The English military cartridge of .303 British was regulation in the British Army, the troops of the Commonwealth and many countries politically close to London between 1895 and 1960.
Since that date it has become a hunting and shooting ammunition. Its cylindrical-ogival or pointed projectile depending on the period of manufacture has a metric diameter of 7.7 mm. Its case is bottle-shaped and has a bead. Its initial loading was intended for black powder in 1888 and it began to be loaded with smokeless powder (cordite) around 1892.
This ammunition was at the origin of the experiments carried out on expanding bullets at the Dum-Dum arsenal near Calcuta (India).
Numerical and ballistic data
* Actual projectile diameter:7.7mm
* Mass of the projectile:
o military:9.75 g
o civilians:9.75-11.4 g
* Case length:56.44 mm
* Cartridge length:77.2 mm
* Powder load (military cartridges):3.61 g
* Initial Energy:
o Military cartridge:3455 J
o Civilian cartridges:2500 to 3688 J (nine commercial loadings in 1999).