Cartridge Total Weight

Hi, when you read the various sites knocking around with info on rifle ammunition, how can you gauge the weight of the full round? I found this on a web site;

http://www.tarrif.net/cgi/production/all_inf_weapons_adv.php?op=getinf_weapons&inf_weaponsX=19

Now the stats for the round/bullet are as follows;
Cartridge Name: Gewehr Patrone 98 sS
Cartridge Size: 7.92x57mm
Cartridge Total Weight: 27 Grams
Bullet Weight: 12.8 Grams
Muzzle Velocity: 755 m/s
Effective Range: 800m

Now that is excellent data, but I cannot find this sort of information when I have searched for info on these rounds;

.30 (7.62x33mm) U.S. Carbine
8x50mm (8x50R Lebel)
6.5x50mm (SR Japanese Arisaka)
7.7x58mm (SR Japanese Arisaka)
7.62x54mm (R) M.1908 (Russian)
6.5x52mm Carcano
7.35x51mm Carcano (Italy)
8x59mm M.35 Breda (Italy)
8x56R M.30 Steyr (Hungarian Army)
8x63mm m/32 Bofors (Swedish Army)
8x58R Danish Krag
8x57 Danish Krag
6.5mm (6.5x53R) Dutch Army

Does anyone know a site that would provide me with the Cartridge Total Weight of these rounds?

Thanks for any help.

Yan.

 

You might check the forums mentioned here:
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/
Almost everything else one would want to know can be found here:
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Historic%20MGs.htm
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Assault.htm
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/The%20Next%20Generation.htm
but no total cartridge weights.
This page has some for the 7.62x54
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9754mmR
various wiki pages may have some more info

 

Thanks Lwd, I may give Mr Williams a PM or E-Mail and ask him for some ideas.

Yan.

 

BEWARE nitpicker at large read at your peril.

I think we are running a risk of comparing apples and oranges unless we go a little bit into more detail here

Two lines of data in the OP are suspect,
Muzzle Velocity: 755 m/s
Effective Range: 800m
both are heavily dependent on the weapon as well as the cartrige, the allies infantry would have been very happy if an MG 42 on a MG-Lafette 42 was ineffective beyond 800 meters, sadly for them a tripod mounted MG 42 with a telscopic sight could be dangerous at 2000m and possibly more.

Cartrige data is also suject to nitpick ..... from G. Markham's book on German infantry weapons
For the Gewehr Patrone 98 sS (schwere spitzgeshoss ?) that I believe was the original pointed round first issued in 1903 I have slightly different figures
765 m/s
26.1 g weight
Markham gives no bullet weight for the sS but
11.5 for the Patrone 98 S.m.E.
12g for the 1944 Patrone 98 S.m.E. Lang
11.53g and 800 m/s for the armour piercing Patrone 98 S.m.K.
12.57g and 910 m/s for the S.m.K.H tungsten cored round

Standard loading was 2.88g of propellant for the Patrone 98 sS but could go as high as 3.61g on the AP rounds and 3.52 for the v loading used by the aircraft MGs

Now if only I remembered how to do a table this look a lot better ....

 

I think the 755 m/s figure above is for the earlier 'J' cartridge. The standard WWII version was around 820 m/s - 2,700 fps.

The term "effective range" is a bit of an imprecise term. Yeah, theoretically (and in practice under just the right conditions) you can designate a beaten zone at long range and lay indirect fire on the area. At 2000 meters, the slug would be dropping almost vertically and at low velocity. With even a tiny error in range estimation, your slugs would be landing hundreds of meters from where you intend them to go. And if you do hit somebody at that range, the velocity of the slug would make it far less lethal.

The link below calculates the round at 2000 yards, but unfortunately uses two bullet weights that are respectively, lighter and heavier than standard German military rounds.

http://omegacrossroads.com/GunCabinet/8X57/8mmMauser.htm

 

Thanks for the impute guys because rifle ballistics is not my strongest suite.

It’s the same with another standard round the Lebel 8mm (8x50R);

8x50mm (8x50R Lebel)
Bullet Weight: 15g
Total Cartridge Weight: 27g
Muzzle Velocity: 632 m/s
Effective Range: 400m
Maximum Range: 1.200m

I have had this data knocking around on my computer for years but I have doubts concerning its validity.

Yan.

 

I would think there is too much variance to the "original" weights of these rounds for example the development of the 30.06 should be read about describing the various bullets first utilized.....some painted tips etc. that would cause weight variations.....also ammunition lots while supplied by various manufacturers would utilize different mixes of powders, as well as different weights of shells. Read about the 30.06 from this source and this source may have other answers as to why ammunition is as it is or was.....when developed for a certain caliber of weapon. http://cartridgecollectors.org/

 

According to data on the Chuck Hawks page, the lighter spitzer type slug of 198 grains (12.8 grams) adopted prior to WWI had a muzzle velocity of 607 m/s - 1,991 fps. This easily makes the 8mm Lebel the most anemic of the modern smokeless powder military rounds. That low velocity was using some form of cordite, so I'd assume it got slightly hotter as new powders were developed after WWI.

In some ways though, the French may have got it right. Modern battle doctrine follows the idea that since you can't really see the enemy at long range, why develop cartridges that are effective at long range? If the enemy is that far away, call the artillery.

 

If you go by "modern theory" the Italian and Japanese 6.5mm rounds are closer to the "ideal intermediate round" than any other mass produced cartrige, but there never was a mass produced auto rifle for them though many prototypes were promising. The French 8mm didn't weight significantly less than the other full power rounds.

@KodiakBeer the theoretical manimum range of any gun is at 45 degrees elevation and it will reach ground level closer to 45 degree angle than to 90, that's why mortars are so long ranged despite small charges, but the Lafette would need to be emplaced on a slope to get 45 degrees and impossible to aim, IIRC the German heavy machine gunners were trained to use indirect fire at 3000+ meters, , that would obviously be used only for interdiction, and would not be very common as any MG doing what is basically the artillery's role would use a lot of ammo and attract a lot of undesirable attention from arty and mortars. If you look at the site you linked at 2000m the angles of descent are below 15 degrees.

 

I think that the 6.5mm round was considered to light by 1940 but a lot of countries still used them;

6.5x50mm Japanese
6.5x52mm Italy
6.5x53R Dutch
6.5x54mm Greek
6.5x55mm Norway & Sweden

Quite a few of these nations did try to replace there 6.5mm with a more powerful round;

Italy: 7.35x51mm & 8x59mm Breda (for MGs only)
Japan: 7.7x58mm
Greece: 7.92x57mm

The French also tried to change from 8x50R to 7.5x54mm French Service M.1929 C.
The trouble was that all of these nations could not fully adapt to the newer rounds and that is why we find a mixture of all of these calibres together, it must have been a nightmare for the logistic corps.

I remember reading about the 6.5mm round causing more damage than the 7.92mm, apparently because of its small size it tumbled through the soft tissue.

By the way does anyone know the total weight of the Dutch 6.5x53 rifle round?

Yan.

 

The problem with smaller caliber rounds isn't that they are bad manstoppers; they do just fine. It's because the lighter the round, the worse they at penetrating barriers. With that said, the 6.5 at about 140 grains does just fine with that.

Ian Hogg, the British military arms expert, said that in every 20th century test of small arms, the best compromise between lethality, penetration, range, etc, was in the 6.5 to 7mm range. But, armies never get that because the bean counters or politicians jump into the fray and screw things up. The Garand was originally a .276 (.28 caliber- 7mm), but because there was so much 30.06 ammo in storage, and production gear for the 30.06 round, the .276 was dropped and Garand went back to the 30.06 design.

After the war, NATO (I think led by the British) wanted to go to a 7mm, but US interests jumped into the fray and we ended up with the .308 (.762x51 NATO).

 

It’s funny that NATO wanted to adopt a 7.62x51mm round, would there be much difference between that and the Soviet 7.62x54mm?

By the way I contacted Tony Williams and he had not come across the weights I am seeking, so I will have to drop my search and stick to just the weight of the bullet.

Yan.

 

NATO didn't want to adopt it, but the US shoved it down their throats. It's just a short 30.06 and with the better powders of the era, it got similar ballistics. The 7.62x54 is an old rimmed round, with similar ballistics. Rimmed rounds complicate the feeding mechanisms of semi and automatic weapons, though the Russians stuck with it and overcame that problem in a number of designs.

But, back to the .762x51- the hope was that soldiers would have automatic rifles firing that round, but it never really worked out. The M14, the L1A1, the G3, etc, were all born to use that round, but it was miserable on full auto - too much recoil to hold on target.

 

IMO the attempted move from 6.5 to 7.5 by the Italians and Japanese was based on faulty assumptions and a "bigger is better" mentality.

The 7.62x51 that was "rammed down the throat" of NATO was not much of an "improvement" over the WW2 30.06, though there were many full auto designs around it, M14, FAL, G3, BM59 etc. full auto usage remained problematic. The whole story of US post WW2 rifles could be quoted as a nearly perfect example of "fighting the last war", luckily most of NATO didn't follow the US extremes and ended up with more "balanced" weapons.

It shouldn't be too difficult to find data on on the standard WW2 rifle cartriges, both cartrige weight and bullet weight.

 

After WW1 the Greek Army had about seven different Rifles in service (some were war booty from Bulgaria and Turkey), so they used to issue each Division with one type of Rifle, so you could end up with one Division equipped with Lebel’s and another with Mausers, the same thing could be said of their MGs, any captured Maxims could be in 7.92mm and of course the French stuff (St. Etienne’s and Chauchat’s Machine Guns) in 8mm, they also had their Schwarzlose HMGs in 6.5mm. They decided to standardise to 7.92mm around 1930 but due to a lack of funds and having such a stockpile of 6.5mm, 7.92mm and 8mm ammunition, they simply split each calibre to separate Regiments.

Ace, if you come across any of those sites please drop me a PM.

Yan.

 

If you look at reloading tables you should be able to get propellant weights as well as bullet weights. Then the only component you are missing is cartridge weights. Those might be available and if not asking some cartridge collectors to weigh them might get you the 3 components you need.

 

One thing that might be a problem is that older powders were less energetic than modern ones I believe so you may need period tables. On the other hand if you have period tables for a few rounds then you might be able to convert the modern ones if you have modern ones for the other rounds as well as the rounds for which you have period data.

 

Yan, there are a lot of people that collect obsolete and military cartridges. You can find those people at most gun shows and on the Internet. You may just have to buy one of each and weigh them.

You can learn the slug weight on reloading sites, but since they are going to recommend different powders than would have been used in the period, and because the weight of the brass has no bearing in reloading, it's going to be difficult to get the total weight unless you have a complete period cartridge.

 

Thanks guys, yes you are both right, to get an accurate weight I would have to first get the correct round and then weigh it myself, and to get all of the dozen or so rounds in my list is a tall order.
Here are few rounds that I have found on a Romanian WW2 site;

M1893 6.5mm Mannlicher Cartridge Weight; 22.2g
M1888 7.92mm Mauser Cartridge Weight; 26g
M1930 7.62mm Cartridge Weight; 24.07g
M1895 8mm Mannlicher Cartridge Weight; 28.72g

And off another Infantry Weapons site;

.30 (7.62x33) U.S. Carbine Cartridge Weight; ? only bullet weight of 7.01g
.30 (7.62x63) U.S. Ball M2 Cartridge Weight; 27.25g

Yan.

 

I have read that, at least for the 50cal, the difference in bulltet weight for the various types of rounds was enough at range to mean missing with regular rounds while hitting with tracer and vice versa. Unless you are going to also track the various types of rounds it may not make much sense to track hunredths of a gram. Even if you are it might not make much sense. The overall weight of the cartridge may have varried considerably over time and location. Then there are things like the German steel cased cartridges vs brass ones. Precision should never exceed accuracy.

What are you planning on doing with the information? That might impact how much accuracy you need.