.22 Short is a variety of .22 caliber rimfire ammunition. Developed in 1857 for the first Smith & Wesson revolver, the .22 rimfire was the first American metallic cartridge. The original loading was a 29 or 30 gr bullet and 4 gr of black powder. The original .22 rimfire cartridge was renamed .22 Short with the introduction of the .22 Long in 1871.
The .44-40 Winchester (10.8x33mmR), also known as .44 Winchester, .44 WCF, and .44 Largo, was introduced in 1873 by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. It was the first metallic centerfire cartridge manufactured by Winchester, and was promoted as the standard chambering for the new Winchester Model 1873 rifle. As both a rifle and a handgun caliber, the cartridge soon became widely popular, so much so that the Winchester Model 1873 rifle became known as "The gun that won the West."
A wildcat cartridge, often shortened to wildcat, is a custom-made cartridge for which ammunition and/or firearms are not mass-produced. These cartridges are often created as experimental variants to optimize a certain ballistic performance characteristic of an existing commercial cartridge, or may merely be intended as novelty items.
The .243 Winchester (6×52mm) is a popular sporting rifle cartridge. Developed as a versatile short action cartridge to hunt both medium game and small game alike, it "took whitetail hunting by storm" when introduced in 1955, and remains one of the most popular whitetail deer cartridges. It is also commonly used for harvesting blacktail deer, pronghorns and mule deer with heavier rounds, and is equally suited to varmint hunting with lighter rounds. The .243 is based on a necked down .308 Winchester, introduced only three years earlier. Expanding monolithic copper bullets of approximately 80 to 85 grains or traditional lead rounds of 90 to 105 grains with controlled expansion designs are best suited for hunting medium game, while lighter rounds are intended for varmints.
The .25-06 Remington was a wildcat cartridge for nearly half a century before being standardized by Remington in 1969.
The 7mm-08 Remington is a rifle cartridge that is almost a direct copy of a wildcat cartridge developed around 1958 known as the 7mm/308. As these names would suggest, it is the .308 Winchester case necked down to accept 7 mm (.284) bullets with a small increase in case length. Of cartridges based upon the .308, it is the second most popular behind only the .243 Winchester. However, the .308 is more popular than both. In 1980, the Remington Arms company popularized the cartridge by applying its own name and offering it as a chambering for their Model 788 and Model 700 rifles, along with a limited-run series within their Model 7600 pump-action rifles during the early 2000s.
The .30-30 Winchester / 7.8x51mmR cartridge was first marketed for the Winchester Model 1894 lever-action rifle in 1895. The .30-30, as it is most commonly known, along with the .25-35 Winchester, was offered that year as the United States' first small-bore sporting rifle cartridges designed for smokeless powder. Since its introduction, it has been utilized alongside the development of flatter shooting cartridges, most prominently those derived from designs subsidized by interest in military expenditures. The .30-30 has remained in widespread use almost entirely because of reliable effectiveness in civilian applications, and has put food on the table for millions of people in hunting situations.
The .300 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked magnum rifle cartridge that was introduced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1963. The .300 Winchester Magnum is a magnum cartridge designed to fit in a standard rifle action. It is based on the .375 H&H Magnum, which has been blown out, shortened, and necked down to accept a .30 caliber (7.62 mm) bullet.
The .22-250 Remington / 5.7x48mm is a very high-velocity, short action, .22 caliber rifle cartridge primarily used for varmint hunting and small game hunting. It is capable of reaching over 4,000 feet per second. Some jurisdictions prohibit the use of cartridges smaller than 6 mm for deer hunting. This cartridge is also sometimes known as the .22 Varminter or the .22 Wotkyns Original Swift. Along with the .220 Swift, the .22-250 was one of the high-velocity .22 caliber cartridges that developed a reputation for remote wounding effects known as hydrostatic shock in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The .444 Marlin (10.9×57mmR) is a rifle cartridge designed in 1964 by Marlin Firearms and Remington Arms. It was designed to fill the gap left when the older .45-70 cartridge was not available in new lever-action rifles; at the time it was the largest lever-action cartridge available. The .444 resembles a lengthened .44 Magnum and provides a significant increase in velocity. It is usually used in the Marlin 444 lever-action rifle. Currently, Marlin, now owned by Ruger Firearms, does not offer the .444 chambering in any of their rifles. It remains to be seen if they will bring the chambering back into production.
The .338 Winchester Magnum is a .338 in (8.6 mm) caliber, belted, rimless, bottlenecked cartridge introduced in 1958 by Winchester Repeating Arms. It is based on the blown-out, shortened .375 H&H Magnum. The .338 in (8.6 mm) is the caliber at which medium-bore cartridges are considered to begin. The .338 Winchester Magnum is the first choice among professional brown bear guides in Alaska to back up clients where a powerful stopping caliber is required on charging bears. It is also the most popular medium-bore cartridge in North America and has the most widely available choice in rifles among medium bore rifles. The action length is the same as a .30-06, and most major rifle manufacturers in the United States chamber rifles for the cartridge including the semi-automatic Browning BAR Mk II Safari, making it a very powerful combination against charging dangerous game. The cartridge was intended for larger North American big-game species and has found use as for the hunting of thin-skinned African plains-game species.
The 7mm Remington Magnum rifle cartridge was introduced as a commercially available round in 1962, along with the new Remington Model 700 bolt-action rifle. It is a member of the belted magnum family that is directly derived from the venerable .375 H&H Magnum. The original purpose of the belted magnum concept taken from the .300 H&H Magnum and .375 H&H Magnum, was to provide precise headspace control, since the sloping shoulders, while easing cartridge extraction, were unsuitable for this purpose. Improved cartridge extraction reliability is desirable while hunting dangerous game, in particular when a fast follow-up shot is required. The 7mm Remington Magnum is based on the commercial .264 Winchester Magnum, .338 Winchester Magnum, and .458 Winchester Magnum, which were based on the same belted .300 H&H Magnum and .375 H&H Magnum cases, trimmed to nearly the same length as the .270 Weatherby Magnum.
The 6mm Remington rifle cartridge, originally introduced in 1955 by Remington Arms Company as the .244 Remington, is based on a necked down .257 Roberts cartridge using a .24/6mm bullet. Known for a combination of high velocity, long range, flat trajectory, and accuracy, it is suitable as a dual use hunting cartridge for both medium-sized big game and varmints. When used in the less common earlier slow twist barrels, it offers exceptional range for varmint applications. While not as commercially popular today as the .243 Winchester, the 6mm Remington enjoys a slight ballistic advantage and continues to be popular with handloaders and custom rifle builders.
The .303 Savage is a rimmed, .30 caliber rifle cartridge developed by the Savage Arms Company in 1894 which was designed as a short action cartridge for their Savage Model 1895 later 1899 hammerless lever-action rifle. The cartridge was designed for smokeless powder at a time when black-powder cartridges were still popular. The .303 Savage round was ballistically superior to the .30-30, but only marginally. The .303 Savage remained popular through the 1930s. Savage produced a half dozen loads for it. With its 190-grain loading, it was used on such animals as deer and moose.
The .264 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. Except for the .244 H&H Magnum and .257 Weatherby Magnum, it is the smallest caliber factory cartridge derived from the 2.85 in (72 mm) Holland & Holland belted magnum case. It was introduced in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the .338 Winchester Magnum and the .458 Winchester Magnum as one of a family of short-cased 2.5 in (64 mm) belted magnum cartridges developed by Winchester based on the .375 Holland & Holland parent case. It was officially introduced to the public by Winchester in 1959. After many years of dwindling use it began enjoying a mild resurgence in popularity in the mid-2000s among long range rifle enthusiasts and reloaders due to the high ballistic coefficient of the heavier 6.5mm bullets and increasing popularity of cartridges such as 6.5mm Creedmoor, .260 Remington, 6.5 Grendel, benchrest and wildcat cartridges in 6.5mm.
The .257 Roberts, also known as .257 Bob, is a medium-powered .25 caliber rifle cartridge. It has been described as the best compromise between the low recoil and flat trajectory of smaller calibers such as the 5 mm and 6 mm, and has more energy, but is harder recoiling, similar to larger hunting calibers, such as the 7 mm and 7.62 mm.
Parker Otto Ackley was an American gunsmith, barrel maker, author, columnist, and wildcat cartridge developer. The Ackley Improved family of wildcat cartridges are designed to be easily made by rechambering existing firearms, and fireforming the ammunition to decrease body taper and increase shoulder angle, resulting in a higher case capacity. Ackley improved not only standard cartridges, but also other popular wildcats, and was the first to create a .17 caliber (4.5 mm) centerfire cartridge.
.30-06 Springfield wildcat cartridges are cartridges developed from a 30-06 Springfield "parent cartridge" through narrowing or widening the cartridge neck to fit a smaller or larger bullet in an attempt to improve performance in specific areas. Such wildcat cartridges are not standardized with recognized small arms standardization bodies like the SAAMI and the CIP.
A varmint rifle or varminter is a type of small-caliber, precision-oriented long gun primarily used for varmint hunting and pest control. Such rifles are typically characterized by sniper rifle-like designs such as heavy free-floating barrel, enhanced bedding, ergonomic gunstock, the use of bipod/beanbag and high-power telescopic sight, and the choice of high-muzzle velocity, high-ballistic coefficient munitions, which are all accurizing features of needed for improving repeated shooting, often over long distances.
The .280 Ackley Improved was the result of the .280 Remington case modification by P.O Ackley, who pushed out the sidewalls at the shoulder to near parallel and steepened the shoulder angle to 40 degrees in order to increase powder capacity, thus along with increasing the allowable pressure, resulted in increasing the bullet initial velocity by approximately 100 fps.
