The 10.15×61 mmR cartridge was designed by a joint Swedish-Norwegian rifle commission in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and approved for use in Sweden and Norway in 1881.

[1] It is a rimmed, centerfire cartridge, and was initially loaded with black powder and a lead bullet wrapped in paper.

Later cartridges were loaded with smokeless powder and had a lead bullet coated in steel (Full metal jacket, or FMJ).

The earliest version had a load of 4.46 g of black powder, and a projectile weighing 21.85 g. This gave a muzzle velocity of 500 m/s.

The later version, with a full metal jacket, was loaded to produce the same muzzle velocity.