Koos Custodiet
Expert Member
Yes but 308 is still an AK round.
Erm, no. And yes. And most definitely maybe.
There are a couple of hundred (guessing here) different rounds that all use .308 diameter bullets, chambered in different rifles. The M1 Garand is one, it shoots a cartridge called a 30-06 (30 caliber of 1906 is how they got the name). So's the R1 (shoots what is commonly called 308 but the full name is "308 Winchester" [1]) And also the good 'ol thuddy-thuddy lever action John Wayne gun [2]. And yea, the AK-47 (and not AK-74, that's something else again) uses a .308 bullet in a cartridge called, as mentioned earlier, 7.62 x 39 (where x 39 means the doppie is 39mm long). The 308 Winchester / 7.62 Nato doppie is 51mm long.
It's actually easy (trivial, almost) to tell the caliber from looking at the doppie [3]. For many firearms it's also possible to tell which firearm or type of firearm was used to shoot it (semi-autos, the extractor leaves a mark).
What's more difficult is telling what cartridge was used if you only have the bullet. Caliber's easy, but that narrows it down to, as I've said, different calibers [5]. So what you do is measure the lands and grooves (marks made by the rifling in the barrel) and referring to a database to find out what make of rifle was used, and working from there. This becomes more difficult if you only have fragments of the bullet, of course.
Fascinating stuff, eh?
Koos
[1] And yes I know there's a tiny difference between 308 Winchester and 7.62 Nato, which is actually what the R1 shoots, but that's arcane to the extreme, and hardly anybody cares.
[2] OK, his was chambered in 44-40 historically and probably 38 for movie purposes but don't worry about it.
[3] For one, it's normally stamped on the head [4] of the doppie for civilian ammo, military ammo have codes, but being the military, these codes are well documented
[4] The head being the primer end, the other end is called a "bullet". And the complete thing is called a "cartridge" or a "round" or just plain "ammo". The papers get it wrong. The gunshop dudes get it wrong. Ten miles beyond hell, where the devil couldn't get for stinging nettles, I tellya.
[5] OK, this should have confused you. First "caliber" is bullet diameter, second caliber is the cartridge name, which is also called the "caliber". In other words, getting from ".308 caliber bullet" to "308 Winchester" or "300 Whisper" or whatever.
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