280 Enfield - 7x43mm NATO

rare and expensive, it was with the powders of the day, the "best" military caliber designed, it was the hardest hitting in the lightest case over the most common distances, while still being suitable for conversion from existing 30-06 and 7.92 mauser weapons iirc

the FAL was originally designed to fire it, but the americans refused to accept anything less than .30 cal, so the brits agreed to adopt 7.62x51 (which the americans had long since decided they would use regardless with out telling anyone) in the interest of ammo compatibility if the americans adopted the FAL in the interest of parts commonality. then the americans made the m-14 instead.

over all, it was a great round, lighter to carry then 7.62 nato, with less recoil, and smaller mags, with close to the same ballistics and bullet energy of 7.62. the 6.8 SPC is almost a clone of this round, but smaller for newer, better powders
 
"...Americans refused to accept anything less than .30 cal..." That's because they had just adopted the M14 and used their financial clout to shove the 7.62 x 51 down NATO's throat. They didn't want the FAL because of the NIH factor.
 
"...Americans refused to accept anything less than .30 cal..." That's because they had just adopted the M14 and used their financial clout to shove the 7.62 x 51 down NATO's throat. They didn't want the FAL because of the NIH factor.

The Yanks actually made a bunch of FALs in the USA (H&R was one of the firms, I think) as the T48. They performed well enough in trials but the nod went to the M14/15, supposedly because (cough, cough) they wouldn't have to change the drill manual!

The 7.62 NATO round was formally adopted in 1954, I think. Canada, among many others, adopted the FAL c. 1957 and the USA adopted the M14 the same year. Formal adoption of the round preceded that of the rifles, ie.
 
Scott585 covered it well.
I find it amusing that the 6.8 SPC is hailed as such a great new round.
Funny how close 6.8x43 is to 7x43. And only 60 years too late.
 
they actually made 2 variants of the 280 british the first was a .458 base, basically a 35 remington necked and shortened. They increased diameter to .473 base to appease the US, Canada agreed to use the round provided the USA also adopted it. FN also lengthened it to the 7x49 for use in Venezuelan FAL's The larger base round was more properly called the 280/30.
 
No it wasnt. The FAL was originally designed to fire the German 7.92x33 Kurz round.

nope, the first fal type design used the full sized 7.92 german round, then the "FN No. 1 Carbine" was in 7.92 kurz, but the first "Lightweight Automatic Rifle, FAL" was made in 280, but your right, the first thing that looked like an fal was in 7.92k

R. Blake Stevens goes into great detail on the development of the round, including the cases thought up in .33 in, .30 in, .27 in, and .25 in, in bases 2.0x, 1.8x and 1.6x the bullet diameters with various pentration ratings using different cores and estimating chamber pressures, number of rounds a soldier could carry, and the total weight of the rifle. the brits went much further into ballistics, ergonomics and total system planning than the americans ever did, by starting with the ammo, and optimizing it, rather then using the same thing cause "it worked ok before dinnit?" and trying to make a weapon for it.

imagine if you could buy a round that had a flat trajectory like 5.56, and all the armour penetration of 7.62, and had all the reliability benefits of larger gas ports, tubes, etc (harder to clog a big hole than a small one) but could still have it in a 7 pound AR type rifle
 
280 British could not stop a cavalry charge ;)

I actually saw a FN 280 British prototype years ago and it was worth something like 10,000$ 30 years ago!
Very impressive rifle and, FN simply had to modify it to use 7.62x51 NATO after this cartridge was adopted as NATO standard after Canada insisted on a standardized NATO rifle cartridge (Canada was producing 30-06 for the US and 303 British for the UK during the Korean War and totally freaked out when the UK adopted the 280 British).
It became totally uncontrollable under automatic fire but had the power to stop a cavalry charge now!

Alex
 
Actually, what is generally considered the "optimum" round was designed over 120 years ago. Just a bit more capacity than the 6.8 SPC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.5x52mm_Mannlicher-Carcano

While the ballistics may be similar, I doubt that the Carcano was designed with FA controlability in a shoulder fired carbine in mind!
A true assault rifle needs an "intermediate" round to have sufficient punch, yet be controllable in FA
 
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