I know that most folks consider .45 caliber bullets to be big bore, but I've seen folks refer to bullets as small in diameter as .40 caliber to be big bore bullets as well.

I'm curious to see what is the minimum caliber/bore diameter the majority considers worthy of the "big bore" designation.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

45 is what I consider a big bore.

You have the 45 ACP, 454 Casull and 460 Magnum which are all really the same caliber.

But you just go heavy as you increase in the rating. The 454 Casull is one of my favorite.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

.410

Dan

IMHO anything greater than .40 makes the cut.

I think of .357 as the middle of the road.
Anything over .357 is big , anything under is small.

9 mm. It's a Big Bore every time I shoot it.

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What, me worry?

To my mind Big Bores start at .40/10mm

610-1
657
629s
500

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213th FBINA

Interesting results so far. I actually got the idea for this poll after reading a thread on another forum in which a guy was asking which big bore handgun he should get next, and my mind automatically jumped to .45 Long Colt because that's just the cartridge that comes to mind when I think big bore, but apparently to everyone else in the thread "big bore" is just another term used exclusively to describe magnum cartridges because everyone in the thread was saying .454 Casull, .460 S&W, and .500 S&W Magnum, which in turn got me to thinking what other folks thought of when it comes to "big bore" cartridges, particularly where big bore begins when it comes to calibers.

As previously stated, .45LC is the first thing that comes to mind when I think big bore, but as far as I'm concerned, big bore begins with .40cal at the bare minimum.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

Anything 40 caliber and up for pistols, for rifles, 300 Magnum and up.

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OGCA Member.

I've always considered .44 and bigger to be big bore, but I have absolutely nothing objective to base that on.

I think of .44 caliber as big bore. Even though .41 sounds like a big bore handgun cartridge it just doesn't do it for me although I used to want one but I'm over it. Since we're talking size/diameter of a cartridge and not power I had to skip the 10mm. It's officially .39xxx inch AFAIK.

This is my preference in big bore although I admit I find .44 Special to be an exceedingly wonderful cartridge (I personally have no use for .44 Magnum but that just gets me flamed so I won't say it......wait......oops.......)....

Model 25-5 .45 Colt

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Come and take it!!

Steel plates tell the tale.

10mm has a nice ring to it.. and bigger of course..

Nope, 10mm and .40 S&W bullets are both legitimately .400" in diameter.

Fortunately, both cartridges were designed after the point in time in which cartridge caliber designations were based on the base/rim/heel diameter, nor were they the descendants of older cartridges from that era, so there's no marketing tomfoolery going on with the name.

Sadly, cartridge manufacturers seem to have slipped back into the habit of naming their cartridges with inaccurate caliber designations, hence why we have the .460 S&W Magnum that honestly should have just been called .45 S&W Magnum because it has the exact same bullet diameter as .45 Long Colt, (.452") but I guess they were afraid that wouldn't sound more powerful than .454 Cassul to the absolute lowest common denominator of ignorant shooters who supposedly assume that higher numbers in the name equal more power.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

Anything starting with a "4" or bigger...

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

correct me if i'm wrong but didn't winchester make a "big bore" rifle, i think it was in 405 cal.

.44 Special and larger is big bore to me.

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CSM, U S Army(Ret) 1963-1990

"Big" bore starts at "4".

John

I divide them at .4 on a handgun and .338 in a rifle.......

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dd884
JMHO-YMMV

I would opt for anything with a "4" in a handgun. Before the advent of the 10 mm Auto/.40 S & W there was more of a gap between the commonly used .38/.357 and .45. (You .38-40 fans out there, don't get mad!)

And I would vote for the same in a rifle. The .375 H & H was usually classified as a "medium bore" back in the day of African safaris and the like. With animals that will charge, bite, claw and/or stomp you...that is why they made .600s and .700s.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

I'll go with .44 and up. Maybe an exception for the .41 Magnum. But all the other .40s are medium bore to me.

My thinking, too. I’ve always thought folks who put the 10mm Auto cartridge in the same class with a .41 Magnum revolver were missing the mark.

There’s a bit of difference between the .41 and .44 Magnums, but for my purposes it’s not a lot. A .41 Magnum with a 220-gr LSWC at 1350-1400 FPS is nothing to sneeze at, and the .41 will do that safely in a 6-inch barrel - and maybe a bit more.

The belief that 10mm Auto is equal to .41 Magnum comes from one of Remington's loading manuals which featured an extremely underpowered .41 Magnum load they were offering at the time, which resulted in the lay person reaching the conclusion that 10mm Auto can be loaded to the same levels as .41 Magnum.

Sadly, 10mm Auto is simply one of the most overhyped pistol cartridges in history. Often touted by enthusiasts as an incredible, Grizzly-slaying cartridge which offers magnum level ballistics in a semiautomatic pistol and effectively renders magnum revolvers obsolete. Meanwhile, the vast majority of factory loaded 10mm Auto ammo is loaded no hotter than .40 S&W, and at absolute best it performs only a bit better than .357 Magnum. Not to say that it's a bad cartridge or anything, merely that it's a massively overrated cartridge, and it most certainly isn't the only pistol cartridge which has received more hype than it could possibly deliver.

That being said, this poll/thread isn't about muzzle energy or power factor of cartridges, merely the bullet's caliber or bore diameter.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

I believe .40/10mm caliber and above is "Big Bore".

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SD social distanc'n since 1889

I'll go along with Col. Cooper and others. The .40 and above is "big-bore".

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

I recall attending a conference of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police about 30 years ago. The topic was media relations, specifically press releases and responding to media inquiries.

One of the presenters talked about describing handgun bullet wounds as either "small caliber" or "large caliber". The general consensus was that "small caliber" was less than .38, and "large caliber" was .38 or larger.

At a crime scene, hospital, or morgue it can be difficult to tell the difference between wounds inflicted by different calibers. Entry wounds tend to appear as small punctures (the skin being elastic and stretching inward as a bullet penetrates on entry). Exit wounds, when present, tend to be more pronounced, but there really is no easy way to identify differences between wounds produced by differing calibers. Recovered bullets or cartridge cases found at the scene always provide the best information, but we don't always want to release every known detail to the public media during an investigation.

So, being a highly trained and experienced law enforcement executive (retired) my vote went for .40.

.40 caliber and 200 grains meets my definition of big bore.

Gotta be both.

The Winchester Model 94 "Big Bore" was in .375 Winchester. But this was mostly about handguns, I believe.



In rifles there is a big difference in small bore versus big bore when it comes to penetration and killing power - I say killing because we're probably talking about hunting rifles, not self defense weapons. That .375 Winchester pictured above, and this .35 Whelen below, don't come close to the power of my long gone CZ 550 .416 Rigby. Now THAT was a big bore!!!!

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Come and take it!!

Must be all the 10mm fanboys are voting. Sorry but I don't know anyone who considers the 10mm a big bore...anyone. 41 Mag is the line and there is usually debate as to which side it even lays on...

Well, it would appear that you now know LOTS of people who do!
FWIW the term "big BORE" refers to bullet diameter in my way of thinking, and since the 41 mag and the 10mm are .41 and .40 diameter respectively...

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I consider a "Big Bore" bullet a Hunting bullet.

It started with the little .357 Magnum but..................
with the help of Elmer Keith the larger 44 Magnum became the best deer caliber in a revolver for most hunters.

It comes down to what you can handle recoil wise and hit the target, without missing on that first shot !

Big bore starts at .44.

This was TR's big bore rifle.

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Only difference Fool/Mule-ears

I find anything under .32 caliber completely boring!

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Endeavor to persevere. <><

Wow, the results sure have shifted since I posted this poll. Early on .40cal was in the lead, but now it's .429.

Although in hindsight, I wish I had left magnum cartridges out of the examples since it seems like the results may be somewhat skewed by the misunderstanding that the muzzle energy has anything to do with this.

Oh well, interesting either way.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

I know a lot of fanboys who try and make the 10mm into something more than it is...

.....is that ..357 to me isn't 'big bore', but I have no experience with any of the 10mm or .41 or anything under .44.

However, it makes sense that anything starting with a '4' would be 'big bore' because even though they exist, .50 cal in modern guns is 'over the top' for me. So I think "Anything that starts with a '4' is a good definition of 'big bore'".

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Anything less than 3000 ft-lbs at the muzzle is a pea shooter!

For me it is more bullet weight than diameter. Greater than 200 grains is big bore for both rifles and handguns. Very light or heavy for caliber bullets don't count.

For handguns this means .41 or bigger.

I saw these 200gr 357 bullets advertised the other day.
Grizzly Ammo 357 Mag 200 Grain Lead Wide Flat Nose Gas Check Box of 20
Wouldn't that make them big bore?

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I'm sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense.

Big is a term used to describe size, not weight.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

I would think that bore size would determine whether a caliber is big "bore."

But that's just me.

That would make them very heavy for caliber. Which I said didn't count.

Big bore implies not just diameter but power and mass. A heavy bullet being driven fast enough to hit hard.

That at least 22 people here consider a 41 magnum big bore while a 40S&W or 10mm has more to do with power than that extra .01 inches of diameter.

Handguns - 44 magnum.
Rifles - I really think about ft/lbs vs bore, since there are dogs head on a polar bear body cartridges like the 30-378 Weatherby. If it has at least the ME of a 375 H&H it's a big bore.

That was my point about the 200gr 357.

Big "bore" refers to the bore of the barrel/diameter of the bullet. After all, what is the bore of a firearm? It is the diameter of the barrel (and correspondingly the bullet).

By the very definition of "bore" as it pertains to firearms, it has nothing to do with bullet weight or powder charge (power), velocity, pressure, or anything else.

It is totally about the diameter of the barrel and bullet.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

That is the best option if a .357 is all that is available for use on big or dangerous game.........

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dd884
JMHO-YMMV

I really dig the 10mm, but I consider the .44 (.429) as the big bore starting point.

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