Some of that phenomenon wal all-about the bore diameters of certain U.S. guns staying the same diameter during conversion of cap and ball conversions to cartridge... though I imagine that at least initially it was ease of manufacture rather than the customer's pocketbook from the manufacturers' perspective, that drove matters towards retaining the established bore diameters. The bore diameters were the real constant. Chamber diameters increased to accomodate the brass case and provided the rationale for the newer, higher caliber designations of .38 vs. .36 and .45 vs. .44 but the REALITY of bullet sizes was that they no longer needed to shave lead while being crammed into the front of a cylinder, so the ACTUAL bullet diameters shrank a couple of 1/100 while the nominal caliber designation increased a nominal 2/100 and 1/100 respectively for the two redesignated calibers.

But that's just for those particular instances. Take 8mm. I'm not sure they were initially referred to that way. In Europe, it's my understanding that what we refer to as 8mm Mauser is referred to as 7.92mm, and its their caliber so their caliber designation is probably "more correct" but still not necessarily comprehendible and part of any kind of globally consistent system. Maybe the Germans used a different designation initially, but in any case the first German military rifle chambered in "8mm Mauser" was the Commission Rifle, which was neither a Mauser nor a Mannlicher... but rather a one-of-this and one-of-that design by a government commission that felt equally entitled to steal from both of them. Apparently the Mauser brothers being smart and living and working in Germany kept their mouths shut, bided their time, and won-out big time in the NEXT design iteration; but von Mannlicher being Austrian decided to sue, and won a settlement from the Kaiser's government for ripping off his... fairly lousy... enbloc clip design. The Commission Rifle also began with a .318 bore but after numerous "self-disassemblies" in German soldiers' faces some changes were made. Barrels were reamed out a bit and bullet diameter became .323 which is still is the standard bullet diameter for "8mm Mauser". Germany is so close to the Austria part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire geographically and culturally... yet the Austrian 8mm (8mm Mannlicher) has a bullet diameter of .329. A 6/100" difference is quite a bit but apparently 6/100" isn't too much to at least on an expedient basis convert Mannlichers to fire Mauser ammo. The main barrier to that conversion was that the 8mm Mauser round is rimless and 8mm Mannlicher is rimmed, so some significant alteration had to be made to the bolt and to the magazine. There were an earlier conversions of Commission Rifles that got rid of the enbloc clip by essentially welding one in place inside of the magazine well. The same was done with these Mannlicher conversions and the resulting contraptions only had two fairly significant problems: (1) a 6/100" undersized bullet rattling its way down the barrel was innaccurate, and (2) the converted rifles ate extractors like candy... and they are non-standard etractors vs a vis either rifle, Mauser or Mannlicher. The closest "donor" extractor from which a replacement can be fabricated as I understand it, if you are in a "do itself yourself" mood, is the British rip-off of a "borrowed" Mauser design further "borrowed" by us... called the Model of 1917 U.S. Enfield, which was just a restandardization/change of the .303 British Pattern 1914 rifle, all of which were made in the U.S. anyway, to U.S. .30'06... and yes, Mauser DID sue over THAT ripoff after the Great War concluded, and Mauser prevailed in court.

I have owned a copy and fired every firearm listed here except Lebels, and don't particularly like any of them... but they WILL put holes through things.

And, I'm chagrined and loath to admit it, but the first new long arms manufactured for the fledgling military services of the USA, the 1795 Springfield, was nothing but a faithful copy of the French standard Charleville which dated back to 1763 when the French were very much our enemies. We didn't really bail our own butts out of the British Empire entirely on our own. The French helped us, a lot. There were more armed French at Yorktown than armed American patriot forces.

[quote author=Rumbler link=topic=982.msg7085#msg7085 date=1366835517]
Just think; if you had cast them in silver you could have gone vampire hunting . . . .


. . or is it werewolves . . . :-\


Anyway . . . . I just love that history stuff. I've always enjoyed the irony in .38 not using .38 bullets. The 9mm not using 9mm bullets. The 30-30 and 30-06 not using .30 bullets. Heck even my beloved .45. As you know those dang bullets can be .451, .452, even .453 and you best not get them mixed up!
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