Full power rifle cartridge

A full power rifle cartridge, or full-sized rifle cartridge, is a rifle cartridge that is more powerful than a cartridge for a pistol or assault rifle, yet less powerful than a cartridge for an anti-materiel rifle (e.g. .50 BMG) or an anti-tank rifle (e.g. 7.92 mm DS). In part because of the variety of rifle cartridge types made in the 1900s and the overlapping of their attributes, there is no standard with which to determine if a particular rifle cartridge is full power or not. As an informal observation, a full power rifle round is a spitzer bullet fired with sufficient energy and accuracy to be effective at a range of at least and up to , yet not possess such recoil as to cause too great a discomfort to the shooter or require a cumbersome or heavy rifle to fire the round from. General characteristics of full power rifle cartridges are: a bullet diameter of approximately .30 inches (7.62 mm); a bullet weight of to ; and a case containing enough propellant to accelerate the bullet up to ~ or more. The round need not be of military origin or use to be considered full power. Rounds developed for hunting such as the .300 Winchester Magnum, 7 mm Remington Magnum or .270 Weatherby Magnum would also fall into the category.
Examples
*7.62x51mm NATO cartridge of the M-60 and M-14, as well as the FN FAL and Heckler & Koch G3
* .30-06 cartridge of the 1903 Springfield, Browning Automatic Rifle and M1 Garand
*7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge of German rifles and machine guns until after WWII, used in the Mauser Karabiner 98k and MG 42
*7.62x54mmR Russian cartridge introduced originally in the Mosin-Nagant, it is still used in the PK machine gun and Dragunov sniper rifle.
* .303 cartridge of the Lee-Enfield rifle.
 
< Prev   Next >