09-04-2013, 09:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-03-2013, 10:23 PM by NugginFutz.)
Picatinny Rail: A bracket used on some firearms in order to provide a standardized mounting platform.
Plinking: Informal target shooting done at non-traditional targets such as tin cans, glass bottles, and balloons filled with water.
Point-Blank Range: Exploiting the flat phase of a particular bullet's trajectory so a shooter can hit targets with almost no high or low holds. Federal .308 match does not begin plunging until 400 yards; therefore, setting scope at 300, the shooter can ignore correct range estimation and holds, instead aiming dead-on at all ranges to 300 and never miss by more than about 7 inches--acceptable for hunters but not snipers.
Polygonal Rifling: A type of gun barrel rifling where the traditional lands and grooves are replaced by "hills and valleys" in a rounded polygonal pattern, usually a hexagon or octagon.
Primer: A metal cup containing primary explosive inserted into a recess in the center of the base of the cartridge. The firearm firing pin crushes this explosive between the cup and an anvil to produce hot gas and a shower of incandescent particles to ignite the powder charge.
Pump-Action: A rifle or shotgun in which the handgrip can be pumped back and forth in order to eject a spent round of ammunition and to chamber a fresh one. It is much faster than a bolt-action and somewhat faster than a lever-action, as it does not require the trigger hand to be removed from the trigger whilst reloading. When used in rifles, this action is also commonly called a slide action.
Rate Of Fire: The frequency at which a firearm can fire its projectiles.
Rate Of Twist: Term to describe rifling by the distance in inches a bullet passes in the barrel during a single rotation. Expressed as 1:n, where n is the number of inches travelled during that rotation.
Recoil: The backward momentum of a gun when it is discharged. In technical terms, the recoil caused by the gun exactly balances the forward momentum of the projectile, according to Newton's third law. (often called kickback or simply kick)
Recoil Lug: A wide, heavy steel lug attached below the barrel at the front of the receiver through which recoil is transmitted to the rifle stock.
Recoil Operation: Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used in locked-breech, autoloading firearms. As the name implies, these actions use the force of recoil to provide energy to cycle the action.
Red Dot Sight: A type of reflector (reflex) sight for firearms that uses a red light-emitting diode as a reticle to create an aimpoint.
Reflector (Reflex) Sight: A generally non-magnifying optical device that has an optically collimated reticle, allowing the user to look through a partially reflecting glass element and see a cross hair or other projected aiming point superimposed on the field of view. Invented in 1900 but not generally used on firearms until reliably illuminated versions were invented in the late 1970s (usually referred to by the abbreviation "reflex sight").
Reticle or Reticule: Another word for "crosshair," the post, dot, or intersecting lines in a scope.
Revolver: A repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing.
Rifle Bedding: A process of filling gaps between the action and the stock of a rifle with an epoxy based material.
Rifling: Helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to gyroscopically stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability and accuracy.
Rimfire Ammunition: Usually found only in .17 or .22 rounds, a cartridge that has an internal primer detonated by a firing pin striking the cartridge’s rim.
Rolling Block: A form of firearm action where the sealing of the breech is done with a circular shaped breechblock able to rotate on a pin. The breechblock is locked into place by the hammer, thus preventing the cartridge from moving backwards at the moment of firing. By cocking the hammer, the breechblock can be rotated freely to reload the weapon.
Round: A single cartridge.
Sabot: A device used in a firearm to fire a projectile, such as a bullet, that is smaller than the bore diameter.
Safety: A mechanism used to help prevent the accidental discharge of a firearm, helping to ensure safer handling. Safeties can generally be divided into subtypes such as internal safeties (which typically do not receive input from the user) and external safeties (which typically allow the user to give input, for example, toggling a lever from "on" to "off" or something similar). Sometimes these are called "passive" and "active" safeties (or "automatic" and "manual"), respectively.
Scope: An abbreviated term for "telescopic sight."
Selective Fire: A firearm that fires semi–automatically and at least one automatic mode by means of a selector depending on the weapon's design. Some selective fire weapons utilize burst fire mechanisms to limit the maximum or total number of shots fired automatically in this mode. The most common limits are two or three rounds per pull of the trigger.
Semi-Wadcutter or SWC: A type of all-purpose bullet commonly used in revolvers, which combine features of the wadcutter target bullet, and traditional round nosed revolver bullets, and is used in both revolver and pistol cartridges for hunting, target shooting, and plinking. The basic SWC design consists of a roughly conical nose, truncated with a flat point, sitting on a cylinder. The flat nose punches a clean hole in the target, rather than tearing it like a round nose bullet would, and the sharp shoulder enlarges the hole neatly, allowing easy and accurate scoring of the target. The SWC design offers better external ballistics than the wadcutter, as its conical nose produces less drag than the flat cylinder.
Short-Barreled Rifle (SBR): Short-barreled rifle (SBR) is a legal designation in the United States, referring to a shoulder-fired, rifled firearm with a barrel length of less than 16 inches (40.6 cm) or overall length of less than 26 inches (66.0 cm). In the United States, an SBR is an item regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) as an NFA firearm. In the absence of local laws prohibiting ownership, American civilians may own an SBR provided it is registered with the BATFE, and a $200 tax is paid prior to taking possession of or creating the firearm.
Short-Barreled Shotgun (SBS): A type of shotgun with a shorter gun barrel and often a shorter or deleted stock. Under the National Firearms Act (NFA), it is illegal for a private citizen to possess a sawed-off modern smokeless powder shotgun (a shotgun with a barrel length shorter than 18 inches (46 cm) or an overall length shorter than 26 inches (66 cm)), without a tax-paid registration from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, requiring a background check and either a $200 or $5 tax for every transfer, depending upon the specific manufacturing circumstances of the particular sawed-off modern shotgun being transferred.
Silencer: Obsolete term for a suppressor, no longer used because no device totally silences a firearm.
Single-Shot: A firearm that holds only a single round of ammunition, and must be reloaded after each shot.
Slam fire: A premature, unintended discharge of a firearm that occurs as a round is being loaded into the chamber, usually caused by the impact of a free floated firing pin against the cartridge’s primer.
Slide Bite: A phenomenon that is often grouped with hammer bite. In this case the web of the shooting hand is cut or abraded by the rearward motion of the semi-automatic pistol's slide, not by the gun's hammer. This most often occurs with small pistols like the Walther PPK and Walther TPH that have an abbreviated grip tang. This problem is exacerbated by the sharp machining found on many firearms.
Sling: A type of strap or harness designed to allow an operator carry a firearm (usually a long gun such as a rifle, carbine, shotgun, or submachine gun) on his/her person and/or aid in greater hit probability with that firearm.
SOG: Using the cover name "Studies and Observatory Group," this was the US military's top-secret unconventional warfare task force during the Vietnam war, composed mostly of US Army Green Berets used in cross-border intelligence forays and raids into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam
Speedloader: A device used for loading a firearm or firearm magazine with loose ammunition very quickly. Generally, speedloaders are used for loading all chambers of a revolver simultaneously, although speedloaders of different designs are also used for the loading of fixed tubular magazines of shotguns and rifles, or the loading of box or drum magazines. Revolver speedloaders are used for revolvers having either swing-out cylinders or top-break cylinders.
Plinking: Informal target shooting done at non-traditional targets such as tin cans, glass bottles, and balloons filled with water.
Point-Blank Range: Exploiting the flat phase of a particular bullet's trajectory so a shooter can hit targets with almost no high or low holds. Federal .308 match does not begin plunging until 400 yards; therefore, setting scope at 300, the shooter can ignore correct range estimation and holds, instead aiming dead-on at all ranges to 300 and never miss by more than about 7 inches--acceptable for hunters but not snipers.
Polygonal Rifling: A type of gun barrel rifling where the traditional lands and grooves are replaced by "hills and valleys" in a rounded polygonal pattern, usually a hexagon or octagon.
Primer: A metal cup containing primary explosive inserted into a recess in the center of the base of the cartridge. The firearm firing pin crushes this explosive between the cup and an anvil to produce hot gas and a shower of incandescent particles to ignite the powder charge.
Pump-Action: A rifle or shotgun in which the handgrip can be pumped back and forth in order to eject a spent round of ammunition and to chamber a fresh one. It is much faster than a bolt-action and somewhat faster than a lever-action, as it does not require the trigger hand to be removed from the trigger whilst reloading. When used in rifles, this action is also commonly called a slide action.
Rate Of Fire: The frequency at which a firearm can fire its projectiles.
Rate Of Twist: Term to describe rifling by the distance in inches a bullet passes in the barrel during a single rotation. Expressed as 1:n, where n is the number of inches travelled during that rotation.
Recoil: The backward momentum of a gun when it is discharged. In technical terms, the recoil caused by the gun exactly balances the forward momentum of the projectile, according to Newton's third law. (often called kickback or simply kick)
Recoil Lug: A wide, heavy steel lug attached below the barrel at the front of the receiver through which recoil is transmitted to the rifle stock.
Recoil Operation: Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used in locked-breech, autoloading firearms. As the name implies, these actions use the force of recoil to provide energy to cycle the action.
Red Dot Sight: A type of reflector (reflex) sight for firearms that uses a red light-emitting diode as a reticle to create an aimpoint.
Reflector (Reflex) Sight: A generally non-magnifying optical device that has an optically collimated reticle, allowing the user to look through a partially reflecting glass element and see a cross hair or other projected aiming point superimposed on the field of view. Invented in 1900 but not generally used on firearms until reliably illuminated versions were invented in the late 1970s (usually referred to by the abbreviation "reflex sight").
Reticle or Reticule: Another word for "crosshair," the post, dot, or intersecting lines in a scope.
Revolver: A repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing.
Rifle Bedding: A process of filling gaps between the action and the stock of a rifle with an epoxy based material.
Rifling: Helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to gyroscopically stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability and accuracy.
Rimfire Ammunition: Usually found only in .17 or .22 rounds, a cartridge that has an internal primer detonated by a firing pin striking the cartridge’s rim.
Rolling Block: A form of firearm action where the sealing of the breech is done with a circular shaped breechblock able to rotate on a pin. The breechblock is locked into place by the hammer, thus preventing the cartridge from moving backwards at the moment of firing. By cocking the hammer, the breechblock can be rotated freely to reload the weapon.
Round: A single cartridge.
Sabot: A device used in a firearm to fire a projectile, such as a bullet, that is smaller than the bore diameter.
Safety: A mechanism used to help prevent the accidental discharge of a firearm, helping to ensure safer handling. Safeties can generally be divided into subtypes such as internal safeties (which typically do not receive input from the user) and external safeties (which typically allow the user to give input, for example, toggling a lever from "on" to "off" or something similar). Sometimes these are called "passive" and "active" safeties (or "automatic" and "manual"), respectively.
Scope: An abbreviated term for "telescopic sight."
Selective Fire: A firearm that fires semi–automatically and at least one automatic mode by means of a selector depending on the weapon's design. Some selective fire weapons utilize burst fire mechanisms to limit the maximum or total number of shots fired automatically in this mode. The most common limits are two or three rounds per pull of the trigger.
Semi-Wadcutter or SWC: A type of all-purpose bullet commonly used in revolvers, which combine features of the wadcutter target bullet, and traditional round nosed revolver bullets, and is used in both revolver and pistol cartridges for hunting, target shooting, and plinking. The basic SWC design consists of a roughly conical nose, truncated with a flat point, sitting on a cylinder. The flat nose punches a clean hole in the target, rather than tearing it like a round nose bullet would, and the sharp shoulder enlarges the hole neatly, allowing easy and accurate scoring of the target. The SWC design offers better external ballistics than the wadcutter, as its conical nose produces less drag than the flat cylinder.
Short-Barreled Rifle (SBR): Short-barreled rifle (SBR) is a legal designation in the United States, referring to a shoulder-fired, rifled firearm with a barrel length of less than 16 inches (40.6 cm) or overall length of less than 26 inches (66.0 cm). In the United States, an SBR is an item regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) as an NFA firearm. In the absence of local laws prohibiting ownership, American civilians may own an SBR provided it is registered with the BATFE, and a $200 tax is paid prior to taking possession of or creating the firearm.
Short-Barreled Shotgun (SBS): A type of shotgun with a shorter gun barrel and often a shorter or deleted stock. Under the National Firearms Act (NFA), it is illegal for a private citizen to possess a sawed-off modern smokeless powder shotgun (a shotgun with a barrel length shorter than 18 inches (46 cm) or an overall length shorter than 26 inches (66 cm)), without a tax-paid registration from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, requiring a background check and either a $200 or $5 tax for every transfer, depending upon the specific manufacturing circumstances of the particular sawed-off modern shotgun being transferred.
Silencer: Obsolete term for a suppressor, no longer used because no device totally silences a firearm.
Single-Shot: A firearm that holds only a single round of ammunition, and must be reloaded after each shot.
Slam fire: A premature, unintended discharge of a firearm that occurs as a round is being loaded into the chamber, usually caused by the impact of a free floated firing pin against the cartridge’s primer.
Slide Bite: A phenomenon that is often grouped with hammer bite. In this case the web of the shooting hand is cut or abraded by the rearward motion of the semi-automatic pistol's slide, not by the gun's hammer. This most often occurs with small pistols like the Walther PPK and Walther TPH that have an abbreviated grip tang. This problem is exacerbated by the sharp machining found on many firearms.
Sling: A type of strap or harness designed to allow an operator carry a firearm (usually a long gun such as a rifle, carbine, shotgun, or submachine gun) on his/her person and/or aid in greater hit probability with that firearm.
SOG: Using the cover name "Studies and Observatory Group," this was the US military's top-secret unconventional warfare task force during the Vietnam war, composed mostly of US Army Green Berets used in cross-border intelligence forays and raids into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam
Speedloader: A device used for loading a firearm or firearm magazine with loose ammunition very quickly. Generally, speedloaders are used for loading all chambers of a revolver simultaneously, although speedloaders of different designs are also used for the loading of fixed tubular magazines of shotguns and rifles, or the loading of box or drum magazines. Revolver speedloaders are used for revolvers having either swing-out cylinders or top-break cylinders.