Closest round to .303?

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davemccarthy707

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Which round is the closest to the British .303 round (ballistically, basically for hunting) ? My guess would be the 7.62x54r. However the .308 is pretty close too. Thoughts?
 
30-40 Krag. You can even use the 303Brit case to make up the brass for the 30-40. They are loaded to almost identical velocities with similar bullets as well
 
7.65x53 (Argentine) Mauser. Duplicates the .303 in a rimless case, same bullet, you can interchange loading data and the pressures are the same. .308W dupes the commercial load for the .303 but the pressures are way up there.

WHY NATO didn't just go with the 7.65 I will never know..... except that it wasn't American... and Americans have this strange lust for pressure and power. Tim Allen time.

Another very close duplicate for the .303 is the 7x57 Mauser. Again, same pressures and performance. But it's not American, either.

The Yanks are very loose with their adjectives when it comes to describing ammunition. If they come up with something new and improved and superduper and compare it to some obsolete British or European round, do yourself a favour and compare the ACTUAL performance, not what's on the box or in the magazine article. Likely you'll stick with your ancient, obsolete, underpowered cartridge..... and ignore the ultramodern barrelburner.

Vance Packard: The Hidden Persuaders. Good book. Every GN should read it.
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"...the .308 is pretty close too..." Nope. Average velocities are higher.
"...7.65x53..." Only at max loads.
The .30-40 Krag is closest. Mind you, finding brass or ammo is next to impossible. Only loaded 'seasonally' by Remington and Winchester.
 
Sunray, it depends on if you are looking at an American handloading book..... or at Service ammunition.

Example is the .308W, which we all KNOW is plain wonderful. Military spec is about 2750 with a 145-grain slug. The STANDARD C-I-L commercial hunting load for that obsolete .303 British was a 150-grain bullet at 2700.

In SERVICE ammunition, the 7.65x53 (or 54, depending on what box of shells you are looking at) is a precise duplicate of the .303, AS IS the 7.7 Japanese.

Talquin: good point. Thank you.
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smellie said:
WHY NATO didn't just go with the 7.65 I will never know..... except that it wasn't American... and Americans have this strange lust for pressure and power. Tim Allen time.
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only sensable reason i can thing of is tooling to make barrels and bullets. then you shorten the case so that the 7.65 can't be accidentally fired. like the french did with the 7.5x54 since supposedly the 8x57 fit in the original chamber. and that brings up the 7.5x54 which is nice, but has a larger diameter case, so i would think the tooling to make brass would need to be changed. and the cold war is shaping up, so you need to one up the soviets (7.62x39) so you can't shorten the case too much.

of course i know very little about manufacturing guns and ammo, so this is just speculation on my part.

i wonder where we would be at if the US (and therefore NATO) had just adopted some variation of the 280 or 7x49 or even the 276 petersen (pre WWII)?
 
I really think it was just a whole bunch of p*ssing around and working from one direction (the .30-06) to the "New, Improved, Low-Cholesterol" version thereof (7.62NATO).

There were a lot of p*ssing contests going on back then, each side having to out-do the other. The Yanks built a 10MT bomb, the Sovs had to have a 15MT bomb, the Yanks put a 20MT into series production as their STANDARD nuke, the Sovs put a 65MT into mass production and K then announced that they were going to series-produce a 100MT. It was total insanity and it traumatised an entire generation of people on both sides. I had nightmares about parts of it until I was in my 40s.... and I know people who are still having them but don't want to admit it in case someone thinks they are nuts.

Ally-samey thing the MiG-25 (and a tip of the hat to our friend). Mach 3.2, fastest interceptor built, even if half the thing was made of steel. TWO thumping great Tumanski cruise-missile engines with a cockpit on top and an attack radar that was so powerful that you could hunt with it but you couldn't turn the thing on if the aircraft was on the ground. Serious: it would explode/cook a rabbit that got into its beam, so what would it do to a man? Fortunately, we don't know. Wonderful airplane in so many ways but the engines would cook themselves if you went over 2.8 and it practically needed a separate refinery for each plane: it was thirsty. Still, it gave the Americans the heebie-jeebies for years, which is mostly what it was about.

In ammunition, the Sovs were using a 7.62 so the Yanks had to out-7.62 them, which meant MORE POWERRRR. The Brits had come up with a completely SENSIBLE assault-rifle round in the .280/30 for the EM-2: all the range, accuracy and power you could handle AND the weapon remained controllable in full-auto fire. But the US just HAD to have a .30-'06 level of power, so they developed it (with advanced powder technology, at very high pressures, in a round which rendered automatic fire impossible) and then forced NATO to adopt it by saying that they would pull out of NATO if NATO didn't adopt THEIR cartridge. NATO without the US would be silly: you can't expect ICELAND (a member) to defend itself against the Sovunion, nor Denmark (a member) nor Norway (a member).

So NATO capitulated and got the stupid American cartridge. France dropped out and kept its "whipped-cream army" (the Force de Frappe) and its 7.5 cartridge but expected NATO to defend France... while p*ssing on anything US or NATO in the meantime and taking the Soviet side in far too many UN debates.

Then the Americans got into 'Nam, found out what an assault-rifle really was, brought out their OWN assault-rifle round (the .223) and the whole stupid thing started over again...... Brits develop something really useful, American pressure kills it again.....

As the man once said, "It's enough to make you want to eat your own vomit.".

But the .308 is STILL just BARELY the equal of the "obsolete" .303 it replaced.... and the 7x57.... and the 7.65x53.... and the 7.7 Jap.... all of which the Americans declared were "too powerful" for assault rifles..... but theirs was ideal. It's all POLITICS mixed with supermassive spending; it has nothing to do with COMMON SENSE or PRACTICALITY.
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smellie said:
I really think it was just a whole bunch of p*ssing around and working from one direction (the .30-06) to the "New, Improved, Low-Cholesterol" version thereof (7.62NATO).

There were a lot of p*ssing contests going on back then, each side having to out-do the other. The Yanks built a 10MT bomb, the Sovs had to have a 15MT bomb, the Yanks put a 20MT into series production as their STANDARD nuke, the Sovs put a 65MT into mass production and K then announced that they were going to series-produce a 100MT. It was total insanity and it traumatised an entire generation of people on both sides. I had nightmares about parts of it until I was in my 40s.... and I know people who are still having them but don't want to admit it in case someone thinks they are nuts.

Ally-samey thing the MiG-25 (and a tip of the hat to our friend). Mach 3.2, fastest interceptor built, even if half the thing was made of steel. TWO thumping great Tumanski cruise-missile engines with a cockpit on top and an attack radar that was so powerful that you could hunt with it but you couldn't turn the thing on if the aircraft was on the ground. Serious: it would explode/cook a rabbit that got into its beam, so what would it do to a man? Fortunately, we don't know. Wonderful airplane in so many ways but the engines would cook themselves if you went over 2.8 and it practically needed a separate refinery for each plane: it was thirsty. Still, it gave the Americans the heebie-jeebies for years, which is mostly what it was about.

In ammunition, the Sovs were using a 7.62 so the Yanks had to out-7.62 them, which meant MORE POWERRRR. The Brits had come up with a completely SENSIBLE assault-rifle round in the .280/30 for the EM-2: all the range, accuracy and power you could handle AND the weapon remained controllable in full-auto fire. But the US just HAD to have a .30-'06 level of power, so they developed it (with advanced powder technology, at very high pressures, in a round which rendered automatic fire impossible) and then forced NATO to adopt it by saying that they would pull out of NATO if NATO didn't adopt THEIR cartridge. NATO without the US would be silly: you can't expect ICELAND (a member) to defend itself against the Sovunion, nor Denmark (a member) nor Norway (a member).

So NATO capitulated and got the stupid American cartridge. France dropped out and kept its "whipped-cream army" (the Force de Frappe) and its 7.5 cartridge but expected NATO to defend France... while p*ssing on anything US or NATO in the meantime and taking the Soviet side in far too many UN debates.

Then the Americans got into 'Nam, found out what an assault-rifle really was, brought out their OWN assault-rifle round (the .223) and the whole stupid thing started over again...... Brits develop something really useful, American pressure kills it again.....

As the man once said, "It's enough to make you want to eat your own vomit.".

But the .308 is STILL just BARELY the equal of the "obsolete" .303 it replaced.... and the 7x57.... and the 7.65x53.... and the 7.7 Jap.... all of which the Americans declared were "too powerful" for assault rifles..... but theirs was ideal. It's all POLITICS mixed with supermassive spending; it has nothing to do with COMMON SENSE or PRACTICALITY.
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Click to expand...

I share your passion on the France/Degaulle, we'll do our own thing and you guys defend us like you did before in 2 world wars. Petain was neutered at Verdun, hence the capitulation to the Hitler knows best for WW2. Remember Vive Le Quebec Libre? Degaulle.

Truly iconic asshat of the 20th century.

As Winston Churchill said during the dark days of WW2, "I fear the greatest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine"(referring to Degaulle).:agree:
 
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load the 308 to max preasure with a 174 and its not as good as the 303 round. allways makes me laugh when the 308 guys are stutting there stuff on how lowly the 303 round is
 
i will stick to my .303 over any thing else for me it is light weight and has the hitting power i did some reloading just learning and did up 2 180 grain spear tip spitzers and 1 85 grain hallow point just to have fun want to get into it more just need to get the right gear and presses
 
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