In the days of old, before arms were rifled, missiles were round
and shot from a barrel that was smooth bore like a shotgun; the
gauge or caliber was numbered according to the quantity of a
perfect sphere of lead there was contained in a pound. Thus, 50
gauge rifle was bored for a ball that took fifty of them to
weigh a pound, 20 ga. twenty to the pound, 16, 14, 12, 10, etc.
The adjoining table reduces the standard shotgun or smooth bore
decimally to thousandths of an inch, also to millimeters. Gauge
Diameter in or bore millimeters. 8 - 21.8 10 - 20.0 12 - 18.6 14
- 17.8 16 - 16.8 20 - 15.6 25 – 14.4 30 - 13.6 32 - 13.2 40 -
12.4 50 - 11.4 Farrow, Edward S. American Small Arms; a
Veritable Encyclopedia of Knowledge for Sportsmen and Military
Men. New York: Bradford, 1904. Print. |Are you aware that Google
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