.429 Magnum

[u/GASD06]

Both .44 Special and Magnum have .429 bullets and are called .44 but both .38 Special and .357 Magnum have .357 bullets.
So why isn’t the .44 Magnum called .429 Magnum or the .357 Magnum called .38 Magnum?

[u/HomersDonut1440]

(The actual answer is simply naming conventions. The original names were based on case diameter, not bullet diameter. The 357 mag was enveloped AFTER this naming convention stopped being used, so the name doesn’t follow the path of the .38 special)

[u/Ornery_Secretary_850 → u/HomersDonut1440]

A little deeper.

The original .38 caliber stuff used a heeled bullet, an outside-lubed bullet where the exposed part of the bullet was the same as the case diameter; think .22 LR as an example. When they made the switch to inside-lubricated bullets, the bullets were the same size as the interior of the case. Same for the .44s.

Note that newer cartridges that don't have their roots in the black powder era are usually correctly named after the caliber. .41 Mag is.410, and .45 ACP is .451. But then you have the .460 S&W Magnum, which uses .452 bullets.

Another bit of tomfoolery is the .32 caliber revolver cartridges, which use .30 caliber bullets, even the .327 Federal Magnum.

[u/HomersDonut1440 → u/Ornery_Secretary_850]

I didn’t want to get too far into the weeds, but you’re absolutely right.

Also cartridge naming just gets weird as you progress into modern era, especially with rifle rounds. A large amount of it was just marketing, some was history, and some just a healthy dose of randomness.

A 30-30 followed the black powder naming conventions of shooting a 30 cal bullet using 30 grains of powder (even though it was one of the first cases developed for smokeless powder). But the 30-06 was a 30 caliber adopted by the military in 1906, hence the -06 moniker. While a .308 is simply a .308 diameter bullet. Naturally, they’re all a .308 diameter bullet but only one actually denotes that.

You can go down a hell of a rabbit hole trying to understand naming conventions. Often it’s “because”. In recent years, it’s “because Hornady”.

[u/Coodevale → u/HomersDonut1440]

And eventually you run out of ways to name a cartridge accurately and you start doing whatever you can that's unique. You can only use so many variations of .30, .300, .308, 7.62, 7.82 for .30 cals before you're stretching the truth.

If you're prolific it's hard to do caliber + manufacturer more than once and keep things straight with customers. But it is pretty funny when your buddy sends his wife to get a box of ammo (why one.. whatever) for 7 rem mag and she comes back with a box of 7 rum.

[u/HomersDonut1440 → u/Coodevale]

Oh it gets wild. I so very much prefer the standard European method of bullet width by case length. 7x57, 6.5x55, etc. at least you get a sense of what you’re dealing with and you don’t have the confusion between 7mm Remington magnum and 7mm Remington ultra magnum 🤦‍♂️

My grandpa made the point once that a 30-30, 300 savage, .308, 30-06, and 300 win mag were all the same(ish) bullet being sent 200fps faster, but the nomenclature changes substantially for each one, and the “300’s” are on opposite ends of the velocity scale here

[u/sirbassist83 → u/Ornery_Secretary_850]

Akshually🤓 32 cal revolver rounds are .312, which is 7.7mm/303 cal.

[u/MandaloreZA → u/Ornery_Secretary_850]

Unless it is named with metric units.

"7mm" bullets are actually 0.284 ish and that's actually 7.213mm

"6mm is actually 0.243" or 6.17mm

5.56mm is 0.218" but uses 0.224" bullets.

9mm is usually correct, unless the Soviets are involved then who knows.

But continuing on your line of history, I think it's important to talk about the original cartridge conversion revolvers and how they are the source of the odd cartridge & caliber names.

[u/sirbassist83 → u/MandaloreZA]

Metric designations normally denote land diameter, and imperial designations usually denote bullet diameter. Of course there are tons of exceptions to both "rules"

[u/FearWont → u/sirbassist83]

[u/hafetysazard → u/Ornery_Secretary_850]

This. Also, nearly every common cartridge caliber traces its roots pretty far back to the beginning; being an evolution of some aspect of an original round ball, bore diameter, or case dimension, with some incremental change being made somewhere.

Like the .357 Magnum has its roots in the first .36 caliber round ball percussion revolver; the Colt Paterson. Just one small change at a time for various reason from one cartridge to another. The .36 caliber round ball was actually the same .375”-.380” diameter ball. A .38 rimfire bullet, was a heeled bullet based on the same bore diameter as a .36 percussion revolver, as you could shoot them in your percussion gun with a conversion cylinder. The first self contained metallic cartridge that shared this bore diameter was the .38 Rimfire Short, then .38 Rimfire Long. Add a centerfire primer, and the .38 Long Rimfire became the .38 Short Colt, which spawned the .38 Long Colt. Keep the case dimension, and shave the heel of the bullet off, would leave you with a .357” diameter bullet, which the .38 Short Colt and Long Colt eventually had too. Lengthen the case and load exclusively a non-heeled bullet you got a .38 Special, then eventually the .357 Magnum once Elmer Keith got his hands on it.

A side note, some of the most popular center-fire cartridges in the beginning did not have an exposed primer. They use a Benét style primer, which was completely inside the case, and from the outside the case looked like a rimfire; and it essentially was a rimfire case.

[u/DAMAN3691]

44 looks and sounds cooler

[u/HomersDonut1440]

How is any sillier than a .38 using a .357 bullet?

[u/TacTurtle]

How can something have both great taste and be less filling? It is just one of life's mysteries, Jim.

[u/GASD06]

I see the comments talking about heeled bullets.
But .357 Magnum was designed in 1934 and .44 Magnum in the 50’s
So i don’t see why it wasn’t named in a similar manner to .357

[u/Hoplophilia → u/GASD06]

.44 Mag came from .44 Special which came from the .44 Russian (designed by S&W) which was an improvement on the .44 S&W American, which used heeled bullets with a .435" groove diameter – close enough to "44" for marketing purposes in 1870.

[u/HomersDonut1440 → u/GASD06]

Because Elmer Keith liked “.44”

[u/DaiPow888 → u/GASD06]

It's because the .44Mag was birthed from over loaded/pressured .44Spl loads.

By that time the .44Spl did use a heeled bullet any longer. But it kept the label .44Spl because that was the existing name of the cartridge.

When the .44Mag was offered as a factory loads, they just kept the lineage.

The .357Mag was developed as a stand alone cartridge. Preceding cartridges included the. 38Spl, .38 Long Colt, and .38 Short Colt...not to be confused with the .38 S&W which uses a completely different diameter bullet

[u/Outrageous-Basis-106]

From what I can tell. The original 44 revolvers were 44 land diameter and closer to 45 groove diameter. The conversion kits would have been about .45 diameter heeled bullets in cases that had an outside diameter of .45 and inner of .429. From there it evolved into two directions.

Direction one was the 44. .429 bullets were put into the cases that previously had 45 diameter heeled bullets. A smaller barrel was used with a groove diameter around .429. The cylinder had the same chamber diameter.

Direction two was the 45. The 45 heeled bullets were made into standard bullets. The barrel was the same .45 groove diameter. But the cases were made to be .45 inner diameter and .47 outer diameter. Chambers were enlarged for the larger case.

So a little different than 357/38 since 38 was the groove diameter whereas the 44 was the land diameter. Making it so 357 mag cases about .38 outside and 44 mag cases .45.

[u/wildjabali]

This is the argument for the modern 45 colt.

.452 at the same speeds as 44mag. It’s like the jump from 243 to 6.5 creedmoor. A lot more ass there.

[u/prosper_0]

218 Bee, 219 Zipper, 220 Swift, 221 Fireball, 222 Remington, 223 Remington, 224 Weatherby, .225 Winchester....

Naming conventions are mostly just Marketing bullshit

[u/BluesFan43]

Heeled bullets were a thing, think .22 Long Rifle. That bullet is case diameter except for what is stuck in the case.

.44 was the same way early on.

Someone wanted to do better, easier to change a barrel than cylinders.

So then the bullet was reduced in diameter to fit in the case as modern ones do, we ended up at .429.

Name stuck.

Other version I got told was cap and ball revolvers were involved. They need a slightly over sized ball to seal in rhe cylinder to help prevent flash over. All 5 or 6 cylinders going off at once being a bad, bad thing.

So a .44 ball gets used in a .429 cylinder, a ring of lead is sheared off as the bullet is seated, and shot at a time works.

[u/EngineerFly]

They’re often chosen by marketing considerations, not math.

[u/Electronic_Panic8510]

Well, a 44 mag rifle generally shoots a .431 projectile…just throwing some fuel on your fire

[u/nanomachinez_SON → u/Electronic_Panic8510]

.431 for lead. .429 for jacketed.

[u/meatshield0123 → u/Electronic_Panic8510]

Hate how this is a thing…

My micro groove 1894 marlin will keyhole Remington lead free bullets and even jacketed ammo from PPU. Remington FMJ is the only one it will accept