Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns From: [draug h n] at [iitmax.iit.edu] (Mark Draughn) Subject: FAQ Gun Glossary (LONG) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 18:07:12 GMT I've been putting together a FAQ of sorts for this group (on and off for a couple of years now) and I'm giving it another shot. The rest of this article is the glossary I've put together. Actually, most of it has been taken from the glossary published in the January 1994 American Rifleman. I'd appreciate any comments, corrections, or additions to this list. Unless explicitly specified, I will assume that all email and posted replies can be made public and/or used in the glossary. ============================================================================= GLOSSARY ============================================================================= Definitions with the notation "[AR.94.1]" have been taken from the January 1994 edition of American Rifleman magazine. Permission to copy and distribute these definitions is explicitly given in the magazine. ACTION: The working mechanism of a firearm. Various types exist, including single-shots, multi-barrels, revolvers, slide- or pump- actions, lever-actions, bolt-actions, semi-automatics and automatics. (see separate listings) [AR.94.1] AIRGUN: Not a firearm but a gun that uses compressed air or carbon dioxide to propel a projectile. Examples: BB gun, pellet gun, CO_2 gun. [AR.94.1] AMMUNITION: This generally refers to the assembled components of complete cartridges or rounds, 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). Sometimes called "fixed ammunition" to differentiate from components inserted separately in muzzleloaders. [AR.94.1] ANTIQUE: By U.S. 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. [AR.94.1] ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION: By federal definition, "a projectile or projectile core 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 primarliy 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 gass well perforating device." [AR.94.1] (See also: KTW BULLETS). 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. [AR.94.1] ASSAULT WEAPON: Any weapon used in an assault. [AR.94.1] This term is part of the language of gun control and is often used to describe weapons that have cosmetic similarity to some assault rifles or other weapons of war, or that have certain common minor features such as flash suppressors, barrel shrouds, or bayonet lugs. Many proposed laws against such weapons simply list them by name, without attempting to define them by their features or capabilities. [MD] 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 feed system. Examples: machine guns, submachine guns, selective-fire military/police rifles, including true assault rifles. [AR.94.1] AUTOMATIC PISTOL: A term often used 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. "Semi-automatic pistol", "autoloading pistol", or "self-loading pistol" should be used in contexts intended for the general public. [AR.94.1] True fully automatic pistols are rare, so everyone assumes that the reference is to an auto-loading mechanism. [MD] 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 technology. [AR.94.1] BATF: (See the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.) BB GUN: An airgun using a .175" diameter round projectile. [AR.94.1] BLACKPOWDER: The earliest type of firearms propellant that has generally been replaced by smokeless powder except for use in muzzleloaders and those older fixed-cartridge guns that demand its lower pressure levels. [AR.94.1] BLANK CARTRIDGE: A round loaded with blackpowder or a special smokeless powder but lacking a projectile. Used mainly in starting races, theatrical productions, troop exercises, and in training gun dogs. [AR.94.1] BOLT-ACTION: A gun mechanism activated by manual operation of the breechblock that resembles a common door bolt. [AR.94.1] BORE: The interior of a firearm's barrel excluding the chamber; a British synonym for a shotgun's gauge. [AR.94.1] BRASS: A synonym for expended metallic cartridge cases. [AR.94.1] BTW: Abbreviation for "By The Way". [MD] BULLET: The projectile expelled from a gun. It is not synonymous with cartridge. Bullets can be of many materials, shapes, weights, and constructions such as solid lead, lead with a jacket of harder metal, round-nosed, flag-nosed, hollow-pointed, etc. [AR.94.1] BULLET-PROOF VEST: An article of clothing with one or more layers of woven Kevlar. A bullet striking the Kevlar layers either has to squeeze between the tightly-woven fibers or defeat the Kevlar fibers themselves, both of which take a lot of force. Some vests have metal or ceramic trauma plates to reduce the blunt impact of a non-penetrating bullet. Vests come in a variety of classes, depending on the type of bullet they will stop. While almost any vest will stop, say, a .25 cal. bullet, only the toughest vest has a chance of stopping a bullet from a centerfire rifle. [MD] BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, AND FIREARMS: The federal agency in charge of enforcing gun control laws in the U.S. A division of the Department of the Treasury. [MD] BURST-FIRE: The capability of some military arms to fire a predetermined number of shots (usually three) at each pull of the trigger. [AR.94.1] CALIBER: The nominal diameter of a projectile of a rifled firearm or the diameter between the lands in a rifled barrel. In the U.S., usually expressed in hundreths of an inch; in Great Britain in thousandths; in Europe and elsewhere in millimeters. [AR.94.1] 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. [AR.94.1] CARTRIDGE: A single, complete round of ammunition. [AR.94.1] CASE, CASING: The envelope (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." [AR.94.1] CENTER-FIRE: A cartridge with its primer located in the center of the base of the case. [AR.94.1] 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. [AR.94.1] CHOKE: A constriction at or near the muzzle of a shotgun barrel that affects shot dispersion. [AR.94.1] 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. [AR.94.1] COP-KILLER BULLETS: An inflamatory phrase invented by anti-gunners that had no historical basis and has no legal or technical meaning. [AR.94.1] (See also KTW BULLETS and the FAQ question on this subject.) CORDITE: An obsolete British smokeless gunpwder that was extruded into long cylindrical strands of tubes. [AR.94.1] Sometimes incorrectly used to refer to any smokeless powder. [MD] CYLINDER: The drum of a revolver that contains the chambers for the ammunition. [AR.94.1] CYLINDER BORE: Indicating a shotgun barrel with no muzzle constriction or choke. [AR.94.1] DERRINGER: A small single-shot or multi-barreled (rarely more than two) pocket pistol. [AR.94.1] 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. [AR.94.1] DOUBLE-ACTION: A handgun mechanism where pulling the trigger retracts and releases the hammer or firing pin to initiate discharge. [AR.94.1] DUM-DUM BULLET: A British military bullet developed in India's Dum-Dum Arsenal and used on India's North West Frontier and in the Sudan in 1897 and 1898. It was a jacked .303 caliber 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 outlawed such bullets for warfare. Sometimes used incorrectly as a term for any soft-nosed or hollow-pointed bullet. [AR.94.1] EXPANDING BULLET: One designed to increase in diameter on entering a target. Almost all rifle bullets intended for hunting are intended to expand on impact. [AR.94.1] (See also MUSHROOMED BULLET.) 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. [AR.94.1] EXPLOSIVE: Any substance (TNT, etc.) that, through chemical reaction, detonates or violenty changes to gas with accompanying heat and pressure. Smokeless powder, by comparison, deflagrates (burns relatively slowly) and depends on its confinement in a gun's cartridge case and chamber for its potential as a propellant to be realized. [AR.94.1] FEDERAL FIREARMS LICENSE: The license needed to become a firearms dealer in the U.S. Applicants have to pass a background check, get fingerprinted, and consent to future warrantless searches of their business location, including their private home if that's their business address. They keep detailed records of all transactions. This license confers the legal right to buy firearms in large numbers, to buy firearms through the mail, and to buy certain gun parts from manufacturers. [MD] FFL: Abbreviation for Federal Firearms License. Also used to refer to a person who has a Federal Firearms License. [MD] FIREARM: A rifle, shotgun, or handgun using gunpwder as a propellant. By U.S. federal definition, under the 1968 Gun Control Act, antiques are excepted. Under the National Firearms Act, the word designates machine guns, etc. Airguns are not firearms. [AR.94.1] FIXED AMMUNITION: A complete cartridge of several obsolete types and of today's rimfire and center-fire versions. [AR.94.1] FLASH HIDER/FLASH SUPPRESSOR: A muzzle attachment intended to reduce visible muzzle flash caused by the burning propellant. [AR.94.1] FYI: Abbreviation for "For Your Information". [MD] GAUGE: The bore size of a shotgun determined by the number of round lead balls of bore diameter that equals a pound. [AR.94.1] GLOCK: The manufacturer of a line of popular police/self-defense autoloading handguns. These guns achieved some notoriety due to the mistaken belief that the plastic exterior surfaces made them immune to metal detectors and X-ray machines. (See the FAQ question about "undectable guns".) [MD] GUN: The British restrict the term in portable arms to shotguns. In the U.S. it is properly used for rifles, shotguns, handguns, and airguns, as well as cannon. [AR.94.1] GUNPOWDER: Chemical substances of various compositions, particle sizes, shapes, and colors that, on ignition, serve as a propellant. Ignited smokeless powder emits minimal quantities of smoke from a gun's muzzle; the older blackpowder emits relatively large quantities of whitish smoke. [AR.94.1] HANDGUN: Synonym for pistol. [AR.94.1] HANDLOAD/HANDLOADING: Homemade ammunition. Cartridge cases can be reused, and bullets can be re-cast from scrap lead (or from bullets recovered from a shooting range). Only the propellant needs to be purchased. In addition to the substantial cost savings, handloaded cartridges can be customized to meet certain needs, such as using larger, slower bullets in self defense ammunition to avoid over-penetration. [MD] HIGH-CAPACITY MAGAZINE: An inexact term indicating a magazine holding more rounds than might be considered "average." [AR.94.1] HOLLOW-POINT BULLET: A bullet with a concavity in its nose to increase expansion on penetration of a solid target. [AR.94.1] IMO/IMHO: Abbreviations for "In My Opinion" and "In My Humble Opinion." [MD] JACKET: The envelope enclosing the core of a bullet. [AR.94.1] Not to be confused with the cartridge, which encloses the bullet (jacketed or not) and the propellant. [MD] KTW BULLETS: KTW is the trade name for a bullet developed to help police in gunfights against barricaded perpetrators, especially those shooting from inside of a car. They achieved some notoriety as "cop-killer" bullets for reasons that are hard to understand. (See the FAQ question on Cop-Killer bullets.) [MD] LEVER-ACTION: A gun mechanism activated by manual operation of a lever. [AR.94.1] 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. [AR.94.1] MACHINE PISTOL: Common European terminology for a submachine gun. [AR.94.1] 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 capabilities. A gun with a five-shot detachable magazine, for instance, may be fitted with a magazine holding 10, 20, 50, or more rounds. Box magazines are most comonly located under the receiver with the cartridges stacked vertically. Tube or tubular magazines run through the stick or under the barrel with the cartridges lying horizontally. Drum magazines hold ther cartridges in a circular mode. A magazine can also mean a secure storage place for ammunition or explosives. [AR.94.1] MAGNUM: A term indicating a relatively heavily loaded metallic cartridge or shotshell and, by extension, a gun safely constructed to fire it. [AR.94.1] MULTI-BARRELED: A gun with more than one barrel, the most common being the double-barreled shotgun. [AR.94.1] MUSHROOMED BULLET: A description of a bullet whose forwared diameter has expanded after penetration. [AR.94.1] MUZZLE: The open end of the barrel from which the projectile exits. [AR.94.1] MUZZLE BRAKE: An attachment to or integral part of the barrel intended to trap and divert expanding gasses and reduce recoil. [AR.94.1] MUZZLELOADER: The earliest type of gun, now also popular as modern-made replicas, in which blackpowder and projectile(s) are loaded separately 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. [AR.94.1] NFA: Abbreviation for the U.S. National Firearms Act of 1934. This act introduced the first heavy regulation of machine guns, grenades, sound suppressors, and many weapons of war. NFA is also used to refer to a person who is licensed to deal in weapons regulated by this act. [MD] OVER-UNDER: A firearm, usually a shotgun, with two superposed barrels. [AR.94.1] PARABELLUM: A German (DWM) tradename used for the 9mm Parabellum or Luger pistol and its ammunition. From the Latin "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" meaning roughly "if you wish peace, prepare for war." [AR.94.1] PELLETS: Small spherical projectiles loaded in shotshells and more often called "shot." Also the skirted lead projectiles used in some airguns. [AR.94.1] PELLET GUN: An airgun that shoots skirted lead pellets, as opposed to BBs. Not a firearm. [AR.94.1] PENETRATION: The degree to which a bullet travels into to through its target. Too much penetration can allow a bullet to hit something else behind the original target---a serious concern in self-defense situations. [MD] PISTOL: Synonymous with "handgun"; gun generally held in one hand. It may be of the single-shot, multi-barrel, repeating, or semi-automatic variety and includes revolvers. [AR.94.1] PISTOL GRIP: The handle of a handgun or protrusion on the buttstock or fore-end of a shoulder-operated gun tht resembles the grip of a handgun. A "semi-pistol grip" is one less pronounced than normal; a "vertical pistol grip" is more pronounced than normal. [AR.94.1] PLINKING: Informal shooting at any of a variety of inanimate targets. The most often practiced shooting sport in the U.S. [AR.94.1] PRIMER: The ignition component of a cartridge, generally made up of a metallic fulminate or (currently) lead styphnate. [AR.94.1] PROPELLANT: In a firearm, the chemical composition that is ignited by the primer to generate gas. In airguns, the compressed air or carbon dioxide gas. [AR.94.1] PUMP-ACTION: Synonymous for "slide-action." [AR.94.1] PYRODEX: A trade name for a blackpowder substitute. The only safe substitute known at this time. [AR.94.1] RECEIVER: The housing for a firearm's breech and firing mechanism. [AR.94.1] RELOADING: Aside from the obvious meaning of loading a gun after it has been emptied, this is also a synonym for HANDLOADING. [MD] REVOLVER: A gun, usually an handgun, with a multi-chambered sylinder that rotates to successively align each chamber with a single barrel and firing pin. [AR.94.1] RIFLE: A shoulder gun with a rifled bore. [AR.94.1] 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. [AR.94.1] 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 and 4 billion .22 cartridges are loaded in the United States alone each year. [AR.94.1] RKBA: Abbreviation for "Right to Keep and Bear Arms." [MD] ROUND: Synonym for a cartridge. [AR.94.1] SABOT: A lightweight carrier surrounding a heavier projectile of reduced caliber. [AR.94.1] SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL: A catchy phrase with no legal, technical, or logical meaning. [AR.94.1] Part of the language of gun control, it usually refers to a cheap handgun that "lower-class" people might take with them when they're out looking for trouble. [MD] SAWED-OFF SHOTGUN (RIFLE): Common term for federally restricted "short-barreled shotgun (rifle)" i.e. a conventional shotgun with a barrel less than 18" (rifle less than 16") or overall length less than 26". [AR.94.1] SELECTIVE-FIRE: A military/police firearm's ability to be fired fully automatically, semi-automatically or, in some cases, in burst-fire mode at the option of the firer. [AR.94.1] SEMI-AUTOMATIC: A firearm designed to fire a single cartridge, eject the empty case, and reload the chamber each time the trigger is pulled. [AR.94.1] Often confused with fully automatic weapons in the media, semi-automatic weapons have been in wide use for about 100 years. [MD] SHELL: (See SHOTSHELL.) SHOTGUN: A shoulder gun with a smooth-bored barrel (or barrels) primarliy intended for firing multiple small, round projectiles, (shot, birdshot, pellets), larger shot (buck shot) single round balls (pumpkin balls) and cylindrical slugs. Some shotgun barrels have rifling to give better accuracy with slugs of greater pattern spread to birdshot. [AR.94.1] SHOT PATTERN: Description of the way the shot fired from a shotgun spreads out on its way to the target, e.g. wide pattern, tight pattern, uneven pattern, etc. [MD] SHOT SPREAD: The diameter of a shot pattern. [AR.94.1] 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. [AR.94.1] SILENCER: A virtually prohibited device for attachment to a gun's muzzle for reducing (not silencing) the report. Better terms sould be "sound suppressor" and "sound moderator." [AR.94.1] SINGLE-SHOT: A gun mechanism lacking a magazine where separately carried ammunition mus tbe placed in the gun's chamber for each firing. [AR.94.1] SLIDE-ACTION: A gun mechanism activated by manual operation of a horizontally sliding handle almost always located under the barrel. [AR.94.1] On an autoloading pistol, the slide often encloses the top of the barrel. [MD] SNUB-NOSED: Descriptive of (usually) a revolver with an unusually short barrel. [AR.94.1] STARTER PISTOL: A handgun designed to preclude the firing of projectiles and used with blank cartridges for sporting events etc. [AR.94.1] SUBMACHINE GUN: A fully automatic firearm commonly firing pistol ammunition intended for close-range combat. [AR.94.1] TEFLON: Tradename 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. [AR.94.1] TROMBONE: A synonym for slide-action. [AR.94.1] WEAPON: Webster defines it as "an instrument of offensive or defensive combat." Thus an automobile, baseball bat, bottle, chair, firearm, fist, pen knife, or shovel is a "weapon," if so used. [AR.94.1] -- Mark Draughn | <[draug h n] at [iitmax.iit.edu]> or <[s--m--k] at [minna.iit.edu]> ----------------+ Academic Computing, Illinois Institute of Technology +1 312 567 5962 | 10 W. 31st Street, Chicago, Illinois 60616