196gr vs 150gr

Belt ANY open-based bullet up the rear end with several tens of thousands of PSI and you WILL get enough "distortion" to make a fairly good seal in a barrel, even if the forward section is only just engaging the rifling (bore-rider).

If any such distortion is mostly concentric and ditto the "bore-riding", no problems. See also the classic .303 for another example.

The US .30-6 was among the earliest in the business of "tight" groove diameters; .300" bore / .308" (ish) groove diameter.

Anyone have the specs for the original .30-03 bullet and barrel?

My 1905 M-1903 with the original barrel has a .309 groove . My original 30/03 ammo has a .306 bullet , same as my 30/40 ammo . Most countries either made their bores tighter or the bullets larger as they changed to spitzers and boattails .

Boy there's a lot of good information in this tread:)

The German 154gr. bullet was intended to be the round of choice for all Kar98k's. The 196gr. bullet was solely intended for MG use, but as a practical matter having 2 different cartridges just didn't make sense. The Germans gave up on the 154gr. bullet and most of WWII ammunition was the 196gr. loading. They also had many other loads and even had quite a large production of non-corrosive ammunition in WWII.

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Originally Posted by Calif-Steve

The German 154gr. bullet was intended to be the round of choice for all Kar98k's. The 196gr. bullet was solely intended for MG use, but as a practical matter having 2 different cartridges just didn't make sense. The Germans gave up on the 154gr. bullet and most of WWII ammunition was the 196gr. loading. They also had many other loads and even had quite a large production of non-corrosive ammunition in WWII.

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Calif-Steve I have also read that the German air force used the heavier 196 Gr load in their aircraft.

There is some Romanian ex -airforce heavy ball recently here in Canada ................supposedly recycled Nazi ammo with non-corrosive primers switched out. Harold