Fullbore... or is it?

[Tower75]

Hello chaps and chapettes

Ok. This is a really daft question, but you never know, maybe someone else is in my boat.

Fullbore: I've always thought this was the term for all centre-fire, full-power cartridges from 5.56/.223+ but... is it? Have I got that right? Does "fullbore" mean something different? I mean, no one's ever actually told me this stuff. You just pick up things here and there.

Yeah, I look like a muppet, but I'm not sure, and that's how we learn, right?

[Sim G]

Yeah, broadly speaking. I'd say anything centerfire.

[Dave 101]

Hang on a minute so what is pistol calibre centre fire rifle [ commonly known as gallery rifle ] ? Personaly I class full bore as a rifle calibre , as in those that were developed years ago from the time of the first bolt action rifles .

Dave

[20series]

Anything that isnt smallbore, ie bigger than .22rf

Alan

[tikkathreebarrels]

Anything that isnt smallbore, ie bigger than .22rf

Alan

Bigger bullet diameter than 0.224", so not .22/250, .22PPC or the .19 and .17 cal centrefire cartridges but by implication including any of the obsolete rimfire chaberings bigger than 0.22?

Centrefire - Rimfire... Fullbore - Smallbore...

Dave says what about pistol cailbre cartridges? So you could have .30 Cal pistol calibre AND a .30 cal fullbore rifle cartridge?

I've confoosed myself now sign85 sign85

Maybe we should let the professional leeches in Brussels look at this issue and come up with a metricated standardisation bsaed on muzzle report as being mach 2+ or under?

[20series]

OK, Ill rephrase my statement,

any calibre that isnt 22rf

[dromia]

I think the term might have originally come from engines running at full capacity.

In relation to guns the general understanding of the term is as 20 series has described.

However there are for instance fullbore target shooting clubs where full bore means .30 calibre.

I think the use of fullbore came from people wanting to differentiate more powerful rifles from the small bore and miniature rifles, perhaps to help in demonstrating the different range needs.

[Chapuis]

Fullbore is not a specific term but is generally used to describe all centrefire cartridges including pistol cartridges.
You can't say anything other than .22rf, what about .17hmr or .22wrm for instance. Both of those are generally regarded as smallbore but because of range safety certificate limitations would not always be permitted on a "smallbore" range. Nor is it possible to say that any rimfire is smallbore because in the past there have been large calibre rimfire cartridges, one example of which is the .41 remington rimfire which was used in their vest pistol.
You can't accurately define it by calibre either because .22 centrefire cartridges are as close as damm it to .22 rimfire cartridges in bullet diameter but are generally regarded as being fullbore cartridges. Also historically cartridges such as the .303 were regarded as being smallbore when they were first introduced because they were much smaller in calibre than the cartridges that they replaced. So we have to accept that the term is unspecific but is normally regarded these days as being any centre fire cartridge for either rifle or pistol.

[Sandgroper]

Just to confuse things! :lol:

From http://www.rifleman.org.uk/definitions.htm

Today's use of the term "small-bore" is largely attributed to such calibres as the .22in. Rimfire family of cartridges

In days past, "small-bore" referred to any calibre significantly less than .577".

What now constitutes small-bore would once have been described as "miniature calibre"

Going back barely two or three generations, a .451" Whitworth target rifle, similar to that shown being fired below, fell firmly into the small-bore category. At that time, almost all modern military small-arms, now considered to be full-bore, would have joined it.

[dromia]

Full bore post dates the 19th century nomeclatures, I have a memory that I read somewhere that is was started to be used in the 1920s or 30s. But then my memory is no longer reliable.