Ronnie James Dio

 

This is about the heavy metal singer popularly known as Ronnie James Dio (don’t forget the JAMES!).  Originally named Ronald Padavona.  He changed it to RJD in 1961 as his career was getting started.

Recently I finally listened to Masters of the Moon, his tenth and final solo album.  We’ve seen him in concert as a solo artist, with Black Sabbath, and with Heaven & Hell.  Elf & Rainbow were before we were old enough to go to concerts.

While he was in various bands before Elf, these were not quite the same music (aside from the Elf precursor bands, which did not release any full albums).  I lack even the curiosity to track it down to listen to, but we can laugh at him in short hair and a suit like everyone else back then.  I doubt he was flashing the Devil Sign at audiences back then – or even in Rainbow.  

Elf.  Three albums, S/T (1972), Carolina County Ball (1974), and Trying To Burn The Sun (1975).  These have a far different flavor than his later work, though I’ve only listened to the first one; #2 and 3 are not on Spotify, and the first one didn’t impress me enough to buy the other two.  The lineup of the third album, aside from the guitarist, became the first lineup for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. 

I don’t hear anyone really spreading the Gospel of Elf, so it seems this band gets its attention by way of morbid curiosity for those of us who want to hear what he was doing before Rainbow.  Oddly, I have heard Elf cover “War Pigs”, long before Live Evil.  It’s standard 70s blues-rock, what you’d expect to hear from Free or Rory Gallagher.  Competently executed with a familiar voice, but beyond that, more of a curiosity than something you’d keep going back to over and over again.

Rainbow.  Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (1975), Rising (1976) and Long Live Rock’n’Roll (1978).   Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, upset and frustrated that his own band became too Soul Train-y thanks to Glenn Hughes and David Coverdale (“shoeshine music” is how he described it) on Stormbringer, quit after that tour.  As ELF had been opening for them, he simply hired them as his backing band – for the first Rainbow album.

By Long Live Rock’n’Roll, Blackmore decided he wanted to move in a more commercial direction and sell zillions of albums – his next singer was Graham Bonnet (Down To Earth).  Dio left the band and eventually hooked up with Black Sabbath, who were missing a singer after they fired Ozzy Osbourne in April 1979. 

These Rainbow albums actually have somewhat of a prog flavor to them, certainly compared to Down to Earth and the subsequent Joe Lynn Turner (looks like Blackmore has a thing for three-name singers – can we call him “Joe Turner?”) albums.  Blackmore loves classical music and blends that in from time to time.  However, I wouldn’t call Rainbow a prog band, and for obvious reasons it sounds more like Deep Purple than any other band. 

Black Sabbath (Part 1).  Heaven & Hell (1980), The Mob Rules (1981), Live Evil (1982).  While Ozzy was starting his solo career with Randy Rhoads, Tony & Geezer got to work with RJD.  Bill Ward started off as the drummer, then leaving, to be replaced by Vinnie Appice.  These are my favorite RJD albums, with my favorite RJD songs:  “Neon Knights”, “Children of the Sea”, “Heaven & Hell”, “Lonely Is the Word” + “Voodoo” and “The Sign of the Southern Cross” (I still can’t stand “The Mob Rules”). 

 When it came time to mix Live Evil, the live album recorded on the Mob Rules tour, the band members accused each other of bumping up their relative contributions in the mix, so Mr. Dio left in a huff of pride and decided to go off on his own.

Solo Career (Part 1).  Holy Diver (1983), The Last In Line (1984), Sacred Heart (1985), Dream Evil (1987), Lock Up The Wolves (1990).  He started off with Vivian Campbell for the first three, Craig Goldy taking over during the Sacred Heart tour and playing on Dream Evil, and Rowan Robertson for the last one.  The rhythm section of Jimmy Bain (bass) (Rainbow) and Vinnie Appice (drums) (Black Sabbath) continued up until Lock Up the Wolves, at which point he had Teddy Cook on bass and Simon Wright, well associated with AC/DC, on drums. To me they all sound exactly the same.  It’s generic heavy metal with fairly pretentious lyrics.  With Dio calling all the shots, no one was going to tell him not to do anything, and thus they fall short of the two Black Sabbath albums – or even the Rainbow albums. 

Black Sabbath (Part 2).  Dehumanizer (1992).  Black Sabbath had recently released TYR with singer Tony Martin, and done a brief tour supporting that album, when they managed to patch things up with Dio and reunite.  “Thank you, Mr. Martin, your services are no longer required.  Buh-bye!”  That reunion lasted for one album and a tour supporting it, which we saw at DAR Constitution Hall in August 1992 in Washington, DC.  Due to their cancellation of the June 1986 show in Paris on the Seventh Star tour, this was the first time my brother and I were finally able to see Black Sabbath in concert.  The set included material from Dehumanizer, of course, but also from Heaven & Hell, The Mob Rules, and a handful of Ozzy/Sabbath songs. 

The tour wrapped up in Costa Mesa, California, right at the same time Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears tour ended nearby.  Ozzy agreed to come on for an encore, but Dio refused to play the concert, so Rob Halford (of Judas Priest) took over for the main set.  Dio’s explanation seems to be that he was only contracted to play up to the show before that one, but that begs the question of why he refused to play that one and earn a little bit more.  Logic suggests his pride was hurt, he left to resume his solo career again, picking up where he left off.

Solo Career (Part 2).  Strange Highways (1993), Angry Machines (1996), Magica (2000), Killing The Dragon (2002), Master of the Moon (2004).  Tracy G (?) on guitar for the first two, Craig Goldy for Magica and Master of the Moon, and Doug Aldrich on Killing the Dragon.  Bass duties switch from Jeff Pilson (Dokken) and Jimmy Bain (who is on Magica and Killing The Dragon); drums were Vinnie Appice for the first two, Simon Wright for the remaining three.  People give Ritchie Blackmore grief for his perpetually changing Rainbow lineups; Jimmy Bain himself scoffed, “our banjo player kept shooting himself in the foot firing players left and right.”  But it looks like Dio had the same problem.  On the other hand, his wife Wendy is often described as playing a similar role as Sharon Osbourne, managing him (as well as other metal acts).  Who made the personnel choices?  No idea, and not particularly concerned either.

In any case, these are five more albums which sound exactly the same, and sound essentially the same as the previous five: generic metal, generic metal guitar solos, and the same pretentious lyrics. 

Heaven & Hell.  The Devil You Know (2009).  It seems the bridges with Tony & Geezer weren’t entirely burned.  However, Iommi’s dispute with Ozzy about the rights to Black Sabbath ensured that this reunion would be called something other than Black Sabbath.  They picked this name, put out another album, and toured it.  If the prior three albums were “Black Sabbath” then so was this, in all but name. 

For some reason I don’t really care much for Dehumanizer and The Devil You Know, compared to Heaven & Hell and The Mob Rules.  I don’t know what happened in the first ten year gap, or the second 17 year gap. 

Live Appearances.  We were too young to see the Heaven & Hell or The Mob Rules tours with Black Sabbath, but we did manage to see him on his solo tour for Sacred Heart, at the Zenith in Paris, on May 5, 1986.  Someone tossed a banner at him, interrupting him while singing, prompting him to respond, “thanks, dick!”  As noted earlier, we managed to catch Black Sabbath on the Dehumanizer tour in DC, on August 7, 1992.  Then Dio again on his solo tour for Strange Highways, at a small club in Springfield, Virginia, Boots – better known as Jaxx, and far smaller than the indoor arena the Zenith in Paris – on September 21, 1994  The last times we saw him on stage were all with Heaven & Hell, Merriweather Post Pavilion (May 18, 2007), Nissan Pavilion (August 7, 2008), and Merriweather again (August 23, 2009).  He passed away from cancer on May 16, 2010, so that ended his concert appearances and album releases, though I understand his hologram (???) has been making appearances.  Jedi Dio?  Who knows.

Of the material he did, from Elf through Heaven & Hell, the only albums I really like and enjoy are Heaven & Hell and The Mob Rules.  Elf is … interesting, but not particularly enjoyable.  Rainbow is like a pretentious version of Deep Purple for me, “Rainbow Eyes” being my favorite.  Still, it’s enjoyable in itself, more so than his solo material.  I have all three Dio-Rainbow CDs (plus Live in Munich 1977), and Down To Earth through Stranger In Us All on CD.

As for his solo albums…   All ten sound pretty much the same to me.  Whether the guitarist is Vivian Campbell or Craig Goldy, it’s the same each time.  Some riffs, a technically astute but unmemorable guitar solo, and lyrics invariably invoking a rainbow at some point (for which I suppose we can blame Blackmore).  He’s like a prog singer, but backed up by a generic heavy metal band.  It’s like James LaBrie of Dream Theater took over from Vince Neil in Motley Crue. 

Paul McCartney Live

 

I guess my writer’s block has cleared up briefly due recent circumstances being sufficient inspiration, e.g. seeing Paul McCartney live for the first time.

Lots of us are Beatles fans.  My recollection is that some time after moving to Paris in January 1979, and John Lennon’s death in December 1980, I got the Red Album (1962-66) and Blue Album (1967-70), though listening to them in reverse order.  Then my parents got me the US albums – on my own insistence – rather than me being sensible and simply going down to FNAC and getting the British versions sold in Europe.  We were in the Four Seasons (lawn & garden + toy store) section of the PX in SHAPE, Belgium, in December 1980 when we heard over the PA, by AFN Radio, that John Lennon had been shot in NYC.  That conclusively ended any chance of a Beatles reunion.

Having been born in 1969, clearly I was not in a position to see the band live from 1963-1966; in fact I was born during their Let It Be sessions in January 1969.  I started seeing concerts in Paris at age 15, in October 1984.  Of the four Beatles, Paul McCartney was the only one to tour consistently from their breakup in September 1969 to the present.  Over all that time I never managed to see him in concert – until now.  Thanks to my brother Matt for taking me with him to the show at Camden Yards in Baltimore, the home of the Baltimore Orioles.

McCartney’s current band, which has been together for over 20 years, consists of Rusty Anderson (guitars), Brian Ray (bass & guitar, depending on which McCartney happens to be playing on a song), Wix Wickens (keyboards), and Abe Laboriel, Jr. (drums).  They all did their jobs competently enough – as you would expect – and none came close to stealing the limelight from McCartney himself.  Ray bears a remarkable resemblance to GNR bassist Duff McKagan. 

The entire live show, from start to finish, was approximately 3 hours, from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., including the encore.  40% of the set (15 of 37 songs), mostly in the first half of the show, was McCartney’s solo material.  I suppose we’re in awe of his talent, but it seems that without the benefit of John Lennon’s participation and feedback, his solo material falls well short of the quality of his material with the Beatles.  I never did collect his solo albums, as even the “greatest hits” (“Live and Let Die”, “Jet”, “Let Me Roll It”, “Band On the Run”, “Maybe I’m Amazed”, etc.), ostensibly his strongest solo material, didn’t impress me.   The same holds for John, George and Ringo.  Even All Things Must Pass, often lauded as the best solo album by any of them, fell flat for me.  I want to like all these songs, but I can’t.   From the audience reaction during the show – mass exodus to the bathrooms and concessions during the solo songs – I can tell I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.   And it certainly didn’t escape the attention of McCartney himself.  Basically he told the audience, “whatever, I’m going to play whatever I want.”  While he doesn’t hide the fact that he was in the Beatles – he’s certainly proud of it, and rightfully so – he does want us to know that this is a Paul McCartney concert.  That being the case, however, he knows as well as I do, that if his set was 100% solo material with a few Beatles songs played in the encore, he wouldn’t be filling up Camden Yards, he’d be lucky to sell out Royal Farms Arena a few blocks away.  Sorry, Paul. 

I recall in 1988 or so, Roger Waters was on Howard Stern’s show.  His own Radio Kaos tour struggled to fill small clubs, while his erstwhile comrades in Pink Floyd were filling stadiums playing Pink Floyd material.  Stern pointed this out, much to Waters’ annoyance; certainly Waters himself was well aware of this, even if he may have been too proud to admit it.  Nowadays Waters has no trouble playing stadiums – playing Pink Floyd material.   He wouldn’t do so if he insisted on a set of predominantly solo material.  As much as he downplays the roles Gilmour, Mason and Wright played in making Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall, his solo material comes nowhere close to that level – for that matter, neither does The Final Cut, the last Pink Floyd album the four of them recorded, which Gilmour describes as a de facto Roger Waters solo album.  Likewise, the Beatles were a case of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.  Removing Lennon from the equation was bound to impact the quality of the material, as much as McCartney’s pride might demand otherwise.  Of course, the same holds true for Lennon’s solo material.  Yoko Ono isn’t nearly as capable a co-composer as Paul McCartney, is she?  Somehow I doubt Yoko herself would make that claim.

Be that was it may, McCartney is astute enough to recognize that most of the audience were too young to see the Beatles play live.  He also knows that the Beatles’ strongest material, from Sgt. Pepper through Abbey Road, was never played live by the band itself – except that rooftop rehearsal in London on January 30, 1969.  So we got material from Sgt Pepper, The White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be, and a few older songs thrown in like “In Spite of All The Danger”, “Love Me Do”, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and his homage to cannabis, “Got To Get You Into My Life”, though compared to Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf”, the connection to MJ is by no means apparent by the lyrics.   If he didn’t tell us it was about MJ I’d have no hope of guessing that on my own.  Imagine what the far more direct and in-your-face Lennon would have written if he had the same goal. 

Ringo himself is touring with his All-Star Band, so he can play his own Beatles songs himself.  John and George are no longer with us.  Naturally McCartney was going to play the Beatles songs he wrote and sang himself, but he gave us a few tributes.  For George it was “Something”, started off on ukulele, and fortunately continued on electric guitar.  For John it was “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”, and then a “sing along” thanks to Peter Jackson, of “I’ve Got A Feeling”, using John’s isolated vocals from the rooftop concert.  So again, I appreciate that for all his pride in his own solo material, ultimately McCartney knows and accepts that we came here to hear the closest thing to a Beatles concert any of us are likely to experience.  And that was more than good enough.

And he played “Helter Skelter”.  And there was much rejoicing…

Setlist:  Can’t Buy Me Love; Junior’s Farm; Letting Go; Got to Get You Into My Life; Come On to Me; Let Me Roll it; Getting Better; Let ‘Em In; My Valentine; Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five; Maybe I’m Amazed; I’ve Just Seen A Face; In Spite of All the Danger; Love Me Do; Dance Tonight; Blackbird; Here Today; New; Lady Madonna; Fuh You; Jet; Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite; Something; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; You Never Give Me Your Money >> She Came In Through the Bathroom Window; Get Back; Band on the Run; Let it Be; Live and Let Die; Hey Jude;

Encore: I’ve Got A Feeling; Birthday; Helter Skelter; Golden Slumbers >> Carry That Weight >> The End.

Of these 37 songs, 15 were solo songs and 22 were Beatles songs.  I could probably name 15 John Lennon and George Harrison Beatles songs to replace them, and McCartney would be privileged to respond, “very well, make up your own playlist of the 37 Beatles songs you might want to hear in concert - and stay at home and listen to it.  This is a Paul McCartney concert, not a Beatles concert.”  Ok, fine.  So I’ll pick 15 Beatles/McCartney songs which could sub in for those solo songs:

The Long & Winding Road; Maxwell’s Silver Hammer; Back in the USSR; Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey; She’s Leaving Home; Eleanor Rigby; I Saw Her Standing There; All My Loving; And I Love Her; Yesterday; The Night Before; Michelle; Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band; Rocky Raccoon; Paperback Writer

Mind you, these aren’t all of the McCartney songs, only my favorites.  But I would put any of them against “Live And Let Die” or any other solo song.  Moreover, many of these were in fact played by him in concert on earlier tours, meaning they filled in a setlist slot which would otherwise be a solo song.  Am I fussing too much?  Do I want to see the manager?  Nope.  I enjoyed the concert – and giving me “Helter Skelter” erased any inclination to complain to McCartney himself.    

In any case McCartney will turn 80 on June 18.  So far as I could tell, he looked spry.  He could move along, play the guitar, bass, mandolin, ukulele, keyboard and piano with no trouble.  He can also still sing.  He knew who and where he was (Baltimore) and had plenty of clever, cheeky comments to make, even a story about Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton (kids in the audience: “Jimmy who?”).   I dare say if he couldn’t perform, he wouldn’t still be touring, but we’re seeing borderline cases.  Phil Collins was having issues.  I saw the Moody Blues a few years ago, and they had a second drummer in addition to Graeme Edge on stage, who was clearly doing the heavy lifting.  Charlie Watts is gone, as is Bill Wyman, leaving Mick & Keith as the only original Stones left (though Ron Wood has been with the band since the mid-70s, far longer than Brian Jones and Mick Taylor combined).  Who knows, however, how much longer McCartney has before he needs to retire for good.  So it’s good we saw him while he’s still up and running.  Amen!

Ammunition

 

I’m sure most people who don’t care about guns don’t care about ammunition, but I find the topic useful for addressing some of the issues which come up in gun control.

With regard to cannabis legalization, many people who oppose it likewise seem to be militantly ignorant about marijuana, its forms and uses, etc.  It’s like not only do they oppose cannabis use, per se, but they also seem to oppose learning anything about it.  What’s flower? What are edibles?  What is concentrate?  And why would someone give edibles, which aren’t cheap, for free to children?  Again, learning about it doesn’t mean you have to try it.  God forbid that if you learned that it’s impossible to get addicted to, or overdose, on marijuana, you might actually stop trying to ban it.  The #1 “drug” which causes problems in this country is alcohol, and that little experiment from 1920-33 called “Prohibition” didn’t exactly solve it.  Banning MJ hasn’t been any more effective and likewise caused far more problems than it solved.

Likewise with guns. Someone posted pics of various people, all Americans, posing with ther gun collections.  Massive negative reaction.  “These people are sick!”  No, they’re not sick to own guns at all, not sick to own more than one, and not sick to be proud of their collection.  Almost certainly these people purchased their guns legally and do not use them in crimes.  Either they use the guns for target shooting (legal), hunting (legal) or legitimate self-defense (also legal).  Not your cup of tea, yeah, we get it.  But not illegal OR morally reprehensible, no matter how many mass shootings are occurring.  It would be nice if these gun owners were able to stop those shootings, but they are not deputized to do so.

The cartridge itself consists of a casing, a bullet, gunpowder, and a primer or percussion cap.  Up until cartridges were developed around time of the US Civil War, muzzle loading weapons had to be loaded manually.  The breech is the entrance end of the barrel; the muzzle is the exit end of the barrel.  First the gunpowder, then the bullet, rammed down, a percussion cap placed below the hammer at the breech, and then the gun is ready to fire – once.  The whole process had to be repeated each time the gun was fired.  [This itself made a small, well-trained professional army far superior to a mass of untrained volunteers.] Revolver ammunition was finally produced in cartridge form, and rifle ammunition for the Sharp’s carbine.  This used black powder gunpowder.  The invention of cartridges allowed guns to be loaded at the breech instead of this cumbersome business of loading from the muzzle.  Breechloading then allowed semi- and full-automatic firing.

Typically a firing pin is held forward by a spring, and held back against the spring by the trigger mechanism.  When you pull the trigger, this releases the firing pin to strike forward against the cartridge’s primer cap, igniting the gunpower inside the cartridge, which pushes the bullet down the barrel and out of the gun.  The bolt mechanism has an extractor, so when you work the bolt again, it extracts the empty cartridge and allows the next round to feed. 

Bolt-Action.  Once the cartridge was developed, a breech loading rifle could exist.  At first these were single shot.  You opened the bolt, loaded a single cartridge, closed the bolt, and fired when ready.  Then you worked the bolt open again to eject the empty casing, loaded a new cartridge, and continued.  By the 1880s, an internal magazine was developed which allowed 5-10 rounds to be stored at a time (usually 5), loaded by chargers (which remained in the rifle) or stripper clips (which ejected once the rounds were in the gun).  By WWI guns with removable magazines came out (e.g. the Chauchat light machine gun and the Browning Automatic Rifle), which could be preloaded and carried in bulk.  Pistols and submachine guns also use detachable magazines.  However, most, if not all, bolt-action rifles have integral magazines, mostly 5 rounds, except the Lee-Enfield, which can store 10. 

Although nominally rendered obsolete by semi-automatic weapons, in practice bolt actions are supposedly more accurate than semi-automatics, and thus remain in favor and in use mostly as sniper rifles – and as hunting rifles.  Moreover, trained soldiers familiar with their rifles can cycle the bolt action fairly quickly. 

Semi-automatic.  The gun fires one bullet each time the trigger is fired, the bolt being worked back to firing position either by recoil or gas operation.  The most famous is the M1 Garand of WWII.  The French actually had semi-automatic rifles in WWI, the RSC 1917, but the design was flawed and unreliable.  The French switched back to bolt action (MAS36) for WWII.  Germany had its Gewehr 43 and the USSR had its SVT40 during WWII, but as a practical matter only the US was widely using semi-automatic weapons in that war.

Full automatic.  The gun fires continuously as long as the trigger is held and ammunition is supplied.  Ammunition is supplied by a magazine (assault rifles or light machine guns) or belt-fed (machine guns).  The rate of fire might be anywhere from 250 rounds per minute, average about 500-600 rpm, or as high as 900 or 1200 rounds per minute.  Needless to say, the higher the rate of fire, the more difficult the weapon is to control and the sooner you will run out of ammunition.  A higher rate of fire also increases the risk of jams or misfires.

In many cases, full auto actually simply wastes ammunition, and soldiers find that semi-automatic weapons work fairly well as infantry weapons, leaving the full auto business to submachine guns and machine guns.  The FAL is often in semi-auto only mode, and the US military ramped back the M16A1 (full auto) to three round bursts (M16A2).  A weapon which can fire either full- or semi- auto is called select-fire.

Different types of guns fire different types of ammunition. 

Pistol. 9mm, .40 S&W, .45.  At low end of ammunition in terms of power is pistol ammunition, fired from a handgun.  Revolvers, remarkably enough, still seem to be popular.  Pistols are also popular:  Beretta (my favorite), Glock, and Sig Sauers are the most well know brands.  They vary from fairly compact, easier to conceal or easier for people with smaller hands to deal with, all the way up to the Desert Eagle, which fires a .50 round.  The famous .44 Magnum is on the top end of the revolver selection.  These all fire one bullet each time you pull the trigger.  Revolvers have to be reloaded in their cylinder – though there are speed loaders which expedite this process – whereas automatics have magazines, ranging from 8 to 15 round capacity.  My Beretta uses 15 round magazines.  Is 15 round “high capacity”?  Well, for a handgun it could be.  Then again they sell drum magazines for pistols, though I rarely see anyone use them.  Drum magazines are disfavored even for submachine guns.

Pistol ammunition has a fairly low muzzle velocity (less than 1000 feet per second).  Probably the most popular caliber is 9mm, aka 9mm Luger after famous German handgun, the first one to use that caliber.  Next are .45 ACP (a US caliber, famous in the 1911 automatic), .40 Smith & Wesson (in between the two), .38 Special – popular in police revolvers, and .380, used in the Walther PPK and Colt 1908, being one step below 9mm and used in many compact fireams.  In the original James Bond novels, Bond carries a gun in .32, until MI6’s armorer insists he upgrade to .380 as .32 is too weak, at which point he adopts his famous PPK.

A weapon which fires pistol ammunition full auto is a machine pistol, but better known as a submachine gun.  The most famous SMGs are the Thompson (.45) (US/UK/Canada) (.45), MP40 Schmeisser (9mm) (Germany), M3 “Grease Gun” (.45) (US), Sten Gun (9mm) (UK), Uzi (9mm) (Israel), and the PPSH (7.62x25) (Russia), all of which (except the Uzi) were most prominently featured in WWII.  The Russians equipped entire units with PPSh, whereas in most other armies it was the squad leader (sergeant) who carried the SMG.  Most of these use box magazines, with the Thompson and PPSh famous for 50 and 71 round drum magazines.  The PPSh had a relatively high rate of fire – 900 rounds per minute.  The Thompson was famous for being favored by gangsters in the ‘20s and ‘30s, and was adopted by the Allied armies in WWII, though the final high production variant, the M1, deleted the provision to use a drum magazine.  It was expensive to mass produce (as well as heavy), so the US developed the Grease Gun, whereas the British developed the Sten gun, both fairly cheap but effective – and much lighter. 

Full power Rifle/MG.  Generally .30 caliber or 7.62mm.  In the late nineteenth century the French invented smokeless powder, and a rifle to fire the cartridge, the 1886 Lebel.  That cartridge is the 8x50mmR.  Originally it had a round nosed bullet (Balle M) and then they sharpened the point (“spitzer”) (Balle D) in 1898.  Before the Lebel, everyone was using black powder.  Smokeless powder, in addition to being smokeless, was far more efficient and made all black powder weapons obsolete, forcing everyone else – most notably the Germans – to change.  They also had to change when the Balle D replaced the Balle M.

Rifles tend to be fed by chargers/stripper clips, or magazines; light machine guns generally use box magazines; and heavy machine guns use 500 round belts. 

Britain: .303 (7.7x56mmR).  Used in Lee Enfield bolt action rifles of WWI and WWII, the Bren light machine gun, and the Vickers heavy machine gun.  The British were the last to upgrade their roundnosed cartridges with a spitzer design (Mark VII) in 1910.

Germany:  7.92x57mm aka 8mm Mauser.  Used in the Gewehr 98 rifle (WWI), Kar 98K rifle (WWII), various Maxim machine guns during WWI, and then in the MG34 and MG42 machine guns during WWII.  Germany eventually developed a semiautomatic rifle, the Gewehr 43, but it was never very popular.  The initial 1888 version was round nosed (Patrone 88) and upgraded to spitzer version (S Patrone) in 1903.

Russian:  7.62.54R.  Initially used in the Mosin-Nagant 91/30 bolt-action rifle, plus the famous Maxim machine gun.  The Russians upgraded from round nose to spitzer in 1908.  The Maxim was fairly heavy, so the Russians devised a clever tripod mount with wheels.  They also mounted the machine gun on horsedrawn carts during the Russian Civil War (1918-22), kind of making it a machine gun chariot.   By WWII they had the Degtyarev light machine gun SVT-40 semiautomatic rifle.  Although the Russians switched over to the AK47 after WWII, they kept using machine guns, and the Mosin-Nagant, like many bolt-action rifles, remains popular as a sniper rifle.  So the full power round remains in full production.

US.  .30-06.  In 1903 the US copied the Mauser to make the Springfield, and the roundnosed cartridge was the .30-03.  Three years later they switched to a spitzer design, the .30-06.  That round was used in WWI in the Springfield, 1917 Enfield, and Browning Automatic Rifle, and then the Browning machine gun – 1917 water cooled, 1919 air cooled.  When the Garand came out in 1936, it was also chambered in .30-06.  In 1958 this round was superseded by .308/7.62x51 NATO.   The M14 and FAL use .308, as do the GPMG, the M60, and M3 (modern version of MG42) machine guns. 

The French started out, in 1886 and WWI, with 8x50R Lebel, which is a rimmed round.  The original round nosed cartridge (Balle M) was upgraded to a spitzer variant (Balle D) in 1898; in addition to being the first to use smokeless powder, they were the first to use spitzer bullets.  Before WWII they switched over to a rimless round, 7.5x54mm, used in the MAS36 bolt action rifle which served as their standard rifle – until June 1940.  However, the French weren’t able to produce enough MAS36’s to equip their entire army, so they had to rely on WWI Lebels and Berthiers in the older caliber.  After WWII they managed to ramp up production of the MAS36 and equip their armies fighting in Indochina and elsewhere. 

Both Italy and Japan started the war with relatively lower power rounds.  For Italy, they started out with 6.5x52mm, and switched to 7.35x51mm, which meant having to rechamber their earlier guns for the new caliber.  Oddly, Lee Harvey Oswald’s Carcano was chambered in the earlier 6.5x52mm caliber, and certainly sufficed to put two rounds through Kennedy and one through Connally (the first shot which struck Kennedy).  For the Japanese, they began the war with 6.5x50R, and switched to 7.7x58mm, meaning rifles and machine guns were either chambered for one or the other.  Needless to say, switching in the middle of the war caused logistical issues. 

Intermediate Cartridge.  During WWII, the Germans discovered that the full power 8mm Mauser round, designed for optimal accuracy out to 300 yards, was unnecessary, as tactical encounters by German troops were occurring well closer than 300 yards.  They designed a smaller round, 7.92 Kurz, and a weapon to fire it: the STG44 (Sturmgewehr, Assault Rifle).  The smaller round was lighter, the troops could carry more, and the recoil was less, making the weapon easier to control on full auto.  The STG44 was the world’s first assault rifle.  They made about 400k of them, and they were very popular with German troops in the later part of WWII.  For their part, the Russians had come to the same conclusion, and their man Kalashnikov designed their own equivalent, the AK47, though this gun came out after WWII was already over.  Since the Russians switched over to the AK47 by the time of the Korean War, they had a huge surplus of PPSh SMGs left over – which had been their main weapon, along with the Mosin-Nagant 91/30 bolt action rifle, during WWII.  They supplied Mosin-Nagants and PPShs to the North Koreans and Chinese in the Korean War.

In the late 50s, Eugene Stoner invented the AR15, which the US military adopted as the M16, during the Vietnam War.  Stoner specifically designed the 5.56 (.223) cartridge with a bullet that would tumble as it penetrated flesh, doing more damage than a 7.62/.308 bullet which might simply pass through flesh altogether.  Sadly, the US military couldn’t help messing with the AR15 – a matter of pride as Stoner was a civilian – and the original M16 was fairly unreliable.  The M16A1 fixed most of these issues.  Later the Army figured that full automatic was overkill, and modified the gun to fire three round bursts, which became the M16A2. 

The semi-automatic, civilian version of the M16 is the AR15, firing the same 5.56 mm round.  

The AK47 fires a shortened version of the original 7.62x54R rifle round, known as 7.62x39.  In the 1970s the Russians changed their round slightly, from 7.62x39 to 5.45x39, in the AK74.

.50 Caliber/12.7mm.   Short of 20mm or 30mm cannon rounds, .50 is about as large a caliber as you’ll get with an infantry weapon.  Although there is a Barrett .50 bolt-action rifle, the most famous .50 weapon is the M2 Browning, used by the US since WWII, still used today.  The Russians have a DSKK machine gun in 12.7mm. 

Muzzle Velocity & Recoil.  Muzzle velocity is the speed at which the bullet leaves the gun.  Typically pistol rounds will have a muzzle velocity less than 1000, whereas most rifle rounds have a muzzle velocity over 2000.  Of course, that muzzle velocity translates into recoil.  On a pistol, the recoil will cause the pistol to raise up after you shoot it.  On a rifle or shotgun that recoil will be felt on your shoulder where the stock rests when you shoot.  Other things being equal, faster muzzle velocity = greater recoil.

JHP vs. FMJ vs Steel Core.  As I see it, ammo essentially comes in three varieties.  Steel core is the cheapest.  The bullet is made of lead but with a small steel core.  Although it’s cheap to buy in bulk, when it comes time to fire it at the range, NOPE!  The range won’t let you shoot it, as it causes problems.  So you’re left with a lot of cheap ammo you can’t use for target practice.  If there was a real war and you wanted to shoot it at someone, then it would be useful.  But for target practice at most ranges it would be useless.

FMJ is the next up.  Lead bullets with no steel core.  Average prices and the ranges won’t give you hard time.  This would be right smack in the middle.  It’s cheaper than hollow point and more expensive than steel core.  This is what you want most of if you intended to shoot at the range.

Jacketed Hollow Point is the most expensive.  The bullets actually have a hollow point with a brass jacket.  When the bullet hits the target, it expands like a mushroom to do more damage.  They’re more expensive than FMJ so it would be a waste to use it for target practice.  If you bought the weapon for self-defense, this is your “shit hits the fan” ammunition you load in the gun for real emergencies.  If you bought the weapon for both target shooting AND self defense, you might load one or two magazines with hollow points and set them aside from “in case you really need it”, and use the FMJ to shoot at the range.