Strange Famous

Just listening to rap, there are so many different sizes of gun...

9mm
.22
.44
.357
.50
.38

Jadakiss has over half of these guns on just one track! (Jada's Gotta Gun)

I mean, to me, it would make more sense just to have one or two different sizes, so that way ammo would be cheaper and easier to get. Are there any other sizes I missed out?

And what is the smallest a gun could be before it just wouldnt actually do much damage, and the biggest it could be, before it wasnt a gun anymore, and was a cannon or a rocket launcher or something?

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

SuperMidget

Strange, the problem with rap is they don't actually deal with firearms. They use words and phrases that sound cool to the uneducated. There are more calibers of firearms than you can imagine. There is a caliber for every possible use and fancy. If there isn't a production caliber, chances are someone has wildcat'd it and tried to make one.

Firearms are a world you either delve into deeply trying to learn or you ask knowledgeable people about, earnestly trying to find information. Rap music is not a good source.

Since you ask, the biggest caliber is (to the best of my knowledge) the .700 Nitro Express. The smallest caliber is much harder to define. Are you asking in terms of velocity, or energy, or bullet diameter?

Lebell

Well, to use proper terminology, you’re asking why there are so many different calibers.

But to answer the question, different calibers are developed to try to address different needs or percieved needs for different uses. When someone percieves a new need, they develop a new caliber, such as Hornady’s new .17 round. Other calibers go out of style and may disappear altogether, like some of the .44 rounds from early last century.

Different needs may center around accuracy, number of rounds a particular firearm can hold, velocity, energy transferred to target, intended target, and so on.

And yes, you barely scratched the surface with those calibers. For one thing, .22 comes in .22 short, .22 magnum, .22 hornet, and .22 long flavors. And you haven’t even touched the regular rifle rounds.

Now “damage” is a catch all term and doesn’t really mean anything without qualifiers. Do you mean kill a person? Do you mean killing a coyote or skunk? Do you mean breaking some bottles at the range? Because technically, any device that propels a bullet down a tube is a gun. This means an air gun is still a gun, and some of those Daisy’s can hold enough charge to pierce a human skull, let alone a ground hog or rat. So shot placement becomes very important to a “damage” question.

If you are asking about practical usage (self defense), most people will argue that a decent self defense caliber starts at a 9mm and goes up. But I’ve got a Beretta 950 that shoots .22 shorts that personally I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of.

On the other end of the spectrum, it becomes what is too large to work with. Most people thought that the .44 magnum would be the most powerful hand gun round ever made, and then Smith and Wesson introduced their .500. It’s a specialized round and the gun isn’t cheap, but some owners find a use for it (hunting big game) while others just like the cache. Personally, I’ll buy an H&K USP .45 before I get a S&W .500. But that’s just me.

On the rifle end, it is the same. What can a person handle? Size wise, there have been calibers larger than a .50 BMG rifle (rifles during the civil war shot a larger bullet), but power wise, this rifle is at the top end. Could someone make something bigger? Yes. But would there be a market and could they make a profit? That is the question.

But seriously, gang bangers don’t know sh** about guns. They go for flash, not substance. So I would advise you NOT get your information about guns from them.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

iamnormal

Thats like asking why thier is diffrent colas.

Someone makes a new size or style ammo and patents it then sells it to make money.

iamnormal

This here would be big.
http://club.guns.ru/eng/ntw20.html

Dostoevsky

I'm pretty sure that any gun firing a caliber larger than .50" in diameter is actually considered a cannon legally and that would automatically make it a class 3 weapon in America. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I think that's why the .500 Smith and .50 BMG are the largest, most powerful respective handgun and rifle.

Strange, as said above, any projectile can be lethal if placement is correct. The smallest caliber considered adequate to bring down a human is normally 9mm. Although some people do carry small .22, .25, .32, .380 type pistols when they can't carry something larger and there are plenty of reports of those rounds being lethal.

New calibers are normally created by an ammo producer who has reached agreements with atleast one major gun producer to ensure that a firearm will be produced to fire the new caliber. Then the ammo and firearm producers hope the new caliber will catch on by either filling or creating a niche. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Some people say the 10mm is dying out right now which would really be a shame. It's an underappreciated round in my book. The power and versatility of a .41 magnum in a semi-auto. Bottom line, new calibers are created in hope of earning profits off of them.

__________________
Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned.


It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Lebell

No, that is not correct.

To the best of my knowledge, class 3 weapons deal with a) fully automatic weapons 2) Suppressed weapons and (I think) 3) short weapons like sawed off shotguns.

Caliber has nothing to do with it.

And cannons are not illegal to own (at I least I know for certain black powder ones are not). But where are you going to keep it? How much are the individual rounds? Will a manufacturer even sell you the individual rounds? Where will you fire it? How will you get it there?

That's the reason people don't generally own cannons. (My civil war reenactment group had a hell of a time transporting their two cannons and they were relatively small.)

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

Strange Famous

I actually honestly didnt know there were a as many different sizes as possibilities, I thought it was like, grades when you get your hair cut or something, and there was just 4 or 5 standard sizes bullets came in.

I guess, in all honesty, most of the gun names and makes I know about are from rap music, because a lot of rappers talk about guns all the time - I know of at least three songs dedicated to the rappers favourite guns, by Ice Cube, Mash Out Posse, and Jadakiss.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

The_Dunedan

Any smokeless-powder, cartridge-firing, non-"sporting" weapon over .50 calibre is a Destructive Device and is classified as an NFA34 weapon; technically a Class-3 device. This does -not- include blackpowder-charged cartridge guns, or 'sporting' rifles such a Express rifles, which can fire much larger projectiles, such as the antique 4-bore elephant rifles, or the new Emperor-series .700 Calibre elephant rifles now being produced by Holland & Holland and Purdey's. If you're after a Lathi or Solothurn 20mm, though, you're outta luck.

__________________
"I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world."

--Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

Lebell

Thanks for that update, TD. Since I don't have the cash for Class3 toys, I don't know as much about them as I might.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

Lebell

Head over and visit Eric at www.ammoman.com if you want an idea of what is being used right now and even Eric doesn't carry everything.

He even has an "obsolete" section, but again, that isn't everything what was ever made.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

The_Dunedan

I don't have the $$ for it either, man...just an aspiration. Full-auto stuff is largely "A magnificent means by which Money is converted to Noise,"IMHO, but the bigger-bore stuff could be great in super-long-distance target applications....the old Lathi was supposed to be about 1.24MOA with good ammo.

__________________
"I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world."

--Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

Slims

Well, the 9mm, .38, and .357 all use the same 'size' bullets. 9mm is .357 inches, and the .38 is a matter of semantics so that cartridges could have different names.

These different rounds evolved over time, with the .38 revolver rounds appearing first, many many years ago. But these were percieved to be 'underpowered." However, it was not practical to make those cartridges more powerfull, because they would likely blow up the guns made for lower pressures. So the .357 magnum was invented.....It's 'almost' the same as the .38 special, but is a little bit longer so that it won't fit in the older .38 special revolvers. They chanced the name to .357 (I think it happenned that way) to avoid confusion. You can shoot .38 special rounds in a .357 magnum gun, but not the other way around.

The 9mm is the autoloading equivalent of the .38 special. The cartridge is shorter, and does not have a rim.

The other cartridges are intended to address specific 'needs' and often stick around simply because a lot of guns were produced to shoot them before something else became available. For instance, .32 ACP was popular before the more powerfull .380 auto became widely available....coincidentally, .380 auto is another 9mm/357/38 round. It is used in small, concealable automatic pistols.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

Mustis

If you're looking for more info on calibers of different guns over the course of history, I would recommend checking out this site. http://ammoguide.com/

MSD

I would draw the line between gun and cannon at 20mm.

The smallest calibers I know of are 4mm and .17

The hardest-hitting that I know of is the .50 Browning. It's also the longest rifle cartridge I know of

forgotten_dream

I think that's the point that I'd start calling it a "cannon".
So if you DID have an actual black-powder cannon, what caliber would the cannon balls be considered?

__________________
"A ouija board just works better if you've made it yourself. It's sortof like how 'Clue' is more interesting when one of you has actually killed someone."

ChickenNinja

Depends on the size of the cannon balls, but it'd be based on their diamter or weight. If the balls were 8 inches wide, you'd have an 8.00 caliber ball, or a 203.2mm ball. If the balls were 14 pounds, you'd have a 14-pounder.

__________________
Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.