNUM.)

Apparently things really have changed since then. Today you apparently have to be a real man to know (and properly use in conversation) the difference between cartridge and caliber.

Seven MM Remington? You mean the 7-08?

LOL freezer is full.

Well said.

The Mossbergs and Remingtons that I shot on the 50' range at Camp Pinnalce in Lyme, NH, had Lyman peep sights on them. I called 'em peep sights until I learned that sights mounted on the tang or bolt were peep sights, while those that were attached directly to the side of the receiver were receiver sights. Nomenclature can be a b1tch!

Scopes back then were mostly Weavers and anyone with a Redfield, Leupold, Lyman, or Untertl was looked upon as being sophisticated well above average. European scopes were war trophies and anything from Japan was Jap crap. People still remembered Pearl Harbor and many, maybe most, still held anything Japanese in contempt in 1964.

Calling a cartridge a caliber.

"How many calibers (cartridges) does your clip (magazine) hold?"

A sight mounted on a bolt! OMG that never would have passed the stink test at home. LOL

Nits in the English language are among my favoritest nits to pick.

The problem is that there is no one word that specifically refers to the entire group of individual cartridges or rounds of ammunition that fit a specific firearm's chambering.

Cartridge refers to a round of ammunition, cartridges being plural, but that could be subject to some stretching.

"What cartridge does your rifle use?"
"It uses the first, second and ninth cartridges in this box of 20 but not the rest".

Chambering is correct for an individual firearm but is awkward when referring to cartridges. "Gimme a box of them .30-30 chamberings."

Many words in the English have two or more meanings based on context. A tear can be a drop of water from the eye or a rip in some material. "That mine is mine", said the prospector. The man in the lead told the group to get the lead out. You cannot judge the caliber of a man by the caliber of his firearm's bore.

Therefore, since caliber is already in common use I propose that we legitimize that word and call it good. Even the almighty google unknowningly uses it in that regard.

cal·i·ber
/ˈkaləbər/

1. the quality of someone's character or the level of their ability.
"they could ill afford to lose a man of his caliber"

2. the internal diameter or bore of a gun barrel.
"a .22 caliber repeater rifle" (Hey google, is that .22 LR or a 22 Hornet?)

Let's add #3. the group of cartridges of like case dimensions that fit a specifically named chambering.

So when someone asks, "what caliber is that?", we can henceforth hold our heads up high and state in a firm and confident manner, "it's a .338 lah-poo-ah mangum and it's got a Lee-uh-pold scope on it."

I’ve probably done it a time or two during my lifetime 😊

A guy at work said the whole hunting camp had 300 magnums. I asked which one, he repeated 300.

And nodding knowingly as you read the scribe's words describing the latest whizbang rifle with a detachable clip?

Muzzle break. Go...

What about caliper?

Aren't all clips detachable?

I know one guy that was all fugged up and couldn't understand how I had a Ruger in 243 Winchester.

He thought if you had a Winchester chambering it was always in a Winchester rifle and so on with Remingtons rifles/chamberings and such.

Not schitting one bit.

Depends whether you're an accurate or close enough wordsmith. Or should that be precise?

Good enough.

No, no, no. It was meant to spur the discussion between accuracy and precision!

Precise accuracy?

Dale's on a role! Lookout.


Isn't it simply a 30 Magnum?

Being in Alabama the first 49 years of life, it was always the ‘Sem Mag.

Lots of people shoot guns, own guns, and don't know [bleep] about guns. You encounter them every day on this very site

Had an uncle who really liked his M99 in .300 Savage as he tbought it a better caliber than .250-3000. He was really happy he had the rotary magazine instead of a clip. He could reliably shoot running deer to 150 yards or so, and a standing deer at 300 yards was venison.

When I was twelve I tried to explain to him the mistakes in his terminology. He just smiled and kept piling up deer with lung shots. I wish I could shoot as well as he did.

At a public range. Young guy with a couple of older folks there shooting something long action 'high caliber' 30-06ish

He asked what I had.

"It's a Savage 99, in 300 Savage," I said, "would you like to shoot it?"

"Oooohhhh no - that's a big one!" shaking his head.

He about fainted at the thought of touching off such a monster 300 caliber WMD....

Good story....the old .300 Savage is not well known with the younger set. My Dad said in the 1940s, most thought you could shoot anything that walked with a 99 in .300. As he and my uncle both used one, I believed it. I used Dad's for about 15 years......it might be true.

No! A caliber is neither cartridge nor chambering.

One of the best examples of language fluidity is the word "mouse." What did you think of first?

This is as bad as the familiar “horns” on a deer.....

Hey Gus! Lookit the horns on that big ole buck!
Ah, yeah.... those are antlers, Cletus.....
“Huh?”

Had a dumbass tell me how he just prefers Remington ammo since his rifle is Remington and it just seems like the safe way to go.

Lol

I have three sons, try explaining what is a Winchester Model 70 that shoots a 270 Winchester, a 250 Savage or a 7mm Remington Mag. I would tell them to think of a Winchester Model 70 as you would a F150 truck. The Model 70 is the truck, the engine options would be many like the 308 Win, 270 win, 7mm RM, etc...They eventually sorted it out but don't get me started on the 275 Rigby / 7x57!

How about an "elg" being a moose but we mispronounce the word elg as elk and instead of calling a moose an elk, we call a wapiti an elk instead of a moose.

And then there's the incorrect pronunciation of coues deer as "coo-s deer" instead of "cows deer".

I wonder if grandpa Elliot got upset when they called him that???

There's actually a subtle difference in pronunciation between his name and cows, but cows is very close. Shame he didn't manage to collect a specimen of the deer that was named after him.

Then comes the obligatory, "Well, you know whud I mean."

Then comes the obligatory, "Well, you know whud I mean."

Winner, winner, Chicken Dinner!!

well....this thread makes it easy to pick out who was still a virgin when they turned 40

The other day there was somebody on Craigslist advertising dies for sale. All the ad said was "7mm".

Ha. I can relate to that. My good buddy inherited his Granddad's 243 and used it forever but decided he wanted a Weatherby and asked if he could get one with a stainless barrel and wood stock in 270. I said 270 Winchester or 270 Weatherby? He knows I am a rifle loon and looked at me befuddled then got a bit pissy and said I don't ... an effing 270.

Short story- I found a great deal on one for him, then got him a crazy great deal on a Bushnell 4200 which I mounted, sighted in and insisted on running various factory ammo weights through it. We settled on 150 grain bullets which turned out to be fortunate. BTW- his old scope was a early 70's widefield I begged him to replace.

So first season with it near dusk he is about to head for camp but sees a huge shape. Turned out a giant trophy Eland that had escaped from a nearby high game place. He nailed it and it is mounted on his wall- and needs a bigger room. Can't see him ever taking that beast ( larger than any of his cows by far) with that old scope and 80 grain 243........cartridge.

My friend confessed one day when we were Sighting our guns in. A few years earlier, He said his dad had a .300 Weatherby , and because the shells were cheaper they got .300 win.

I tend to correct “caliber” folks and am German so this made perfect sense to me…