One unit of measure or another

So there I was minding my own business in the kitchen when ... my wife Garnet called from the living room.

"I have a 20 gauge right?"

"You are correct," I said joining her.

Garnet won the shotgun during a raffle at a National Wild Turkey Federation banquet several years ago. This was the beginning of her turkey-hunting career, which is highlighted by the fact she is the first hunter in Washington state to legally shoot three turkeys in one day.

"So," Garnet asked, "what does gauge mean?"

The term gauge is a unit of measurement related to the diameter of a shotgun barrel.

"Twelve perfectly round lead balls, together weighing one pound and each able to fit inside the barrel of a shotgun, means it is a 12 gauge. In other words, each lead ball is 1/12th of a pound," I said. "So 20 perfectly round lead balls, together weighing one pound and each able to fit inside the barrel of a shotgun would make it a 20 gauge and each ball would be 1/20th of a pound."

"What a weird, strange and creepy way to measure anything," Garnet said. "Next time we are at the butcher shop, I'll ask for a 12 gauge of hamburger."

The lesson continued, with me explaining there are 16 gauge shotguns, along with 10, 14, 28 gauge shotguns and others.

"Oh," my wife reasoned," so a 410 shotgun means it takes 410 perfectly round lead balls, fitting inside the barrel, to make a pound?"

"No, not so," I said. "The .410 is measured as a caliber, such as a .38, .45 and .22 caliber firearm."

"What?" she said. "It's all very confusing, I tell ya. Your units of measurements are still weird, strange and creepy. Why did you choose gauge and caliber to measure various firearm sizes?"

"It wasn't me, but started years ago, perhaps centuries ago," I said. 

She was told to simply accept the fact of gauge and caliber and live with it. Garnet shrugged her shoulders, as a way to escape the gauge and caliber controversy, but she immediately entered into another angle of shotgunning; the shot.

"What bullet do I shoot in my 20 gauge?"

"Ah, this is another interesting part of the shooting and hunting scene," I said. "Bullets aren't used in a traditional shotgun shell, but a number of small round pellets, called shot and identified by their size, such as number 2, 4 and 6 shot."

"So are there six round lead balls in my 20 gauge shotgun shell?" Garnet asked.

"No, no," I said, "there are around 350 pellets in one ounce of number 7 and a half lead shot, no matter if it is in a 12 gauge or a 20 gauge. Sticking with the one ounce theme, there are about 223 pellets of number 6, 135 of number 4 and 88 of number 2. All of the shot scatters into a pattern when the shotgun shell is fired. This is why a shotgun is also identified as a scattergun."

"I see, so the larger the number the smaller the pellets?"

"Correct and the reverse is also correct; the smaller the number the larger the pellet."

"My Dad would talk about oh, oh buckshot."

"Actually the proper term is double-ought buck," I said. "The word ought, sometimes spelled aught, is a unit of measure and means 'zero' or 'nothing' in the shooting world. So double-ought buck is written 00 Buck. These are large pellets with only nine fitting into a 2 ?-inch 12-gauge shotgun shell."

"OK, Mr. Correct English, how does ought figure into the rifle my Dad used; a Thirty-ought six?"

I chuckled at the thought of my high school English teacher hearing the term Mr. Correct English used in my direction.

"Well, .30 is the caliber of the rifle and 06 or 1906 is the year the rifle was adopted in the United States Army. So we, in the shooting world, say the rifle is a thirty-ought six, which is written as .30-06."

"Still think you people in the shooting world use mighty odd terms," Garnet said with her knitting needles and a large piece of knitted afghan in hand. "Look, just a few more purls and this will be finished."

"What do pearls have to do with knitting?" I asked.

"A purl, spelled p-u-r-l, is a stitch in knitting, basically it is a reverse of the knit stitch," she said. "I have purled and I enjoy purling with friends. This stitch goes back to the 1500s."

"Well, purl away, my dear," I said, afraid to dig deeper into the world of knitting.