bore, in weaponry, the interior of the barrel of a gun or firearm. In guns that have rifled barrels, e.g., rifles, pistols, machine guns, and artillery or naval guns, the diameter of the bore is termed the calibre. (The term “calibre” also designates the outside diameter of the projectile or ammunition used in the gun.) In these weapons, the calibre is normally obtained by measuring between the faces of opposite lands (i.e., the ridges between the grooves in the barrel). In the traditional Anglo-U.S. system, calibre (or caliber) is measured in inches for cannons and hundredths of an inch for small guns. Thus the bore diameter of a .30-calibre rifle is 30/100 of an inch, and that of a .50-calibre weapon is 1/2 inch. In Great Britain it has been common practice to carry the figure to another decimal point, as in the calibre .303 Lee-Enfield rifle, which was widely used in both World Wars. In the armed forces of both Britain and the United States, however, the trend since 1950 has been to follow the metric system, in which millimetres and occasionally centimetres are the units of measurement. The use of this system allowed NATO weapons of various makes and national origins to use ammunition of standardized size. In comparing the two systems, a rifle or pistol with a calibre of 7.62 mm corresponds to one of calibre .30 in the old Anglo-U.S. system.
The measurement of the bore in shotguns is expressed in terms of gauge. The gauge of a shotgun originally was expressed as the number of round lead balls of bore diameter necessary to make a total weight of one pound. Thus, if eight lead balls of bore diameter added up to one pound, the shotgun was designated an eight-gauge gun. The smaller the gauge number, therefore, the larger the bore. Gauge, however, later became standardized in terms of diameter and no longer relates directly to the original method of determination. Under this standardized system, a 12-gauge shotgun has a bore diameter of .729 inch.
The word calibres (always in the plural) has also been used by some navies to indicate the length of big guns in relation to their bore diameter. The number of calibres is determined by dividing the length of the bore (from muzzle to breech face) by the bore diameter. Thus a gun with a bore diameter of 5 inches and a length of 200 inches is said to be 40 calibres long.