The Ultimate Guide to Rifle Calibers and Their Power

By Ahmed Baig | March 29, 2023

Whether you’re a sea­soned hunter or just curi­ous about firearms, under­stand­ing rifle cal­ibers can be tricky. We’ve bro­ken it down into a sleek, easy-to-read guide that com­bines sci­ence, pow­er, and pur­pose.

What You Need to Know

• Cal­iber: The diam­e­ter of a bul­let (e.g., .308″ is larg­er than .22″). Big­ger isn’t always faster, but often heav­ier.
• Car­tridge: The com­plete round includ­ing the bul­let, cas­ing, primer, and pow­der. The bul­let is just the pro­jec­tile.

Fun Fact: The .308 Win­ches­ter and .300 PRC use the same .308 bul­let, but the .300 PRC packs more powder—and more punch.

Powerful Cartridges for Big Game

Medium-Caliber Favorites

Small-Caliber for Precision & Varmints

Caliber Conversion Cheat Sheet

Quick Guide to Picking the Right Caliber

• Big Game: .338, .416, .50 BMG – max­i­mum stop­ping pow­er.
• Medi­um Game: .270, .308, 7mm – bal­anced ener­gy and accu­ra­cy.
• Small Game & Varmints: .22, .224, .243 – pre­ci­sion with­out overkill.

Take­away:
Under­stand­ing bul­let size, car­tridge pow­er, and ener­gy out­put is the secret to pick­ing the right rifle for your hunt or shoot­ing pur­pose. Armed with this knowl­edge, you’ll know exact­ly which cal­iber packs the punch you need.

I can also turn this into a visu­al­ly strik­ing info­graph­ic with col­or-cod­ed sec­tions for Big Game, Medi­um Game, and Small Game, so it reads like a glossy mag­a­zine page—perfect for your blog or social media audi­ence.