X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Intermediate cartridge


Intermediate cartridge

Since the 1960s NATO, the (former) Warsaw Pact, the People's Republic of China and other countries adapted relatively small sized, light weight, high velocity military intermediate service cartridges in the form of the 5.56×45mm NATO, Soviet 5.45×39mm and Chinese 5.8×42mm.

The Second World War saw the use of the bolt action rifles such as the Mauser Karabiner 98k, the Lee-Enfield SMLE, the Mosin Nagant, the Arisaka Type 38 and Type 99 rifles, and during the early years, the Springfield M1903, as well as semi-automatic battle rifles such as the Gewehr 43, the M1 Garand and the SVT-40.

The first cartridge fulfilling this requirement may have been the Japanese 6.5x50mm Arisaka used by the Russian Fedorov Avtomat rifle since 1915 (the cartridge itself dates back to 1897).



see also

.280 British

The adoption of the 7.62×51mm NATO round and the adaptation of the intermediate cartridge CETME (later developed into the G3) and FN FAL designs to fire it, produced rifles that were relatively longer and heavier and had greater recoil.

The .280 British concept would later prove to have been far ahead of its time, as the U.S. itself adopted an intermediate cartridge — 5.56×45mm NATO — by the end of the following decade.