Gun terminology and the meaning or history behind it.

[Member 34319]

Sometimes I'll here something and be dumbfounded on how the term came up into existence.

One that recently made me think, "Hmmm, why is it called that?" Was ghost ring sights. While the technical term is aperture, like the aperture on a camera. These type of sights are also referred to as "Ghost ring", and I had no idea why! So I looked online for an answer.

Ghost Ring Sights:

A ring aperture type rear sight that is of a diameter where the ring becomes blurred and or translucent to the human eye while focusing on the front post/notch/etc that the ring appears "ghost like". Hence Ghost ring sights.

Anyways, what other unique gun terminology is out there? Do you know how or why it was called what it is and or it's history behind the name/term?

Use this thread to post up one off gun terminology and is definition and or historical meaning to the definition.

Thanks!

Reno

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[Kruel J]

All I can think of is "clip", which obviously became popular from the M1 and has since been used incorrectly to describe magazines by many a weekend warrior.

 

[Member 34319]

All I can think of is "clip", which obviously became popular from the M1 and has since been used incorrectly to describe magazines by many a weekend warrior.

I recall hearing that the term "clip" was used as it was similar to a paper clip in that it held cartridges together in the same way as a paper clip held multiple pieces of paper together.

Why it continues to be used interchangeably with magazine, I believe is do to the use of both by the militaries during the overlapping era where clips went away and magazines became the new normal. So most military just continued using the same term for the new magazines once they were issued the newer types of rifles. How magazines got their names, I'd have to research. I want to say the proper term is "box magazine" The earliest use of the term "magazine" was with "tube magazines" of lever actions.

 

[No_Regerts]

"Clips" have been around a long time. Mausers and Enfields used "clips" and "chargers" 40 years before the first M1 came around. Magazines were also used during the same timeframe, as a clip or charger was used to fill the magazine.

 

[Member 34319]

"Clips" have been around a long time. Mausers and Enfields used "clips" and "chargers" 40 years before the first M1 came around. Magazines were also used during the same timeframe, as a clip or charger was used to fill the magazine.

Having just read up on the two a little, the defining difference is that a clip does not contain any moving parts to facilitate the feeding of cartridges where a magazine (tube/box/internal/detachable/rotary/etc) does.

I haven't been able to find any historical information on when or why the term "magazine" was used and or why. Im really curious what other device or item was the influence behind using that word/term to define it.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Guessing here :
A magazine is also a place , area or building where gun power and ammunition was stored.

Maybe , when cartridge guns were invented...the term "magazine" was borrowed from this usage for use as term for where cartridges are stored on / in a firearm.
Andy

 

[Member 34319]

I think I found it. The term "magazine" in older military days was defined as an area where ammunition was stored. Per Webster's the first known use of the term "magazine" was in 1583 to define a place where goods or supplies are stored. It was also used to define the part of ship or fort where powder and explosives were stored.

Very cool!

Edit: Andy beat me!

 

[No_Regerts]

I say "slide stop" on pistols and "bolt release" on rifles.

 

[hisokas]

Somewhat off topic.

I remember looking up the difference between clip vs magazine when I was first getting into guns and here is some of the info I found. Most know about the M1 Garand so won't mention that.

I remember reading seeing an old original document/manual where an Army Colonel put clip vs magazine when describing a 1911, but I can't find it right now. My only reference to that is from American Rifleman all the way on the bottom of the site. Which might be where the

An Official Journal Of The NRA | Clips Vs. Magazines

What term is correct? Clip or magazine? Turns out it's complicated. Mark Keefe digs into this common controversy.

www.americanrifleman.org

I then attempted to look up the origins of the word magazine and tried to find the European meaning of it, but ended up here https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=magazine which didn't help me much.

Then the last thing I found was the Girardoni air rifle (1780–1815) that used an air reservoir/tank and a tubular magazine. Basically the first airgun of it's kind

Girardoni air rifle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Girandoni Repeating Air Rifle

In our last post, we looked at the Cookson Repeater . In today's post, we will look at another repeating rifle, but this one has a number of...

firearmshistory.blogspot.com

My personal opinion on the mix-up is that soo many countries, in the late 1800s and earlier 1900s, were using clips on weapons that the term was simply passed down from the older generation to the younger generation all through the 1900s and 2000s, which then ends up on movies, tv shows, newspapers, etc. I've noticed that the word clip is mainly used by older folks and those new to firearms. I call them magazines (mags for short) mainly because that's what the manufactures calls them. If they labeled them clips I would probably call them clips. I jus' see each device as a transfer device; humans load to clips, clips load to magazines, magazines loads to firearm, firearm loads steel/paper/flesh targets.

 

[Knute]

Mags/Clips = Hollywood confused the two for many confused generations.

I recall my military pistol training way back when, when somebody in the company made the mistake of calling the 1911a1 magazine a "clip." That was fun to watch smoke come out of the Gunnersmate's ears, as he corrected the recruit. It was even funnier when another guy said "clip" again right after that in the same pistol class

 

[RedRover]

An oft repeated Hollywood/Media blunder, but often also heard by those familiar with firearms (such as LEOs giving statements and/or during interviews).

(Shell) 'Casing' There is a 'case', and there are 'cases', but there is no such thing as a 'casing' or 'casings'.

 

[Ura-Ki]

There are Many that revolve around Naval terms, most coming from the "Big Three" French, Spanish, and British, and each has differing terms for the same thing! Our country at it founding inherited all these terms and had to make sense of them, rarely succeeding!

Barbette, A small armored gun emplacement, so what do you call a large armored gun emplacement?
Casement, A armored covering of things you want armored.
Casemate, A armored Gun trunk, usually the lower works surrounding a large guns inner workings
Magazine ( place/location) A Armored powder and shell storage area within a Casemate

 

[No_Regerts]

An oft repeated Hollywood/Media blunder, but often also heard by those familiar with firearms (such as LEOs giving statements and/or during interviews).

(Shell) 'Casing' There is a 'case', and there are 'cases', but there is no such thing as a 'casing' or 'casings'.

Most of the people I work with don't know squat about guns. There are generally a few of us that do, and we end up fixing everyone's crap.

 

[thorborg]

All I can think of is "clip", which obviously became popular from the M1 and has since been used incorrectly to describe magazines by many a weekend warrior.

I've a considerable and lengthy association with firearms but am not critical of errors in vernaculars. for some inexplicable reason I seen many that seem to go bonkers over their consideration of a terms misuse. Puzzling to me as to why.
"Clip" maybe popularized by the M1 but was around in one form or another for years prior.
Would you call Cooper, Curtis, Page and their ilk weekend warriors?? In the beginning, many of them also called the 1911 magazine "clip" originally, and for some time reverted back to that vernacular on and off. Aged gun pioneers who lived through the transition from "stripper clips" "en blocs" "moon clips" and the like all visualized methods of multiple round insertion as "clips" regardless of its shape or difference in function. Like screw threads, things eventually did standardized. I can't remember which, but have read old patents for guns that refer to a magazine as a clip.
I too am guilty of using the term because before I had graduated high school in the sixties, and ever owned such a device, I had read nearly every book i could get my hands on written by the gun pioneers past and present that "erroneously, if you need" used the term.
Whether it is them, or myself, old habits are hard to break. There are terms I still use today learned from my elders decades my senior that are no longer recognized for the same meaning.

 

[clanhanson]

An oft repeated Hollywood/Media blunder, but often also heard by those familiar with firearms (such as LEOs giving statements and/or during interviews).

(Shell) 'Casing' There is a 'case', and there are 'cases', but there is no such thing as a 'casing' or 'casings'.

A casing is defined as a shell, and a case stores something. They seem interchangeable!

 

[Member 34319]

@Andy54Hawken do you have any information on the term "musket" how it came to be and or originated? I was thinking about that one when you beat me to the post earlier.

 

[Hueco]

In 1993, Kurt Russel said the following while acting as Wyatt Earp, circa 1880:

you skin that smoke wagon and we'll see what happens

I tried finding the origin of the term "smoke wagon" and have been unsuccessful at finding its earliest usage in general and in regard to firearms. Sure would like to know though.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Musket...
Comes from the French word for a sparrowhawk...mousquette.
If you will pardon my French here...

I think that the first use of the term Musket is from around 1500 or so.
Andy

 

[Kruel J]

I say "slide stop" on pistols and "bolt release" on rifles.

Then you say it correctly:

Slide stop - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I like "bolt release" better than bolt catch.

 

[Kruel J]

In 1993, Kurt Russel said the following while acting as Wyatt Earp, circa 1880:

I tried finding the origin of the term "smoke wagon" and have been unsuccessful at finding its earliest usage in general and in regard to firearms. Sure would like to know though.

Effin great movie.