US Gallons to US Fluid Drams (gal to fl dr)

1 US gallon equals 1,024 US fluid drams exactly.

1 US gallon = 1,024 US fluid drams

How to convert US gallons to US fluid drams

To convert US gallons to US fluid drams, multiply the number of US gallons by 1,024. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply US fluid drams by 0.0009765625.

US fluid drams = US gallons × 1,024

Example: 10 US gallons = 10,240 US fluid drams.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

US Gallon (gal)

US customaryCurrent unit

Exactly 231 cubic inches or 3.785411784 liters (128 US fluid ounces). About 17% smaller than the imperial gallon.

The US gallon is a survivor of English wine trade. Around 1706, a statute in Queen Anne's reign fixed the wine gallon at exactly 231 cubic inches, settling confusion among the competing gallons for wine, ale and corn. British colonies in North America used that wine gallon, and in 1824 Britain replaced all its gallons with a new imperial one while the United States kept the old measure. It was adopted as the legal US standard in 1836 and is still defined as exactly 231 cubic inches, or 3.785411784 liters.

That makes the US gallon about 17 percent smaller than the imperial gallon, a difference that explains why American and British fuel-economy figures cannot be compared directly. Everyday uses are milk jugs, paint cans and gasoline pumps. One gallon divides evenly into four quarts, eight pints, sixteen cups and 128 fluid ounces. A gallon of water weighs a little over 8 pounds, an easy figure to remember when loading a car with water jugs.

1 US gallon = 3.785411784 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Gallon; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume

US Fluid Dram (fl dr)

US customaryTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

One eighth of a US fluid ounce (3.6967 mL). Used in old pharmacy measures.

Drachma, the Greek coin and weight, lies behind the dram. The Attic drachma weighed about 4.37 g and the Roman one about 3.41 g, and the apothecaries borrowed the name for both a weight and a liquid measure. The US fluid dram is one eighth of a US fluid ounce, 3.6966911953125 mL, and it divides into 60 minims. Its British imperial counterpart, spelled drachm in pharmacy usage from around 1900, is smaller at 3.5516 mL.

Doctors once used the dram as the size of a teaspoonful, and early nineteenth-century prescriptions assumed a teaspoon held 60 minims. By 1876 household teaspoons had grown to 80 to 85 minims, which made that shortcut unreliable for medicine. Pharmacy is now metric, but the fluid dram survives in the capacity of pill bottles and vials. In casual speech a dram of whisky is a small pour, about 25 mL in an English pub and 35 mL in Scotland, which is a different thing from the pharmacist's unit.

1 US fluid dram = 0.003696691195 liters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Fluid dram; Wikipedia: Minim (unit)

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