can anyone explain why?

[KPSquared]

I still don't get how the UK is mini-USA. . .

 

[thebeekeeper1]

Quarter, three eighths, half inch, three quarters and inch.


We might have metric sockets and SAE, Whitworth and whatever but the drives are the same as everyone else uses.

Off topic, but why do you drive on the wrong side of the road?

 

[Rico.]

Off topic, but why do you drive on the wrong side of the road?

We drive on the correct side of the road, it's everone else that has it wrong...


The reason we drive on the left, believe it or not, starts 1000 years ago... and it's
all because of Jousting. It became popular in England in the late 11th century and
as most people are right handed the Jousters would hold the Joust in their right hand
which obviously meant they had to pass each other on the left hand side. Also during
mounted battles, again most people wielded their sword with their right hand so enemies
would be engaged from the left.

From that time when ordinary people were out and about on the trails on their horses
it just became a custom to ride and pass oncoming riders on the left, and from the late
16th century the first keep left law was passed due to the amount of horse traffic and it
has been that way ever since.

 

[Murphy4570]

There are quite a few things which are all over the world in inch:

Ratchets,
Picture sizes,
Wheel dia,
lot of Ammo sizes (7.62mm i.e. is .3" / from the Winchester .308 "),
Hard disc drive sizes (2.5" / 3.5"),
Monitor / TV screen sizes,
Speaker diameter,
lot of the common roller bearing balls are 1/4"

Thank god they never tried to change that, that would confuse the hell out of everybody...

That actually predates that cartridge. The .308" Winchester round is a civilian hunting/target round based off of the 7.62mm NATO round. It was introduced in the American market in the 1960's.

The US shoved the 7.62mm NATO cartridge down everybody's throats in the late 1950's when they wanted to standardize the ammunition that member nations used. The US simply took the old 30-06 round (7.62x63mm), and shortened the case by 12mm, turning into 7.62x51mm. The 30-06 cartridge dates back to its adoption by the US Army in 1906, which itself was based on the 30-03 cartridge. The 30-03 was the initial cartridge for the M1903 Springfield rifle; both the rifle and its cartridge were adopted in 1903.

The old 30-03 round is of course 30 caliber in diameter, as in 3/10 of an inch. This is the same as its preceding service round, the 30-40 Krag, which was the cartridge the M1892 Krag-Jorgensen rifle was chambered in. The US Army had settled on a 30 caliber round for a new rifle to supersede the obsolete M1871 Springfield rolling block rifle, which was chambered in an old 50 caliber black powder cartridge.

So really the cartridge you speak of has its roots all the way back in 1892, at least in part.

 

[volvo92906]

We drive on the correct side of the road, it's everone else that has it wrong...


The reason we drive on the left, believe it or not, starts 1000 years ago... and it's
all because of Jousting. It became popular in England in the late 11th century and
as most people are right handed the Jousters would hold the Joust in their right hand
which obviously meant they had to pass each other on the left hand side. Also during
mounted battles, again most people wielded their sword with their right hand so enemies
would be engaged from the left.


From that time when ordinary people were out and about on the trails on their horses
it just became a custom to ride and pass oncoming riders on the left, and from the late
16th century the first keep left law was passed due to the amount of horse traffic and it
has been that way ever since.

That is awesome information.... Hoping its true, I am content with it.

 

[Fedwrench]

Take your pick:

1) We're better.

2) We won the ****** war!

Or it could be that we supplied everyone on the winning side.

 

[Engineer61]

That actually predates that cartridge. The .308" Winchester round is a civilian hunting/target round based off of the 7.62mm NATO round. It was introduced in the American market in the 1960's.

The US shoved the 7.62mm NATO cartridge down everybody's throats in the late 1950's when they wanted to standardize the ammunition that member nations used. The US simply took the old 30-06 round (7.62x63mm), and shortened the case by 12mm, turning into 7.62x51mm. The 30-06 cartridge dates back to its adoption by the US Army in 1906, which itself was based on the 30-03 cartridge. The 30-03 was the initial cartridge for the M1903 Springfield rifle; both the rifle and its cartridge were adopted in 1903.

The old 30-03 round is of course 30 caliber in diameter, as in 3/10 of an inch. This is the same as its preceding service round, the 30-40 Krag, which was the cartridge the M1892 Krag-Jorgensen rifle was chambered in. The US Army had settled on a 30 caliber round for a new rifle to supersede the obsolete M1871 Springfield rolling block rifle, which was chambered in an old 50 caliber black powder cartridge.

So really the cartridge you speak of has its roots all the way back in 1892, at least in part.

The US never used a rolling block - that was Remington's single shot design and while a lot of the world did use rolling blocks as their military rifles, the US didn't. The US used the "Trap-door" single shot design, originally in 50 caliber but changed to 45 caliber in 1873, then it was called the 45 Govt, now it's called the 45-70 cartridge. And the 30-40 Krag cartridge was originally called the 30 Govt, and the "30-03" cartridge was the 30 US. It's almost identical to the 30-06, a little longer neck and used the same 220 grain round-nose bullet as the 30-40 Krag cartridge. In 1906 they switched it to a 150 grain pointed bullet and did the small change in the case neck to make the 30-06.
And we would have been a lot better off if we listened to Britain and used the 7mm cartridge they were proposing instead of the 7.62x51.

And spark plugs use metric threads because they were invented in Germany with Bosch having the patent but licensed everywhere and by the time the patent ran out everyone was used to the metric threads so no one ever changed them.

 

[demographic]

Off topic, but why do you drive on the wrong side of the road?

Its a language sophistication thing...

You drive on the Right side of the road.
We drive on the Correct side of the road

The best explanation I've heard was that traditionally most countries passed each other on the left so the person they passed was the same as most peoples sword arm.

 

[Outlawmws]

We drive on the correct side of the road, it's everone else that has it wrong...


The reason we drive on the left, believe it or not, starts 1000 years ago... and it's
all because of Jousting. It became popular in England in the late 11th century and
as most people are right handed the Jousters would hold the Joust in their right hand
which obviously meant they had to pass each other on the left hand side. Also during
mounted battles, again most people wielded their sword with their right hand so enemies
would be engaged from the left.

From that time when ordinary people were out and about on the trails on their horses
it just became a custom to ride and pass oncoming riders on the left, and from the late
16th century the first keep left law was passed due to the amount of horse traffic and it
has been that way ever since.

Actually, not true about the jousting but id does go back to that time:

In Jousting they actually pass on the RIGHT and cross the lance and guard with the shield to the defender's left.

They would in ordinary travel ride to the left side, as most people are right handed and that made the sword hand facing the opposing rider. it had to do with right handed swordsmen, not jousting...