A rifle cartridge is a type of cartridge

Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...

 fired by a longer ranged rifled

Rifling

Rifling is the process of making helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis...

 weapons.

Intermediate

An intermediate cartridge is a military rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

 cartridge

Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...

 that is less powerful than typical full power battle rifle

Battle rifle

A battle rifle is a military service rifle that fires a full power rifle cartridge, such as 7.62x51mm NATO. While the designation of battle rifle is usually given to post-World War II select fire infantry rifles such as the H&K G3, the FN FAL or the M14, this term can also apply to older military...

 cartridges such as the 7.92mm Mauser

7.92x57mm Mauser

The 8×57mm IS is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 8×57mm IS was adopted by the German Empire in 1905, and was the German service cartridge in both World Wars...

 or US .30-06, but still significantly more powerful than pistol

Pistol

When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...

 cartridges. As their recoil

Recoil

Recoil is the backward momentum of a gun when it is discharged. In technical terms, the recoil caused by the gun exactly balances the forward momentum of the projectile and exhaust gasses, according to Newton's third law...

 is significantly reduced compared to high power rifle cartridges, fully automatic rifles

Automatic firearm

An automatic firearm is a firearm that loads another round mechanically after the first round has been fired.The term can be used to refer to semi-automatic firearms, which fire one shot per single pull of the trigger , or fully automatic firearms, which will continue to load and fire ammunition...

 firing intermediate cartridges are relatively easy to control. However, even though less powerful than a traditional rifle cartridge, the ballistics are still sufficient for an effective range of 250 –, which are the maximum typical engagement ranges in combat. This allowed for the development of the assault rifle

Assault rifle

An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard infantry weapons in most modern armies...

 concept, which is a selective fire

Selective fire

A selective fire firearm has at least one semi–automatic and one automatic mode, which is activated by means of a selector which varies depending on the weapon's design. Some selective fire weapons utilize burst fire mechanisms to limit the maximum or total number of shots fired automatically in...

 weapon that is more compact and lighter than rifles firing full power cartridges. The first intermediate cartridge was the German 7.92x33mm Kurz. Other examples include the Soviet 7.62x39mm used in the AK-47

AK-47

The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...

 and AKM

AKM

The AKM is a 7.62mm assault rifle designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is an upgraded version of the AK-47 rifle and was developed in the 1950s....

 series, and the .280 British

.280 British

The .280 British was an experimental intermediate rifle cartridge. It was later designated 7 mm MK1Z, and has also been known as 7 mm NATO, .280/30, .280 Enfield, .280 NATO, 7 mm FN Short, and 7×43mm. It was designed by the British Army in the late 1940s, with subsequent help from...

 round developed for the EM-2

EM-2

The EM-2, Also known as Rifle No.9 Mk1 or "Janson rifle", was an experimental British assault rifle. It was briefly adopted by British forces in 1951, but the decision was overturned very shortly thereafter by Winston Churchill's incoming government in an effort to secure NATO standardisation of...

. The 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge is also an intermediate cartridge.

Full-powered

A full-powered cartridge is primarily used for medium

Medium machine gun

A medium machine gun or MMG, in modern terms, usually refers to a belt-fed automatic firearm firing a full-power rifle cartridge.-History:...

 and heavy machine gun

Heavy machine gun

The heavy machine gun or HMG is a larger class of machine gun generally recognized to refer to two separate stages of machine gun development. The term was originally used to refer to the early generation of machine guns which came into widespread use in World War I...

s as well as battle rifle

Battle rifle

A battle rifle is a military service rifle that fires a full power rifle cartridge, such as 7.62x51mm NATO. While the designation of battle rifle is usually given to post-World War II select fire infantry rifles such as the H&K G3, the FN FAL or the M14, this term can also apply to older military...

s.