Why are all firearm calibers represented not as a whole value, but as a fractional value?

There are many calibers for handguns. A variety of cartridges 9 mm, calibers 5.45 and 5.56 mm, caliber 12.7 mm, 7.62 mm, 14.5 mm and many more. The question arises: why in most cases the calibers of small arms are represented by "inconvenient" fractional values, and not integers. Wouldn't it be better and easier to make a cartridge for 7 mm caliber, and not 7.62 or 6 mm instead of 5.56?

Ammunition dimensions are not taken from the head. /Photo: guns.allzip.org

The answer to this question consists of two points. Moment one. Absolutely all the designations of calibers of ammunition and weapons are in fact a convention that has many technical “buts” depending on the country of manufacture of the weapon. Much here depends on what kind of methodology is used in a particular country to calculate the caliber. For example, the American caliber 5.56 mm is actually not 5.56 mm, but 5.7 mm.

The factory nomenclature is partly to blame. /Photo: masyamba.ru.

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Very often, the names and designations for weapons and ammunition are assigned due to the factory nomenclature. The name "sticks" and is used in the future already in the army. So, for example, the name of the 7.62 mm caliber in the native spaces was fixed thanks to the Soviet Union and the transition to the metric system for measuring quantities (millimeters, centimeters, meters, etc.). In the Russian Empire there was the same cartridge, but it was designated by three lines, one third of an inch, which is equal to 7.62 mm in terms of the metric system.

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The characteristics of the cartridge are determined by ballistic tests and TK. /Photo: aboratuar.com.

Second moment. He's the most important. The caliber of ammunition is not taken from the head, but is calculated by designers in the course of work to optimize the ballistic properties of a cartridge or projectile. In other words, the characteristics of the ammunition are obtained as they are required to be by the laws of physics. Designers are not chasing "correctness" or "integrity", they are chasing the achievement of the necessary characteristics of weapons. And then the fate of the name depends on the factory nomenclature, marketing and colloquial speech.