laststandonzombieisland

If you read enough gun articles, hang out at shooting ranges, and peruse the gun shows enough,
you find out that firearms owners and users have their own language. For the benefit of those not
fully fluent, we here at Firearms Talk decided to put together this handy reference.

Word Number One: Clips

Get away from this word as much as possible! Of the 25,000+ firearms in existence, 24,995ish
are either single shot, belt-fed, or use a magazine. Magazines, which may be tubular, rotary, drum,
or box, is correct word for the reservoir that holds cartridges/shells. The only guns that use a ‘clip’ are the M1 Garand, the M95 Steyr-Mannlicher, and a few rare oddballs.

These enbloc clips are inserted completely into the firearm and hold the rounds, but are not magazines. In old war movies when the GI yells, “throw me a clip” he often is talking about these
8-round clips for the Garand and is correct. There are also stripper clips, used to feed in rounds
through the top of a magazine such as used with the Mosin-Nagant rifle. With these few
exceptions, leave the word clip at home closing potato chip bags.

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk