Forum: Author Hangout

The US 7.62 bullet is .308 inches. Russky 7.62 is somewhere in the 0.311-0.312 inch realm

I was told while in the Army that the Russians chambered their rifles 7.62 X 54 so they could use the Nato round of 7.62 X 51 but the Russian ammo would not chamber up in the Nato rifles. I never tried it so I don't know.

While chambering a round of the same caliber in a shorter cartridge would be possible, I would think that actually trying to fire it would be asking for a misfire. A potentially catastrophic misfire.

Bottleneck rounds headspace/seat on the shoulder of the round. I'm thinking whomever told you that was fond of fishing tales.

It should certainly be physically possible to chamber a 7.62x51 round in a 7.62x54 rifle and close the bolt.

Firing it would be inadvisable, but just chambering the round should work.

NATO 39.62 mm base to shoulder with a 40° taper
Russian 39.70 mm base to shoulder with a ~37° taper

You might jam the round in, but it's going to blow up in your face if you can get it to go at all.

You might jam the round in, but it's going to blow up in your face if you can get it to go at all.

I did say that firing it would be inadvisable.

The word "inadvisable" simply isn't strong enough imo. Some idiot somewhere would read that as possible instead of inadvisable. Tell them it's going to blow up in their face gets more of the inherent danger across.

Then again, there are the Darwin Award warning labels. It shouldn't take a warning label to stop someone from using an electric hairdryer in the shower. However, the existence of such labels imply some idiot somewhere did just that.

Some idiot somewhere would read that as possible instead of inadvisable.

And this is a problem for the gene pool, how?

And this is a problem for the gene pool, how?

Didn't say it was. But firmly stated warnings do offer some legal protection from mass of idiots who'd want to sue if they lived.

ETA: Remember, this is the world that spawned such things as the Tide challenge.

The urge to self darwinate is strong in some individuals. I've seen 9mm fired in a .40, .40 fired in a 45, 22 magnum fired in a .17hmr, .308 Winchester fired in surplus bolt action .308 NATO, 9x23mm fired in .38 super, .38 special fired in iron framed 38 S&W, .32 fired in a .380 and a .30-06 that explosively dissasembled when a know best reloaded his cases by filling them to the top with shotgun power and compressed a bullet on top. Also cracked frames, cracked slides, burst chambers and barrels launched down range after pistols were loaded with handloads.

They all came for advice after the fact instead of before.

Self darwinate... I'll be stealing that one lol.

the actual terms are autodarwination and autodarwinate (noun and verb forms for the act of improving the gene pool by removing oneself from it)

I've seen 9mm fired in a .40, .40 fired in a 45, 22 magnum fired in a .17hmr, .308 Winchester fired in surplus bolt action .308 NATO, 9x23mm fired in .38 super, .38 special fired in iron framed 38 S&W, .32 fired in a .380

There are a few specific calibers I've seen mentioned repeatedly as "this can be fired from this other caliber weapon". There's a lot of idiots who don't believe details matter. Combine those two facts, and I think we have the explanation for some of the chuckleheads you mention.

The Russian round predates the NATO round by roughly 60 years, going back to 1891. The 7.62 NATO was introduced in 1954, by which time the USSR were already transitioning to the 7.62x39mm assault rifle cartridge.

I got this googling Hitlers buzzsaw. Interesting read -
The MG42 Machine Gun Was Hitler's Buzz Saw (1,800 Rounds Per Minute) ... The Germans called the MG42 Hitlersäge or "Hitler's bone saw"—and built infantry tactics around squads of men armed with the weapon. Many military historians argue that the Maschinengewehr 42 was the best general-purpose machine gun ever.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/mg42-machine-gun-was-hitler%E2%80%99s-buzz-saw-1800-rounds-minute-44892

Well, the M2 would definitely rip a person in half, mostly from the damage each round does. A .50cal is 12.7mm after all. But rate of fire is vitally important. Consider the original Gatling gun fired .22cal rounds. A large number of bullets per second means that as the gunner traverses the target, the closer to each other each bullet hits. If 20% of each bullet is passing through the wound channel of the previous round, a body would end up resembling the victim of a chainsaw. So yes, a decent machine gun will cut a person in half.

I believe a bullet fired from a .50 caliber machine gun would tear a person apart. I was seeking that effect. How would I say that?

One round, no.

If would depend on where the person was hit. For a head shot, the head would practically explode. It might amputate an arm or leg if the bullet actually hits the humerus or femur. On the torso, it would create a fairly large hole, but the body would remain mostly intact.

On the other hand, you are talking about a machine gun.

There it will depend on a large number of factors.

How stable is the platform it's being fired from?

How much deflection will you get from one round to the next due to recoil?

What's the range from the gun to the target?

What's the rate of fire?

Is the gunner firing controlled bursts or just laying on the trigger?

Assume a 10 round burst.

At very close range, you might cut a single person in half.

At 1000 meters, a single individual might only get hit by one round due to recoil deflection.

Caliber is in (part of) inches or in number of millimeter, but in both cases you're looking at diameter. When specific metric rounds are referenced with two numbers, the first number refers to diameter of the round, which is what most people care about. The second number just differentiates between rounds of similar diameter (because different weapons can have identical bore, but not take the same rounds).
The MG42 was most feared for its rate of fire. A slow traverse of the barrel while firing would allow literally cutting things in half with bullets.

The bullet in a Glock is actually bigger diameter, yes. It's also a pistol round, which is almost a sphere in front of a small charge. In a rifle or machine gun, the bullet tends to be smaller diameter, much more oblong, with a very large charge to propel it.

So with a 9mm Glock, that's like the 7.29 part in the MG42 round? It's actually smaller than the round in a 9mm Glock?

The 9mm and the 7.62mm are the diameter of the bullets. Bullets also in different shapes and lengths.

In modern guns the classic bullet shape is mostly limited to pistols.

Rifle bullets tend to be longer and more sharply tapered, and while the core is lead, they are at least partially jacketed with another metal that is harder than lead but still typically a relatively soft metal. Copper is the most common.

The 9mm round from a Glock pistol is bit bigger around, but the 7.92 is probably more than twice as long and has more mass.

Here is an link to a picture showing a whole bunch of different rounds standing on end next to each other.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Big_caliber_cartridge_comparison_v2_-_.22lr,_9x18mm,_9x19mm,_7.62x25mm,_.40_S%26W,_10mm_Auto,_.45_ACP,_.454_Casull,_.30_Carbine,_4.6mm_HK,_5.56x45mm_NATO,_5.45x39mm,_7.62x39mm,_7.62x51mm,_7.62x45mmR,_.303,_7.92x57mm,_.30-06.jpg

The third from the left is a 9x18mm, that's your Glock.

The fourth from the right is 7.62x54mmR, that's your machine gun.

I'd think the second on the right is the machine gun. 7.92x57mm is the MG42 round. And the 9x18 is the second on the left, but that's a Russian round. The Glock takes a 9mm parabellum, which is 9x19mm (which is the third on the left).

The Glock takes a 9mm parabellum, which is 9x19mm (which is the third on the left).

I had the position right but the text wrong.

You are probably correct on the MG42 rounds. This picture doesn't have it, but I've seen similar that go all the way up to .50 BMG.

I was impressed they included one of the more interesting rounds out there... the 4.6mm HK

I was impressed they included one of the more interesting rounds out there... the 4.6mm HK

Yeah, but it doesn't have any of the newer interesting rounds for the AR15 platform like the .458 SOCOM, 6.5mm Grendel, or .50 Beowulf.

Another newer round it's missing is the pistol round .50AE

So if the pistol one (3rd from left) and machine gun one (4th from right) went into your body (a single shot from the same distance), which would do more damage and why?

The rifle round (as long as we are talking what a single round will do, MG vs a normal rifle won't matter) will do the most damage.

Why? More energy.

You can see from the picture, the rifle round casing is longer. That means more gun powder behind the round. Rifle barrels are also longer, so the bullet has more time to accelerate.

Now with big rifle rounds and soft target like a human body at close range, you can run into a problem called blow through. The round goes in one side and out the other and keeps going. This means it failed to transfer all of it's energy to the target, somewhat reducing the damage done.

However, even with blow through, most rifle rounds will deliver more energy to the target than any pistol round has to start with.

The big exception to this is .22SR and .22lr. These have less energy than most pistol rounds.

And what's the second part mean (57mm)?

When you see a metric firearm round listed as AxBmm, the first number is always the bullet/bore diameter, what is referred to as caliber.

The second number is the casing length(I looked it up, it's just the casing, not the complete cartridge with the bullet). The bigger the number, the more gunpowder sitting behind the bullet, the more velocity/energy the bullet will have.

Also, all pistol casings are straight, but a lot of modern rifle cases are tapered. This means the casing diameter is greater than the diameter of the bullet and that makes for even more gunpowder.

Also, all pistol casings are straight, but a lot of modern rifle cases are tapered.

Not true... The .357 Sig has a bottleneck case. Sure, they're not nearly as common to see, but it's not an absolute, either.

The Tokarev 7.62 round as well.

If I shot you once with a 9mm parabellum as you were running at me, chances are you'd reach me before dying, even if I hit somewhere that would be fatal (assuming not a head shot or spine). If I shot you with a Macmillan TAC50 (which uses the .50BMG round) at the same range, you'd fall backwards and quickly expire. Those big shells hold a lot of propellant. More propellant means more muzzle velocity. Also, a longer barrel means the round is going to be accelerating longer, which will get higher velocity.
F=ma
If a bullet stops in your body, it's going to do that in about a tenth of a second. That means that its velocity will be reduced to zero in such a short time, that the acceleration is far more than the velocity. Also, the shape of the round (long and tapered rather than short and roundish) means the machine gun round is heavier. (Of course, I also used a bigger round here. But a 7mm hunting rifle would have similar results.) The overwhelming force of impact imparts hydrostatic shock.

But the thing to keep in mind about a machine gun is this: it isn't what damage a single hit does that matters, because if the rate of fire is high enough, you're taking multiple hits.

A machine gun could easily, when fired from close, chop a head off. Fifteen rounds through the neck from a M60 would probably do that. Six rounds from a M3.
But yeah, most Rambo movies had bullshit special effects. Like when a vehicle gets shot, and the gas tank explodes and flips it over.

Both German and Russian snipers used exploding bullets on the eastern front. There is a fascinating if macabre test https://youtu.be/AXaaybiRiYY

I believe there's a ban on exploding rounds under some arbitrary caliber (might be 20mm) and that was partially the reason in experiments with 25mm grenades in XM29 OICW and XM25 CDTE.

I remember seeing a 20mm sniper rifle. Technically anti-materiel, but it would be effective for antipersonnel, particularly against a target in body armor.

When is the last time the UN has been able to actually stop anything (that it was trying to)?

There's a UN Convention that limits exploding rifle ammunition to be for anti-materiel only, i.e. for use against vehicles and buildings only.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/exploding-bullets-dont-exist-contrary-kera-claims/

Interesting aside: Decades ago, bullets with a small explosive charge in the tip (using the same explosive that fires the bullet) were on the market. They were widely regarded as novelty items, but the idea was that the tiny explosive charge would fragment the bullet on impact, amplifying the normal expansion effect. Some of these bullets were marketed under the brand name "Devastator," and John Hinkley Jr. used a .22 caliber version in his attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Of the six rounds he fired, only one seems to have exploded, the one that struck James Brady. Reagan was hit by a ricochet, and doctors wearing body armor removed an unexploded round from D.C. police officer Thomas K. Delahanty, who was wounded in the assassination attempt. This episode has given rise to a kind of urban legend among doctors and coroners regarding exploding bullets, addressed by a fascinating report in the Journal of Clinical Pathology. The authors of the paper chastise their colleagues for conflating expanding bullets with exploding projectiles.

True exploding bullets were first described over a century ago and, although not actually in use at that time, were prohibited under the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which states that explosive or inflammable projectiles, with a weight of less than 400 g, should never be used in the time of war. Examples include the Russian 7.62 mm ×54R machine gun ammunition with an internal charge of tetryl and phosphorus, and later handgun cartridges containing Pyrodex charges, with or without mercury additives. It should also be noted that individuals can easily obtain instructions for the creation of their own bullets. The most infamous use of such bullets was the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981 by John Hinckley, who used "Devastator" bullets (Bingham Limited, USA) composed of a lacquer sealed aluminium tip with a lead azide centre designed to explode on impact. Although frequently referred to in works of fiction, they are rarely encountered in forensic practice, because sales have been restricted following the incident in 1981.

Odd.

Tracer ammo isn't legal to use, officially?

They seem to have had two sets of targets all along: (a) people, and (b) material and equipment which includes vehicles. From my reading of the past agreements there are rounds like the incendiary, tracer, and explosive rounds which you aren't allowed to use in rifles and machine-guns to shoot at troops only, but can be used to shoot at certain vehicles and equipment.

The US military has tracer rounds for the M16.

My take is that tracer rounds are designed for visual tracking, not for setting things on fire, so they probably don't fall under the ban on using incendiary rounds against people.

That's kind of the point of Lazlo Zalezac's Misera series.

But yeah. There's a lot of things that were once common in war that are not allowed now. But then, consider the musket era - the limeys used a triangular spike for a bayonet, because it left a wound nearly impossible to treat, and that was ok...but soldiers sometimes notched their bayonets to make them more brutal, yet any soldier captured with such a modified bayonet would usually be killed rather than taken prisoner. There have always been some unwritten 'rules'.
For example... I could probably kill a much higher percentage of targets using a 7mm hunting rifle, with standard hunting rounds, than with a M14 using FMJ rounds. The rules of war currently insist on solid, jacketed slugs rather than rounds that fragment or mushroom on impact. Current rules also prohibit the use of chemical weapons (even Hitler refused to use them in combat).

But yeah... if you're in a war, the first priority should be winning. The whole notion of 'war crimes' was invented as a convenient excuse to execute those defeated, and then was twisted to be applied to the winners as well.

Yeah. Flamethrowers are really nasty weapons to try to use, tho. The guy armed with one is easily recognized and carrying a heavy load of fuel (or is lacking any sustainable fire) which is usually vulnerable. And it was mostly used by the US against the Japanese, so nobody complained.
Napalm is nastier. Not a easily targeted weapon, and much more difficult to put out. And then there was the firebombing of Germany and Japan. But fire's been accepted as a weapon since the days of Greek Fire.

And ironically, using small caliber FMJ rounds are meant to increase enemy casualties (rather than fatalities) in order to stress their resources caring for injured.

I only shoot you once when you were running at me, that's because I only had one round left in the magazine. Maxim 37 - There is no 'overkill'. There is only open fire and reload. My Glock has a 17 round magazine for a reason. :)

Thanks for the point, although I was trying to make a point of what a single round would do. If I had to use 9mm to take down an attacker, I want a Calico M960, because fifty rounds minimum sounds like a reasonable number. Otherwise, I want to be using at least a .40 to get some kind of stopping power. And really, eight rounds of .45ACP is probably better anyhow.

IIRC the USA came out with the Colt .45 M1911 due to it's increased stopping power over .38 caliber pistol rounds.

The M1911 lasted a VERY long time.

The M1911 lasted a VERY long time.

It's still available for civilian use, but the US military replaced it with the Beretta M9 (9×19mm Parabellum) back in 1985.

Which was still what, three quarters of a century in use?

The fact is, John Browning was a national treasure of the US.
While the BAR fell out of favor quickly enough, he created several of the longest lasting weapons designs ever. The M1911, the M2, the pump-action shotgun....

bk69
10/1/2020, 7:04:31 PM

@Switch Blayde

Caliber is in (part of) inches or in number of millimeter, but in both cases you're looking at diameter. When specific metric rounds are referenced with two numbers, the first number refers to diameter of the round, which is what most people care about. The second number just differentiates between rounds of similar diameter (because different weapons can have identical bore, but not take the same rounds).
The MG42 was most feared for its rate of fire. A slow traverse of the barrel while firing would allow literally cutting things in half with bullets.

And every prospective reader should know all of that before they're eligible to read your story.

Not really. However, when someone wants to understand the subject they're researching, is that bad? The relevant points from what you quoted:
- in the story, there's no need to cite the information about the round other than the caliber
- while any machine gun could theoretically cut someone in half, the MG42 would be more likely than most to do it
- in case of future research, caliber is expressed in either measurement

See, I don't doubt Switch will eventually write another story with weapons he's unfamiliar with, and if he has the knowledge from now, he won't need to ask as many questions in the future.

One other point: if the gunner fired continuously, a 250round belt of ammo would be gone in less than 9 seconds.

Hold the trigger down and let it go through the whole belt - after 150 rounds, it would spray all over the place.

And If you keep going long enough it will melt the barrel. Things would get kind of ugly for the gunner at that point.

while any machine gun could theoretically cut someone in half, the MG42 would be more likely than most to do it

It might have been more likely to cut someone in half than most other machine guns from the WWII era. I can think of a few from more recent times that would be more likely to do it.

I'll name just one: The M134 Minigun; 7.62×51mm NATO, 2k-6K rounds per minute.

Technically, the M134 isn't actually a machinegun. The motor-driven gatling-gun is a hell of a weapon tho, and yes it would do the job.
However, even so, I did mention that the MG42 would be more likely than MOST, right? There's a few modern machineguns as likely or more to do the job, but even now not all...

However, when someone wants to understand the subject they're researching, is that bad?

I'm suggesting that anytime the story sends readers to a dictionary or other avenue of research, many readers will stop reading.

The problem is this: you can write a story without any care whatsoever for what the actual facts are (which risks having readers notice that you're talking out of your ass) or you can actually research and write a story that doesn't contradict the truth. However, you can do either without forcing the reader to research.
(As an example, in the 'Bernie the Burglar' novels, Lawrence Block made shit up left and right, because he knew nothing about lockpicking or security systems and such, and didn't feel like researching. Anyone who doesn't know much about the subject would just nod, and accept that the MC was expert and knew what he was about. Someone with enough knowledge would probably laugh his ass off sometimes, and maybe acknowledge he got some stuff right by accident other times. Meanwhile, Tom Clancy researched like crazy to get technical details right, and his books were just as entertaining.)

anytime the story sends readers to a dictionary or other avenue of research, many readers will stop reading.

For me, only if the research shows me that the author has it wrong yet again, and most of my checks aren't 'what's that' but rather 'I don't think that's right'.

ETA:
OTOH, it they're just 'making shit up', I'm more likely to give them a pass, especially if the story is fine otherwise (as long as there's not too much of it).

> I don't think that's right

Exactly !

Ian

What's the matter with "Kincaid and Johnston lay dead, their bodies ripped apart by German machine gun bullets"? Is the size of the bullet germane to the story? Sometimes, in my mind, minute details like this detract from the story.

I don't know how many people who read stories on a porn site get a woody about the size of a bullet.

people who read stories on a porn site get a woody about the size

Well, that's probably not the correct anatomy. I mean, sure, any number of size queens are homosexual, but there's plenty of women to whom size matters.

It's not the size of the ship, it's the motion of the ocean.

Closest thing german ww2 and at least theoretically present on infantry battlefield might be this automatic canon:

That is an anti-aircraft gun. It's exceedingly unlikely that they would fire it at infantry.

The"you can't use it against personnel" thing is a misreading of international agreement.

So what is the correct reading?

And what about small caliber?

The capacity of humans to create is only exceeded by their capacity to destroy.

You underestimate their capacity to be stupid.

Nobody used 7.29 anything.

Well, other than the Ross Rifle Co.
But yes, nobody who knew what they were doing did.

Uhm... I'd imagine it would be rare everywhere.

Might not be quite as rare in Canada where it originated from.

Actually, it originated in Quebec. Not quite canada (especially if you ask quebecers).

But firearms are scarce in Canada, due to the government not trusting that the population wouldn't be willing to violently overthrow it if they were appropriately equipped.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable regarding Canadian firearms laws, with most of the information being hearsay.
However, outside of major cities, total bans there make zero sense to me. Canada is much like Australia in one regards. Vast areas of land, with a relatively small population.

How 'exactly' do the people living away from the cities defend themselves from varmints, both two and four legged, when the nearest law enforcement is sometimes half or more, hours away?

How 'exactly' do the people living away from the cities defend themselves from varmints, both two and four legged, when the nearest law enforcement is sometimes half or more, hours away?

They're supposed to politely die, and not create any extra paperwork for the cops when they pry themselves away from Tim Hortons long enough to eventually show up. (This also has the added advantage of reducing their future medical costs, compared to eventual chemo and/or dialysis - one or the other of which is practically certain if someone lives too long.)

Roughly 3% of Canadians qualify as farmers.

This number includes a large number of suburban types with grapes or a half acre or two of fruit trees, as well as greenhouses. There aren't many traditional farmers. And even among traditional farmers, firearm ownership isn't universal.

There are some laws like you mention: if you catch a predator in the act attacking your livestock you can shoot it, then show the investigators your wounded livestock and photos of the scene before and after shooting. After everything is settled you may get reimbursed enough for damages to cover your legal costs, because most predators are protected now and you're gonna be on trial. For a while, grain farmers were allowed to take a extra deer in season if it was on their own property (hence defending their crop against a predator - after the deer ate that crop all growing season)
Groundhogs and similar, you can get away with shooting, mainly because you can get rid of the evidence.

That's what a properly armed population is SUPPOSED to do, if the government doesn't listen to them.

I always get a laugh at these types of comments. Maybe back in 1776 it was true. Even back in 1863 it wasn't true because the government had better weapons. Today not even close.

Please tell me how you think a revolution would be fought today and how many dead innocent people would be acceptable? Make no mistake most of the dead would be innocent people.

Well, 1979 is a while ago, but it was done in Iran.

More recently, the Arab Spring.

But those didn't involve civil wars.

But those didn't involve civil wars.

If you're under that impression, you obviously didn't read the history.

Please tell me how you think a revolution would be fought today and how many dead innocent people would be acceptable? Make no mistake most of the dead would be innocent people.

Asymmetric wars have a long history of success. Just as long as the history of arrogant people who simply believed it couldn't happen due to the disparity in arms.

As far as dead innocent people go, that would be what government, military, and revolutionary forces around the world has called "collateral damage" more often than not. History is riddled with millions of dead examples. Many of which were from an unarmed population.

There is no level of truly innocent people dying that is acceptable. Each life just as important as the next. However, that hasn't ever prevented war of any nature from taking them. I don't forsee a future for the world where that changes either.

Please tell me how you think a revolution would be fought today

Except in a revolution, many of the military's most powerful weapons can end up off the table.

Suppose someone does start a real revolution in the US, they take out the local government and take control of a major US city.

How far does the US government go to stop it? Do they send bombers to flatten a major US city? Do they nuke it?

If the government responds with genuinely overwhelming power, the government becomes the bad guys in the minds of the general public and the revolution grows.

If the government had already suspended the constitution and stopped elections before the revolution started, they may not care.

On the other hand if the US government is still paying lip service to the US constitution and still pretending to be a democratic republic, such a response could back fire on the government.

So they limit themselves to sending in infantry, maybe with some armored vehicles to use as protection. At that point, the firepower disparity, while it will still exist, isn't nearly as big as you seem to think it is.

Another problem that can creep up on the government in this kind of situation is does the military remain loyal to the government. It wouldn't have to even be the whole military. Individual soldiers can "defect" to the revolutionaries. But there is also the possibility of whole units siding with the revolutionaries.

Years ago (mid 90's), a friend of mine over in Bragg, showed me a survey that had been passed around JSOC units. This survey, while beating around the bush in a MMPI manner, was trying to ascertain whether or not US SOCOM units would willingly fire on US citizens and or units of regular military in opposition to higher command.

The answer at the time was a resounding no. I've heard through the grapevine a similar survey was performed in 2015 with a touch more ambiguous results.

Regardless of the above, your point remains valid. The political elites 'assume' the military will do their bidding. I'm thinking that's a dangerous assumption. I'm also thinking those initial surveys were responsible for the militarization of American police forces. The latter having been shown to be more willing to fire on citizens than regular or elite military forces. Especially the younger generation of them without a military background.

Put them out there in a line to protect the base dependents housing and you'll have a hard time stopping them from shooting.

Meanwhile, the revolutionaries ignore (or make a feint at) the base dependents housing and sack the base armory. :)

Put the troops out there to stop people from trashing a government building and you'll have a hard time getting them to shoot. Put them out there to stop people attacking a hospital or school full of people and / or kids and you'll find it a lot easier to get them to shoot. Put them out there in a line to protect the base dependents housing and you'll have a hard time stopping them from shooting.

With is just another illustration of the ages old advice by Sun Tzu:

A fool goes to fight and seek to win; a wise leader win first and only go to the fight then.

Overwhelming firepower may be part of it, but is not the most significant exactly for the factors mentioned. Weapons may win battles, but wars -- and especially revolutions -- are more often than not won or lost in head space not on battlefield. What weapons usually do is make the results to manifest and become permanent.

And by the way, in 1863, the civilian population had the same weapons as the government troops.

Most civilians didn't have cannons or ships, not because it was prohibited, but because they were expensive.

On the other hand, in terms of the weapons that an infantry soldier would carry/use, many civilians had better.

The Henry repeating rifle came out a year or two before the start of the war.

Cartridge fed single shot breach loaders had been around since 1847.

Despite this, both the Union and Confederate armies went into the war fielding muzzle loading muskets.

Rifles, even muzzle loading rifles were seen as not advantageous given the mass volley fire tactics that were popular at the time.

Among other things, a muzzle loading rifle, because of the tighter fit needed between the bullet and the barrel, takes longer to re-load than a smooth bore.

The Union army wouldn't officially adopt a repeating rifle until the war was almost over.

Partially because the Army was run by beancounters. Expensive new 'untested' gear wasn't considered worth it.

However, it was also common enough for those officers who came from serious money to personally equip their units. Gatling sold his guns on the open market, not just to the army.

Actually, it originated in Quebec. Not quite canada

Officially, Quebec is part of Canada whether the Quebecers like it or not.

quebecers

"What do you call a person from Quebec?
A resident or native of Quebec is often referred to in English as a Quebecer or Quebecker. In French, Québécois or Québécoise usually refers to any native or resident of Quebec. Its use became more prominent in the 1960s as French Canadians from Quebec increasingly self-identified as Québécois."

And one more time - the Germans used 7.92mm. The Italians used a 7.35mm. Nobody used 7.29 anything.

As I recall, the 7.35 was meant to replace the 6.5 Carcano round prior to the start of WW2. However, that plan was shelved when hostilities broke out. They still made some 7.35, but the primary round used by the Italians was the 6.5 Carcano.

But none of those involved mass killing compared to a revolution or a civil war did they?

Mass killing isn't the objective of a revolution.

The objective of a civil war/revolution is to bring down the current government and replace it with one controlled by the revolutionaries or two separate from the existing government and form a new independent nation.

To judge if something is or is not a revolution on the basis of the body count is exceedingly narrow minded.

1979 Iran was not only a revolution, it was a successful revolution. The old government fell and a new government rose to take it's place.

Then lets look at your death toll numbers

Libya in 2011 (Arab Spring) had 1/7th the 1979 population of Iran. And the Arab Spring in Libya by your numbers had 4 times the death toll of the Iranian revolution. Yet the Arab Spring wasn't a real revolution?

Mass killing isn't the objective of a revolution.

Indeed. For one of probably most extreme examples "Song Revolution" of Baltic states that restored independence after fifty years of occupation and eventually resulted in dissolution of Soviet Union was fought with no weapons on the winning side, and very few direct casualties.

There was the episode in Lithuania when tanks drove in protesters, but the only gunshot causalities in Latvia were in few episodes involving *officially* "out of control" marauding OMON (militarized police special forces) unit, of with there's five to under two dozen (depending are you counting the later attacks on makeshift border posts as purely criminal murders as opposed to political fights).

Loyalty of armed forces wasn't tested, and on paper the empire had plenty of instruments to enforce such, including but limited to, relocating units from distant provinces. We on our hand demonstrated ability to mobilize upwards of 15% of population in a flashmob coordinated by fuzzy leadership and generally won the information warfare, including but not limited to narrative of international messaging (note it was pre-internet world of 1991; getting an unfolding street firefight in Riga on CNN Live was still a feat).

Also, while there was no guns in sight, the seemingly symbolic barricades of Riga was in fact planned by a guy who had been in charge of Soviet forces leaving Afghanistan; it wasn't like we were without military expertise, if it come to it, even if we couldn't in no way afford war of attrition. Allegedly, Mujahedeen had learned to reverence Latvian fighters, and the legend of Latvian (Red) Riflemen (who, among other things, guarded Lenin himself and won some battles in Russian civil war by impossible feats and allegedly even just showing up as enemy escaped in fear leaving weapons behind) was still strong, even if two-three generations old.

Do you know of any books written on that history, and if so, what the titles were?

But none of those involved mass killing compared to a revolution or a civil war did they?

1979 Iran about 7,000.

So? Romania had less than 200 deaths before they toppled their government. (Handy for them, the army supported the regime change.)

North of half a million were killed in Rwandan civil war. Over 100,000 were killed in the Balkan civil war. How many deaths do you consider adequate to 'your' definition of "mass killings?"