What does .30/06 and .30/30 mean? What is the actual caliber of them?

[pascal]

What does .30/06 and .30/30 mean? What is the actual caliber of them?

[Edward J. Palumbo]

The American system of cartridge designation includes an assortment of misnomers or nicknames, and that can be confusing or misleading. Both the .30-'06 and the ,30-30 use thirty caliber bullets (.308" diameter projectiles). The .30-'06 was adopted by the U.S. military in 1906, and the name refers to that date of adoption. You can find a wealth of cartridge history in a good reloading manual, and I won't rehash that here.
European cartridges are named a bit more informatively, to tell you the bullet diameter and case length (in millimeters). So 7x57mm, 6.5x55mm, 7.65x53mm, etc., will tell you quite a bit about the cartridge.
If you're not sufficiently confused, consider that the .218 Bee, .219 Donaldson Wasp, .220 Swift, .221 Fireball, .222 Rem., .223, .224 Weatherby and .225 Winchester all use .224" diameter bullets. In other words, the name doesn't necessarily reflect the bullet diameter; it may be the land-to-land, land-to-groove, or groove-to-groove diameter, or simply a unique name given to differentiate the cartridge from a similar one. Hang in there! It'll all become clearer with time.

[Far Rider]

The ".30" in both is the cartridge's bullet diameter (.308 inches).

The "06" in .30-06 stands for 1906, the year in which the cartridge was adopted by the US Army.

The "30" in .30-30 refers to the original standard load of 30 grains of powder.

[BuckTheSystem]

The word caliber refers to the diameter of the bullet in either inches or mm (.3 would = 3/10 inch diameter). Both of these rounds have the same diameter bullet (.308) as the others have said.

[Beekeeper]

30/06 = 30 caliber - model 1906

30/30 = 30 caliber - 30 grains of smokeless powder in the original standard load

[CPT BRAD]

Beekeeper is it smokeless power or black powder? I know that some cartidges around that time were metallic with black powder. Just curious, no disrespect intended.

[hjohn429]

Both are 30 calibers. 30/06 means it is 30 caliber and it was made in 1906. 30/30 means it is a 30 caliber bullet using 30 grains of powder. However with modern-day loads the grains of powder is usually different.

[idahooutdoors]

All good answers...

[rocky d bashaw]

i say the same,all good.

[Skeeb]

They are both .30 caliber...

[whitetailfreek]

I believe that the .30/30 was one of the first brass cased smokeless powder rounds, so therefor, the 30 at the end was a measurement of smokeless powder.

[Jeff Lalande]

This may be a dumb question but why are all 30-30 rifles lever action and 30-06 rifles are either bolt or semi auto?

[Survival Dayz]

The .30-30 is mostly lever because it was designed during a time when they were prevaailant (pre 1900s) This is why they have a flatened tip so the recoil wouldn't set off the bullets in the tube when a tip rammed the primmer hope i helped

[Patrick G Kruger]

30 06 = 30 caliber model of 1906
30 30 = 30 caliber 30 grains of BLACK Powder. It retained that designation to prevent confusion when the cartridge was converted to smokeless powders
Any re-loader should know this!
If you should ever reload a Black powder cartridge with the same grain weight of SMOKELESS Powder you may have an eye opening surprise or maybe a permanent eye closing!
The weight of a grain is the same in Black or Smokeless powders. The weight of a Dram (Used in Black powder shot shells! When they converted them to smokeless they used the word Equivalent for comparison) is 27.3438 avoirdupois so three drams equivalent is 82.0314 grains. You put that much smokeless powder in a 12 gauge shot shell and you will not have a shotgun anymore!