Talk:7.62×51mm NATO

I changed a reference near the end from "mid-sized round" or some such to "full-power round," which I believe is more accurate. Your mileage may vary, which is why I'm leaving this note in discussion. I think a mid-sized round would be something like the 6.5mm and 6.8 Remington SPCs. 7.62 NATO has much more in common with older, full-power rounds like 8mm Mauser, 7.62x54R, .303, .30-.06. ... --Thatnewguy 00:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think whoever wrote it was thinking of it as a middle between 5.56 and .50. That whole sentence needs reworking, though, because it's not our job to call something "excellent." Night Gyr 04:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

How's this? The 7.62 mm nevertheless met the designer's demands for full-auto reliability with a full-power round.--Thatnewguy 01:23, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Why the heck are there no bullet-masses listed? 9.33g

A good point. I'll go look up the various military loads. scot 21:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

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"NATO's 7.62 × 51 mm rifle cartridge, otherwise known as .308 Winchester (though they do not have identical specifications)" Could someone please make this a bit more clear, just for safety reasons, since the article on .308 Win does point here? 5.56mm NATO has some article for the same purpose, warning not to use military bullets in civilian rifles: [1]. --Tierlieb 80.145.116.52 22:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

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I've been told that the commercial ammunition manufacturers have started down-loading the commercial .308 Winchester ammo to NATO specs, because there are so many people out there with 7.62x51mm NATO rifles who've been told "7.62 NATO and .308 are the same thing" and are firing commercial .308 Winchester in 7.62x51 calibre guns. An article on Surplusrifle.com about the subject basically said that .308 Winchester ammo shouldn't be fired out of 7.62x51 NATO guns, but used a Spanish or Latin American 7.62x51 NATO conversion of the Mauser as the rationale behind this, saying this particular gun wasn't strong enough to handle it and if you owned one of these Mausers, you shouldn't use .308 Winchester ammo in it. There was, IIRC, no mention of any other Military Surplus 7.62x51mm rifle being unsafe for use with commercial .308 Winchester ammo. Certainly, I had my Ishapore 2A1 (7.62x51 NATO version of the SMLE Mk III*) at the range last week, and had been told by the gun dealer I bought it off that "7.62 NATO and .308 are the same thing". I fired Australian 7.62x51mm L2A2 ammo through it, as well as commercial Remington Core-Lokt .308 Winchester ammo, and there was no difference in the recoil, gunshot noise, or condition of the brass after firing. Another gun shop who specialise in Military Surplus arms have since told me that the commercial ammo is generally down-loaded now because of lawsuit fears arising from the conception 7.62x51 and .308 are the same cartridge... Anyone know anything else about this? --Commander Zulu 04:18, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

That coudl well be the case; ammo makers often do keep loads below the SAAMI levels. Also, keep in mind that military rifles are expected to be used under very adverse conditions, so even if they're designed for the 50,000 PSI loads, they'll probably handle the higher loads under good condidtions. Also, my Speer reloading manual is showing a SAAMI max pressure of 52000 CUP, so I'm wondering if the pressure measurements listed in the article aren't comparing PSI to CUP, as the .30-06 is given by the same manual as 50000 CUP. scot 16:01, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Chronology issue?

So it seems implied that the .308 follows after the 7.62x51 development? This may well be mostly correct in a sense, but it must be noted that the civilian .308 went to market something like two years prior to the actual adoption of the NATO round. I'd like to see more history of the .308 discusssed- exactly how did Winchester fit into this whole process? Interesting to hear that the .300 Savage seems to be the progenitor of this cartridge. That would be interesting to hear more about as well.

SB

Article Name

I'm curious as to why this article is named with the full description when to the best of my knowledge, there is no other 7.62mm NATO round specification. EvilCouch 05:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Why shouldn't it be? There's only one 5.56 round in the nato inventory, but we specify 5.56 x 45 to remove any possibility of ambiguity. 7.62 x 39 is also a common 7.62 cartridge and it takes knowledge of which cartridges are in the nato inventory to know which 7.62 NATO refers to if under the title of 7.62 x 51 or 7.62 NATO. Here, the title alone tells you more. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but if someone was unsure as to which 7.62mm round they were looking for, they're likely to just punch up 7.62mm which gets you to a page that's basically an extended disambiguation page. A quick Google fight between "7.62mm NATO" and "7.62 x 51mm NATO" has the former winning, 43,500 to 18,900. I realize I'm being pedantic by bringing it up, but I've always thought of 7.62mm NATO as being a much more common term. EvilCouch 12:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I just don't think we lose anything by specifying x51 in the title; it's like asking why we use hull number designations in ship pages when there's only one ship by the name. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

As per the general consensus from the team at Wikiproject: Military History, it would seem that this article really ought to be named "7.62x51 NATO", with no spaces. I thought I'd give people a chance to comment before arbitrarily changing the title, however. --Commander Zulu 07:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That title makes more sense than the current. I'd still prefer 7.62mm NATO, however the title without spaces is much more likely to be searched than the current article. EvilCouch 10:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Page moved. Cheers. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Should this article not be the 7.62 x 51 mm NATO instead?--Asams10 15:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)