According to the official Commission Internationale Permanente pour l'Epreuve des Armes à Feu Portatives (C.I.P.)

This was part of the same duplicity under which the StG44 was originally designated as a "machine pistol" to disguise the true nature of the weapon from Hitler.

[citation needed] The cartridge was the same caliber, and had the same base diameter, as the 7.92×57mm,[3] which was employed by the standard German Army infantry rifle, the Karabiner 98k, as well as its machine guns.

The German armed forces had issued a 7.92×57mm automatic (select fire) rifle, the FG 42, in limited numbers, but the heavy recoil of the round made it difficult to use effectively in this role.

With a case length of 33 millimetres (1.3 in), the Kurz round was substantially shorter and delivered less recoil than full-length 7.92×57mm Mauser ammunition, but was still almost as effective when engaging targets at typical combat ranges of 300 m (328 yd).

[11][12] The German military used 7,9mm as designation and generally omitted any diameter reference and only printed the exact type of loading on ammunition boxes during World War II.

Prior to the development of the Kurz round and its associated weapons, two basic small arms existed to equip the regular infantryman, the bolt-action rifle and the submachine gun.

The bolt-action rifle was the standard small arm for most of the world's armies, usually incorporating good accuracy and stopping power, but with a very limited rate of fire.

As an effective, intermediate-sized cartridge, the 7.92×33mm Kurz round was a key evolution in the development of the assault rifle by providing a combination of controllable automatic fire and acceptable accuracy at ranges most likely to see infantry combat.

[7]: 287 [14][3]: 243 [15] Only a few weapons used this round, most notably the Sturmgewehr 44 – the first assault rifle to be accepted into widespread service and put into mass production[16] – and the Gustloff Volkssturmgewehr.

[18]: 1987  Variants of the VK 98 (Volks-Karabiner), a so-called last-ditch bolt-action rifle intended for the Volkssturm Home Guard, were also chambered for this cartridge with unknown quantities produced by Mauser[19] and Steyr.

A number of Karabiner 98 rifles have appeared for sale on the European market in this caliber with "NUR FÜR KURZ PATRONE" (only for short cartridge) stamped on the barrel.

[citation needed] Schwaben Arms GmbH of Rottweil, Germany offers newly made K98k rifles in 7.92×33mm Kurz (also known as 8x33 in Europe) in addition to 8mm Mauser and .308 Winchester.

[23] After World War II, the cartridge was tested and used in prototype rifles in Argentina and Belgium, amongst other nations, during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

It is used in locally made AK-pattern weapons in semi-automatic only (produced or converted in Peshawer, Kohat and Derra Adam Khel, etc.)