Basic Gun Terminology

Download as docx, pdf, or txt
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 10

Basic Gun Terminology

ACTION: The working mechanism of a firearm. Various types of actions exist, including
single-shots, multi-barrels, revolvers, slide or pump actions, lever-actions, rolling blocks,
bolt-actions, semi-automatics, and fully automatics.  The action is the moving parts of a
firearm that allow loading, firing, unloading and the ejection of the spent case.

AIRGUN: The airgun is not a firearm but a gun that uses compressed air or carbon dioxide
(CO2) to propel a bb or pellet. Examples: BB gun, pellet gun, CO2 gun.  They typically come
in .177 and .22 calibers.

AMMUNITION: This generally refers to the assembled components of a complete cartridge


or round. i.e., a case or shell holding a primer, a charge of propellant (gunpowder) and a
projectile (bullets in the case of handguns and rifles, multiple pellets or single slugs in
shotguns). Muzzleloading firearms are loaded by individual component and that is not
considered to be ammunition per se.  In addition, a muzzleloader is considered to be
unloaded if there is no priming powder in the pan (Flintlock) or no percussion cap on the
nipple, (Percussion).  Often you'll hear new shooters call ammunition cartridges 'bullets',
when bullets are really only one of the components of a single round of ammunition.

ANTIQUE: By federal definition, a firearm manufactured prior to 1899 or a firearm for which
ammunition is not generally available or a firearm incapable of firing fixed ammunition.

ARMOR-PIERCING AMMUNITION: By federal definition, "a projectile or projectile core which


may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of
traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass,
bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium. Such term does not include shotgun shot
required by . . . game regulations for hunting purposes, a frangible projectile designed for
target shooting, a projectile which the Secretary finds is primarily intended to be used for
sporting purposes, or any other projectile or projectile core which the Secretary finds is
intended to be used for industrial purposes, including a charge used in an oil and gas well
perforating device."

ASSAULT RIFLE: By U.S. Army definition, a selective-fire rifle chambered for a cartridge of
intermediate power. If applied to any semi-automatic firearm regardless of its cosmetic
similarity to a true assault rifle, the term is incorrect.  Let me clarify that a true assault rifle
can fire automatically, like a machine gun.  The media has successfully reworked the
meaning of "assault weapon" to mean semi-automatic rifles with removable magazines.  If
you repeat a lie often enough, people who don't know the truth will just accept it.  I think
Adolph Hitler said something like that.

ASSAULT WEAPON: Any weapon used in an assault (see WEAPON).  Get it, assault is a verb,
not an adjective.

AUTOMATIC: A firearm designed to feed cartridges, fire them, eject their empty cases and
repeat this cycle as long as the trigger is depressed and cartridges remain in the feeding
system. Examples: machine guns, submachine guns, selective-fire rifles, including true
assault rifles.

AUTOMATIC PISTOL: A term used often to describe what is actually a semi-automatic pistol.
It is, technically, a misnomer but a near century of use has legitimized it, and its use
confuses only the novice.  A machine pistol is a different thing altogether.  When shooters
refer to an automatic handgun, they are more than likely referring to a semi-automatic
handgun and not a true machine pistol.

BALL: Originally a spherical projectile, now generally a fully jacketed bullet of cylindrical
profile with a round or pointed nose. Most commonly used in military terminology.

BLACKPOWDER: The earliest type of firearms propellant that has generally been replaced by
smokeless powder except for use in muzzleloaders and older breechloading guns that
demand its lower pressure levels.  The basic recipe for black powder was put together by
the Chinese just after the year 900 A.D.

BLANK CARTRIDGE: A round loaded with black powder or a special smokeless powder but
lacking a projectile or bullet. Used mainly in starting races, theatrical productions, troop
exercises and in training dogs.

BOLT-ACTION: A gun mechanism activated by manual operation of the breechblock that


resembles a common door bolt.  The cartridge is loaded and unloaded by the use of this
bolt.

BORE: The interior of a firearm's barrel excluding the chamber.  Bore is measured from land
to land. (not from within the grooves)

BRASS: Another name for expended empty metallic cartridge cases.


BULLET: The projectile expelled from a gun. It is not synonymous with a cartridge. Bullets
can be of many materials, shapes, weights, and constructions such as solid lead, lead with a
jacket of harder metal, round-nosed, flat-nosed, hollow-pointed, etc.  The bullet is the only
object that leaves the barrel.  Many unknowledgeable people refer to cartridges as bullets.

CALIBER: The nominal diameter of a projectile of a rifled firearm or the diameter between
lands in a rifled barrel. In this country, usually expressed in hundreds of an inch; in Great
Britain in thousandths; in Europe and elsewhere in millimeters.

CARBINE: A rifle with a relatively short barrel. Any rifle or carbine with a barrel less than 16"
long must be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Shotguns with
barrels less than 18" long fall into the same category.  Most carbines are semi-automatic
center-fire rifles with short barrels.  Semi-automatic carbines of 5.56mm and 7.62mm, are
sometimes erroneously called 'assault rifles'.

CARTRIDGE: A single, complete round of ammunition consisting of the case, powder, bullet,
and primer.  It can also mean a complete shotgun shell.

CASE, CASING: The metal container of a cartridge. For rifles and handguns, it is usually of
brass or other metal; for shotguns, it is usually of paper or plastic with a metal head and is
more often called a "shell."

CENTER-FIRE: A cartridge with its primer located in the center of the base of the case.

CHAMBER: The rear part of the barrel that is formed to accept the cartridge to be fired. A
revolver employs a multi-chambered rotating cylinder separated from the stationary barrel. 
This rotating chamber rotates the live cartridge under the firing pin.

CHOKE: A constriction at or near the muzzle of a shotgun barrel that affects shot dispersion.

CLIP: A device for holding a group of cartridges. Semantic wars have been fought over the
word, with some insisting it is not a synonym for "detachable magazine." For 80 years,
however, it has been so used by manufacturers and the military. There is no argument that it
can also mean a separate device for holding and transferring a group of cartridges to a fixed
or detachable magazine or as a device inserted with cartridges into the mechanism of a
firearm becoming, in effect, part of that mechanism.  In my opinion, a clip is not the same as
a magazine, however, it seems that I have been overruled by the abuse of this term.
COP-KILLER BULLET: An inflammatory phrase having neither historical basis nor legal or
technical meanings.  This is merely a media contrived term to gain a sensationalistic slant.

CYLINDER: The drum of a revolver that contains the chambers for the ammunition.

DERRINGER: A small single-shot or multi-barreled (rarely more than two) pocket pistol. 
Although I have seen them with four barrels.

DETONATE: To explode with great violence. It is generally associated with high explosives
e.g. TNT, dynamite, etc., and not with the relatively slow-burning smokeless gun powders
that are classed as propellants.

DOUBLE-ACTION: A handgun mechanism where pulling the trigger retracts and releases the
hammer or firing pin to initiate discharge.  The trigger performs two functions, namely
cocking the hammer and releasing the hammer.  Because the action in a double-action
firearm performs two separate actions, it is called 'double-action'.

DUM-DUM BULLET: A British military bullet developed in India's Dum-Dum Arsenal and
used on India's North West Frontier and in Sudan in 1897 and 1898. It was a jacketed .303
cal. British bullet with the jacket nose left open to expose the lead core in the hope of
increasing effectiveness. Improvement was not pursued, for the Hague Convention of 1899
(not the Geneva Convention of 1925, which dealt largely with gas warfare) outlawed such
bullets for warfare. Often "dum-dum" is misused as a term for any soft-nosed or hollow-
pointed hunting bullet.

EXPANDING BULLET: A bullet that is specifically designed to increase in diameter upon


entering a target. Almost all rifle bullets intended for hunting are intended to expand on
impact.  Most hollow point bullets can be called expanding bullets.

EXPLODING BULLET: A projectile containing an explosive component that acts on contact


with the target. Seldom found and generally ineffective as such bullets lack the penetration
necessary for defense or hunting.  I know of no manufacturer that makes an exploding
bullet.  The exploding bullet is really just a very rarely occurring myth.

EXPLOSIVE: Any substance (TNT, etc.) that, through a chemical reaction, detonates or
violently changes to gas with accompanying heat and pressure. Smokeless powder, by
comparison, burns relatively slowly and depends on its confinement in a cartridge case and
chamber for its potential as a propellant to be realized.
FIREARM: A rifle, shotgun or handgun using gunpowder as a propellant. By federal
definition, under the 1968 Gun Control Act, antiques are excepted. Under the National
Firearms Act, the word designates machine guns, etc. Air guns, pellet guns and/or bb guns
are not firearms.

FIXED AMMUNITION: A complete cartridge of several types and of today's rimfire and
center-fire versions.

FLASH HIDER/FLASH SUPPRESSOR: A muzzle attachment intended to reduce visible muzzle


flash caused by the burning propellant.  These are used in the military to help conceal the
shooting position in low light.

GAUGE: The bore size of a shotgun determined by the number of round lead balls of bore
diameter that equals a pound.  For example, take one pound of lead, divide it equally into
12 spheres.  Each sphere would be 12 gauge in diameter.  Therefore, if you follow that
definition it is easier to see why a 20 gauge shotgun is smaller in diameter than a 12 gauge
shotgun.

GUN: The British restrict the term in portable arms to shotguns. Here it is properly used for
rifles, shotguns, handguns, and air guns, as well as some cannons.

GUNPOWDER: Chemical substances of various compositions, particle sizes, shapes and


colors that, on the ignition, serve as a propellant. Ignited smokeless powder emits minimal
quantities of smoke from a gun's muzzle; the older black powder emits relatively large
quantities of whitish smoke.  Modern smokeless gunpowder is made from nitroglycerin and
nitrocellulose.

HANDGUN: Another name for a pistol or revolver.  The term handgun (actually handgonne)
was first used in the year 1388.  Here is a picture of a handgun that has been dated very
close to that era.  Firearms have been around since about the year 1245-1250 according to
most historians who know their stuff.

HIGH-CAPACITY MAGAZINE: An inexact, non-technical term indicating a magazine holding


more rounds that might be considered "average".  This term is usually used by individuals
who don't know what they are speaking about.

HOLLOW-POINT BULLET: A bullet with a cavity in its nose to increase expansion upon
penetration of a target.  There is much misinformation being bandied about by people with
an alarming lack of knowledge about this subject.  Hollowpoint bullets are bullets that are
merely designed with an empty cavity in its nose so that the diameter of the bullet increases
slightly after it enters a target.

JACKET: The envelope enclosing the core of a bullet.  Usually made of copper and exists to
help retain bullet weight throughout the penetration of a target.

LEVER-ACTION: A gun mechanism activated by manual operation of a lever.  The .30-30 rifle
used on the Rifleman television show was a lever-action.

LIMP-WRISTING:  Limp-wristing a gun occurs only in semi-automatic and fully automatic


handguns.  Limp-wristing occurs when the shooter does not hold the grip of the pistol
strongly enough, allowing the handgun to recoil back into the hand.  When a shooter allows
his/her wrist to flex too much or in other words, the shooter allows a very soft wrist, the
handgun's recoiling slide will not gain enough inertia from the spent cartridge to
completely cycle.  If the slide is not allowed a complete cycle, the spent casing will likely not
be ejected properly and a fresh cartridge will likely not be stripped from the top of the
magazine properly either.  If the shooter experiences jams, malfunctions, bad ejections and
misfeeds in a semi-automatic pistol, limp-wristing could play a major role and it might not
be entirely the fault of the firearm.

MACHINE GUN: A firearm of military significance, often crew-served, that on trigger


depression automatically feeds and fires cartridges of rifle size or greater. Civilian ownership
in the U.S. has been heavily curtailed and federally regulated since 1934.  Yet some machine
guns are still used illegally because criminals typically disobey the law by nature.

MAGAZINE: A spring-loaded container for cartridges that may be an integral part of the
gun's mechanism or may be detachable. Detachable magazines for the same gun may be
offered by the gun's manufacturer or other manufacturers with various capacities. A gun
with a five-shot detachable magazine, for instance, may be fitted with a magazine holding
10, 20, or 50 or more rounds. Box magazines are most commonly located under the receiver
with the cartridges stacked vertically. Tube or tubular magazines run through the stock or
under the barrel with the cartridges lying horizontally. Drum magazines hold their cartridges
in a circular mode.

MAGNUM: A term indicating a relatively heavily loaded metallic cartridge or shotshell and,
by extension, a gun safely constructed to fire it.  Usually, a magnum cartridge is longer to
hold more powder.

MULTI-BARRELED: A gun with more than one barrel, the most common being the double-
barreled shotgun.

MUSHROOMED BULLET: A description of a bullet whose forward diameter has expanded


after penetration.

MUZZLE: The open end of the barrel from which the projectile exits.

MUZZLE BRAKE: An attachment to or an integral part of the barrel intended to trap and
divert expanding gasses and reduce recoil.

MUZZLE LOADER: The earliest type of gun, now also popular as modern-made replicas, in
which black powder and projectile(s) are separately loaded in through the muzzle. The term
is often applied to cap-and-ball revolvers where the loading is done not actually through
the muzzle but through the open ends of the cylinder's chambers.

PELLETS: Small spherical projectiles loaded in shotshells and more often called "shot." Also,
the skirted projectiles used in air guns or pellet guns.

PELLET GUN: A rifle or pistol using compressed air or CO2 to propel a skirted pellet as
opposed to a spherical BB. Not a firearm.

PISTOL: Synonymous with "handgun." A gun that is generally held in one hand. It may be of
the single-shot, multi-barrel, repeating or semi-automatic variety and includes revolvers.

PISTOL GRIP: The handle of a handgun or protrusion on the buttstock or fore-end of a


shoulder-operated gun that resembles the grip or handle of a handgun. A "semi-pistol grip"
is one less pronounced than normal; a "vertical pistol grip" is more pronounced than
normal.

PLINKING: Informal shooting at any of a variety of inanimate targets. The most often
practiced shooting sport in this country.

PRIMER: The ignition component of a cartridge, generally made up of a metallic fulminate


or (currently) lead styphnate.

PROPELLANT: In a cartridge, the chemical composition that is ignited by the primer to


generate the superheated gas that propels the bullet from the barrel.  Propellants are
usually made from some form of nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose.   In air or pellet guns,
compressed air or CO2.  (see gunpowder)
PYRODEX: A trade name for a black powder substitute, the only such safe substitute known
at this time.

RECEIVER: The housing for a firearm's breech (a portion of the barrel with the chamber into
which a cartridge or projectile is loaded) and firing mechanism.

REVOLVER: A gun, usually a handgun, with a multi-chambered cylinder that rotates to


successively align each chamber with a single barrel, hammer and firing pin.

RIFLE: A shoulder-fired gun with a rifled bore.

RIFLING: Spiral grooves in a gun's bore that spin the projectile in flight and impart accuracy.
Rifling is present in all true rifles, in most handguns and in some shotgun barrels designed
for increasing the accuracy potential of slugs( a slug is a single projectile rather than the
more common "shot".)

RIMFIRE: A rimmed or flanged cartridge with the priming mixture located inside the rim of
the case. The most famous example is the .22 rimfire. It has been estimated that between 3-
4 billion .22 cartridges are fired in the U.S. each year.

ROUND: Another name for a single cartridge.  New shooters and people unfamiliar with
firearms have sometimes been confused by the term 'round'.  They need not be confused
any longer.  A 'round' is a single cartridge.  Instead of saying that 'I just fired a single shot at
the target.'  You could say, 'I just shot one round'.

SABOT: A lightweight carrier surrounding a heavier projectile of reduced caliber, allowing a


firearm to shoot ammunition for which it is not chambered. For example, a hunter could use
his .30-30 deer rifle to shoot small game with .22 centerfire bullets.

SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL: A catchy phrase having no legal or technical meaning. 


Normally this term is used by anti-Second Amendment types who know almost nothing
about firearms.  Basically a sensationalistic term with no real meaning.  There was a song by
Lynard Skynard that referred to a particular handgun as a 'Saturday Night Special', but no
such firearm exists.  When people who have extremely limited firearm knowledge use the
term, they are likely referring to very concealable and comparatively inexpensive semi-
automatic pistols of .25 ACP caliber or even.380 ACP caliber, such as some models produced
by Raven Arms and perhaps such off-shoots as Bryco, Jennings, and Davis.
SAWED-OFF SHOTGUN or (RIFLE): Common term for federally restricted "short-barreled
shotgun or (rifle)" i.e. a conventional shotgun with a barrel less than 18" (rifle less than 16")
or overall length less than 26."

SELECTIVE-FIRE: A firearm's ability to be fired fully automatically, semi-automatically or, in


some cases, in burst-fire mode at the option of the shooter.  All selective-fire firearms are
classified as Class III firearms and have been very heavily restricted, limited and taxed since
the National Firearms Act of 1934.

SEMI-AUTOMATIC: A firearm that is designed to fire a single cartridge, eject the empty case
and reload the chamber from an ammunition magazine of some type each time the trigger
is pulled.

SHOTGUN: A shoulder-fired gun with smooth-bored barrel(s) primarily intended for firing
multiple small, round projectiles, (shot, birdshot, pellets), larger shot (buckshot), single
round balls and cylindrical slugs. Some shotgun barrels have rifling to give better accuracy
with slugs or greater pattern spread to birdshot.

SHOTSHELL: The cartridge for a shotgun. It is also called a "shell," and its body may be of
metal or plastic or of plastic or paper with a metal head. Small shotshells are also made for
rifles and handguns and are often used for vermin control.

SILENCER: A virtually prohibited device for attachment to a gun's muzzle for reducing (not
silencing) the report. Better terms would be "sound suppressor" or "sound moderator." 
Silencers are effective in reducing the sound created by a gunshot, but it is usually only
effective if the ammunition is 'downloaded' so that the bullet does not break the sound
barrier.

SINGLE-SHOT: A gun mechanism lacking a magazine where separately carried ammunition


must be manually placed in the gun's chamber one at a time.

SLIDE-ACTION: A gun mechanism activated by manual operation of a horizontally sliding


handle almost always located under the barrel. "Pump-action" and "trombone" are
synonyms for "slide-action."

SNUB-NOSED: Descriptive of (usually) a revolver with an unusually short barrel of say two
inches or less.

SUB-MACHINE GUN: A fully automatic firearm commonly firing pistol ammunition intended
for close-range combat.

TEFLON - Trade name for a synthetic sometimes used to coat hard bullets to protect the
rifling. Other synthetics, nylon, for instance, have also been used as bullet coatings. None of
these soft coatings has any effect on lethality.

WEAPON - Webster defines it as "an instrument of offensive or defensive combat." Thus an


automobile, baseball bat, boots, bottle, chair, firearm, fist, pen knife or shovel is a "weapon,"
if so used.

You might also like