Had someone ask what the “gauge” in “12 gauge shotgun” meant.
The gauge in the name is a measure of bore size. “12 gauge” means that 12 lead balls, each the diameter of the weapon’s bore, would weigh 1 pound. For a 20 gauge, 20 balls the diameter of the shotgun’s bore would weigh 1 pound. You can see the trend here: the lower the gauge number, the larger the bore.
The exception to this is the .410 shotgun, where .410 is the diameter of the weapon’s bore in inches. Therefore, the gun is correctly termed, “.410 caliber”, or, “Four Ten Bore”. The 12 gauge (with caveats that I won’t cover here) is a .729 caliber. The .410 caliber is a 67 gauge.
In the picture, the bore to our left (Li’l Buddy’s right) is a 12 gauge. To our right (Li’l Buddy’s left) is a .410 caliber.
~ Dempsey 🌵
Chalk Dust 