Round Ball Diameters

mackcrane

July 01, 2011 11:22

How can you have a 44 caliber .454 diameter ball and yet have a 45 caliber .440 ball? Seems a bit backward to me.

Comments

4 comments

oneoldsap

July 01, 2011 12:14
You have your Balls backwards !
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babun

July 01, 2011 12:32
What was the name of that old song???? "Patches"???
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11b6r

July 01, 2011 14:13
The .44 is typically for a revolver- that shaves a ring of lead off the bullet as you seat it in the chamber, squeezing it down to .44 cal- helps prevent a nasty thing called "chain fire". The .45 is round ball for my Pennsylvania rifle- which has a cloth patch wrapped around it- at about .010 inches. Squeeze fit.

You might as well ask why .22 LR and .22 Magnum are different diameters, why .38 Special is .357, and why the .50 Browning is not .50 cal.
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mackcrane

July 02, 2011 09:03
Just seemed odd, a 45 colt is larger than a 44 special, so I couldn't see why there was this difference in a BP gun. I understand about the sealing of the chamber in a revolver and the patched ball in the rifle. Thanks.
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