War and Military Atlas

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7.62x51mm NATO

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The 7.62x51mm NATO is a rimless, bottlenecked, centerfire rifle cartridge adopted as a standard among North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members. First developed in the 1940s, it entered United States service in 1954 for the M14 rifle and the M60 machine gun. Although the lighter 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge later displaced it as the standard infantry round, the 7.62x51mm NATO remains in wide use in designated marksman rifles, sniper rifles, and medium and general-purpose machine guns, as well as on vehicle, aircraft, and ship mounts.

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