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Why .30 caliber?


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Does anyone know for certain why the Army ended up with a .30 caliber cartridge for the carbine? I know they based it on the existing but obsolescent .32 Win SL but did they even look at other, larger calibers? There were obvious alternatives in .35 caliber that would have provided a more useful weapon. The existing but slightly shorter 9x25 Mauser Export comes pretty close to checking all the boxes and an update of the .35 Win SL to essentially a rimless version of the .357 Magnum would have done everything they asked for and more. Were they too focused on .30 because that's just how they did things?

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SR,

All I know is if they would have adapted the 351 SL and necked it down to 25 or 30 cal we would have had a big jump on the AK 47 round and probably still using it today. With only a slight increase in weight.

I think the army was mostly focused on keeping the weight of the gun down to 5 lbs.

All and all they didn't,t do to bad, the carbine out lasted the M1 rifle.

Jim C

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SR,

All I know is if they would have adapted the 351 SL and necked it down to 25 or 30 cal we would have had a big jump on the AK 47 round and probably still using it today. With only a slight increase in weight.

I think the army was mostly focused on keeping the weight of the gun down to 5 lbs.

All and all they didn't,t do to bad, the carbine out lasted the M1 rifle.

Jim C

 

The 351 SL is a rimed or semi rimmed cartridge. If you removed the rim and necked it down to .30, it would be almost exactly the dimensions of the .300 Blackout. That would be a neat little gun, especially with about a 120 gr spitzer. Not quite the same power as an AK, but much better than the M1 Carbine round they came out with.

 

Dan

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A cartridge based on a rimless version of the .351 case necked down would not have conformed to the stated purpose of the carbine i.e. a pistol substitute for soldiers who weren't trained on a pistol but could use a pistol-caliber light rifle. The 300 yard effective range requirement was pure BS; I doubt that anyone was ever even shot at much less hit with an M1 carbine at 300 yds.

 

I'm just curious to know how .30 caliber was settled upon. They were introducing a brand new round into the supply stream so it could have been anything and I think we would generally agree that a rimless version of the .357 magnum would outperform the .30 carbine with minimal increase in weight or adding objectionable recoil.

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SR,

If a rimless version of the 357 is what would make you happy your in luck.

Once more we go back to the year 1905. In addition to the 32 wsl cartridge another cartridge was introduced for the 1905 rifle, the 35 wsl.

This cartridge pushed a 180 gr bullet at 1400 fps and 750 ft lbs. basically 357 ballistics.

Both the 32 and 35 wsl came out in 1905. Winchester happen to choose the 32 instead of your choice.

 

I have a much more serious situation to ponder. Why wasn't John Garand instructed to design the M1 Rifle to use BAR magazines.

It would be easier to design than the complicated 8 shot system. The Army made such a rifle while developing the M14.

Just think of the advantages. Every rifleman would be an assistant BAR man. All bandoleers would come with 5 rd stripper clips.

Squad firepower would be overwhelming.

But sadly I wasn't around to advise the Army in 1942, and nobody would have listened to me anyway.

Jim C

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I think to answer that question you have to go back to the 6mm Lee Navy and .30-40 Krag rifles. The worldwide service rifle trend by the late 1800s was the development of smaller calibers using smokeless powders. Remember that the 7mm Mauser gave a great account of itself in Cuba, leading directly to the development of the .30-03 cartridge, itself an upgrade to the .30-40, which was perceived as underpowered.

 

The best, slickest bolt action rifle I ever handled is the M1936 Mexican Mauser in 7mm. You'd swear it has a match trigger, but they're all that way.

 

The perfect US infantry rifle for WWII, IMHO? The Johnson M1941 in .280, with detachable double column, double feed box magazines provided in ten and twenty round capacities. The rotary magazine is no slouch, either.

Edited by TSMGguy
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SR,

If a rimless version of the 357 is what would make you happy your in luck.

Once more we go back to the year 1905. In addition to the 32 wsl cartridge another cartridge was introduced for the 1905 rifle, the 35 wsl.

This cartridge pushed a 180 gr bullet at 1400 fps and 750 ft lbs. basically 357 ballistics.

Both the 32 and 35 wsl came out in 1905. Winchester happen to choose the 32 instead of your choice.

 

I have a much more serious situation to ponder. Why wasn't John Garand instructed to design the M1 Rifle to use BAR magazines.

It would be easier to design than the complicated 8 shot system. The Army made such a rifle while developing the M14.

Just think of the advantages. Every rifleman would be an assistant BAR man. All bandoleers would come with 5 rd stripper clips.

Squad firepower would be overwhelming.

But sadly I wasn't around to advise the Army in 1942, and nobody would have listened to me anyway.

Jim C

The pre WWII army going back to the Civil War was obsessed with logistics ... Simply put they were afraid that they could not supply enough ammo if riflemen had large capacity magazines ... Even Christopher Spencer was initially turned down by the war department when he tried to sell his 7 shot repeater .... It took President Lincoln ordering the army to purchase the repeaters ... Just one theory anyway.

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Jim,

I mentioned the .35 Win SL in my first post as an exemplar of the cartridge they could and IMNSHO should have used.

 

I had always heard that Garand's original design used the BAR mag but the Army turned it down because the protruding magazine would interfere with performing the Manual of Arms. Whether this is true or not I do not know but it points out the bureaucratic idiocy that permeates so many of Ordnance's decisions both then and now.

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Source From Wikipedia:

 

Development

"U.S. Army specifications for the new cartridge mandated the caliber to be greater than .27, with an effective range of 300 yards or more, and a midrange trajectory ordinate of 18 inches (460 mm) or less at 300 yards. With these requirements in hand, Winchester's Edwin Pugsley chose to design the cartridge with a .30 caliber, 100–120 grain bullet at a velocity of 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s). The first cartridges were made by turning down rims on .32SL cases and loading with .308 caliber bullets sharing a similar profile as the U.S. military .45 ACP bullet. The first 100,000 cartridges manufactured were headstamped ".30 SL".[5]

Edited by NFA amnesty
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