One of the most criminally ignored elements of military small arms ammunition in the casual discourse is weight. Despite being one of the most important elements from a logistical and human factors perspective, the subject of weight rarely comes up in discussions about ammunition, with those conversations tending towards sexier topics like muzzle energy, caliber, and “flash figures” like bullet weight and muzzle velocity.

Since mid-2012, I have been keeping a database of ammunition weights, based on my collection of different cartridges both rare and mundane. The list has been kept in an Excel spreadsheet available over at my own site, 196,800 Revolutions Per Minute, but recently I have updated it with a large number of new rounds, including some very uncommon ones that I recently acquired, spurring me to write this post.

The spreadsheet organizes ammunition (roughly) by caliber, and divides my collection into two categories: Pistol and rifle rounds (though I tend to be a rifle ammunition collector, sorry pistoleros!). Data for each round’s name, case material (if any), bullet type, bullet weight, and overall weight in both grams and ounces is given by the spreadsheet.

I’ve reproduced the spreadsheet below in image form so that you can quickly scan it for anything interesting, but the spreadsheet file itself is, as previously mentioned, available over at 196,800 Revolutions Per Minute.

Have you ever wondered how 9mm NATO compared to 5.56mm in terms of weight? How about, uh, 5.2x68mm Mondragon versus 9mm SMAW? Then take a look below:

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