A magazine (also called a mag or, commonly but incorrectly, especially when removable, a clip) is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a firearm. A clip is a device that is used to store multiple rounds of ammunition together as a unit ready for insertion into the magazine of a repeating Firearm. Ammunition, often referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which A firearm is a Tool that projects either single or multiple Projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion Magazines may be integral to the firearm (fixed) or removable (detachable).
The cartridges in the magazine are loaded into the firearm either automatically or manually depending on the type of gun, but almost always by a spring. A cartridge (also known as a "round" packages the Bullet, Gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the A spring is a flexible elastic object used to store mechanical Energy. Some magazines can in turn be loaded by a clip. A clip is a device that is used to store multiple rounds of ammunition together as a unit ready for insertion into the magazine of a repeating Firearm. The belt of linked ammunition used by most machine guns is an ammunition feeding device that is not a magazine, since it does not operate by feeding rounds out of a container. A belt is a device that holds cartridges adjacent to each other in a single row for feeding into a Firearm, typically a Machine gun. For other uses of the phrase see Machine Gun (disambiguation.
The most common type of magazine is the detachable "box" type. Other types include the drum magazine, the "pan" magazine of the Russian DP-28 machine gun, and the fixed "tube" magazine found on many lever-action and semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns. A drum magazine is a type of magazine that is cylindrical in shape similar to a Drum. The Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyaryova Pekhotny ( Degtyaryov hand-held infantry machine gun) or DP was a Light machine gun used by the Soviet Union For other uses of the phrase see Machine Gun (disambiguation. Lever-action is a type of Firearm action which uses a lever located around the trigger guard area (often including the trigger guard itself to load fresh cartridges A pump-action Rifle or Shotgun is one in which the handgrip can be pumped back and forth in order to eject and chamber a round of Ammunition. A shotgun (also known as a scattergun) is a Firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number
A particular firearm may use a variety of types of magazine, with some accepting both drum and box magazines of varying sizes, for example.
Contents |
Many of the first repeating rifles, particularly lever-action types, used a tubular magazine which stored cartridges end-to-end inside of a spring-loaded tube typically running parallel to the barrel, although some early repeating rifles had tube magazines in the buttstock. A repeating rifle is a single barreled Rifle containing multiple rounds of Ammunition. Lever-action is a type of Firearm action which uses a lever located around the trigger guard area (often including the trigger guard itself to load fresh cartridges This type of magazine is usually fixed to the firearm, meaning that it cannot be removed easily. The tubular magazine was made obsolete for most military purposes with the introduction of pointed "Spitzer" bullets, which risk igniting cartridges stored in the magazine as the pointed bullet impacts the primer of the centerfire cartridge ahead of it during recoil. A bullet is a solid Projectile propelled by a Firearm or Air gun and is normally made from metal (usually Lead) Tubular magazines can still be found today, commonly in shotguns or firearms designed to use round-nose, flat-nose, or otherwise soft-pointed bullets. Such magazines can also be found in some rim-fire cartridge rifles intended for 22 Long Rifle cartridges. Some believe that tubular magazines tend to affect the harmonics of the barrel negatively, limiting the potential accuracy of the rifle. Accurizing is the process of improving the accuracy of a Firearm or Airgun.
The most popular type of magazine in modern rifles and handguns, the box magazine stores cartridges in a column, either one above the other or staggered in a 'double stack' as it is called. As the firearm cycles, cartridges are moved to the top of the magazine, via spring tension, mounted beneath the cartridge stack. Box magazines may be built into the firearm or may be removable. Double-stack magazines can feed from a single position at the top or altrenate between one side and the other.
There are, however, exceptions to these rules. The Lee-Enfield rifles had a detachable box magazine only to facilitate cleaning. The Lee-Enfield Bolt-action, magazine-fed Repeating rifle was the main firearm used by the military forces of the British Empire / Commonwealth Others like the Breda Modello 30 had a fixed protruding magazine, which on first examination resembles a conventional detachable box, but are in fact loaded with clips. The Fucile Mitragliatore Breda modello 30 was the standard Light machine gun of the Italian army during World War II. Furthermore, many rifles derived from hunting models have detachable blind magazines.
The rotary or spool magazine consists of a star-shaped rotor, or sprocket, actuated by a torsion spring. A sprocket is a profiled Wheel with teeth that meshes with a chain, track or other perforated or indented material The magazine may be fixed or detachable. Cartridges fit between the teeth of the sprocket, which is mounted on a spindle parallel to the bore axis, with the torsion spring providing the pressure necessary to rotate the rounds into the feeding position. Rotary magazines are usually of low capacity, from five to ten rounds, depending on the cartridge used.
The rotary magazine was first used in the Mannlicher-Schönauer rifles and is still used in a few modern firearm designs, most notably the Ruger 10/22 and the Steyr SSG 69. The Mannlicher-Schönauer (sometimes Anglicized as " Mannlicher Schoenauer," Hellenized as Τυφέκιον Μάνλιχερ or The Ruger 10/22 is a semi-automatic Rimfire rifle chambered in. The SSG 69 ( Scharfschützengewehr 69) is a Bolt-action Sniper rifle produced by Steyr Mannlicher and serves as the standard sniper rifle
Used in several light machine guns, submachine guns, and shotguns, a moving partition within a cylindrical chamber forces loose rounds into an exit slot, with the cartridges being stored parallel to the axis of rotation. A drum magazine is a type of magazine that is cylindrical in shape similar to a Drum. A light machine gun or LMG is a Machine gun that is generally lighter than other machine guns of the same period and is usually designed to be carried A submachine gun (SMG is a Firearm that combines the automatic fire of a Machine gun with the cartridge of a Pistol, and is A shotgun (also known as a scattergun) is a Firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number After loading of the magazine, a wound spring or other mechanical force moves the partition against the rounds. The cylindrical design allows for larger capacity than boxes, without growing to excessive length, though the more complicated mechanism can lead to reliability problems. Many drum-fed firearms can also load from conventional boxes, such as the Russian RPK light machine gun and the American Thompson submachine gun. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending The RPK ( Ruchnoy Pulemyot Kalashnikova, Russian: Ручной пулемёт Калашникова or "Kalashnikov hand-held machine gun" The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Thompson submachine gun is an American Submachine gun that became infamous during the Prohibition era
Dual Drum magazines such as the 90 rounder and the Beta C-Mag are also available. The Beta C-Mag is a 100-round capacity STANAG Magazine designed for rifles and Submachine guns firing the 5 They consist of two independent single column drums which feed into a double column arrangement between the two drums. These magazines are designed to increase the capacity of firearms originally designed to use detachable box magazines.
Often referred to as a drum magazine, the pan magazine differs from other drum magazines in that the cartridges are stored perpendicular to the axis of rotation, rather than parallel, and are usually mounted on top of the firearm. This type is used on the American-180 submachinegun, the Lewis Gun, and the Degtyarev light machine gun. The American-180 is a Submachinegun developed in the 1960s which fires. The Lewis Gun is a pre- World War I era Squad automatic weapon / Machine gun of American design that was most widely used by the forces of the British The Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyaryova Pekhotny ( Degtyaryov hand-held infantry machine gun) or DP was a Light machine gun used by the Soviet Union
Helical magazines extend the drum magazine design so that rounds follow a spiral path, allowing for a very large ammunition capacity in a compact package. They have been used on the Calico 960 and Bizon submachine guns, but require a complex mechanism. The Calico M960 9 mm is a semi-automatic gun (fully automatic versions are available to authorized law enforcement and military or civilians with proper BATF forms manufactured The PP-19 Bizon (bison is a Submachine gun developed by IZMASH OJSC
The Gatling gun, Gardner gun, and others employed a hopper to feed loose ammunition through gravity from the top of the firearm. The Gatling gun is considered by some to have been the first Machine gun: although it did not automatically reload under its own power it was capable of firing continuously The Gardner gun was an early type of Machine gun. It had one or two barrels was fed from a vertical magazine or hopper and was operated by a crank The Japanese Type 11 Light Machine Gun employed a hopper to feed loose stripper clips rather than loose rounds. The was a Light machine gun used by the Imperial Japanese Army in the Interwar period and in World War II. Due to the lack of mechanical control, hoppers tend to be less reliable than positive feeding systems.
Another type of feeding system generally used in machine guns is the belt. A belt is a device that holds cartridges adjacent to each other in a single row for feeding into a Firearm, typically a Machine gun. For other uses of the phrase see Machine Gun (disambiguation. It is not itself a magazine, but serves the same purpose of delivering rounds of ammunition to the chamber. Belts differ from magazines in that the machine gun actually draws the next round into the chamber with the recoil or gas energy from the previous round fired. Belts are commonly held in boxes or cloth bags that are directly attached to the weapon such as the M60 machine gun and the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), making them more closely resemble magazines. The M60 (formally the United States Machine Gun Caliber 762 mm M60) is a family of American General purpose machine guns firing 7 The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( M249 SAW) is the United States military designation for a sub-family of the FN Minimi Squad automatic
Similar to belts, firearms such as the Japanese Type 92 and Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns fed from strips of cartridges. The Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun entered service in 1932 and was the standard Japanese Heavy machine gun used during The Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine gun became the standard machine gun of the French Army during World War I. These strips were rigid and inserted manually from the side of the gun.
An early form of magazine was the harmonica gun. Harmonica gun or Slide gun is the term used to describe a form of percussion firearm which was breech loaded with a steel slide containing a number of chambers bored Cartridges were preloaded into a steel slide inserted from the side of the gun. Slides generally had a capacity of three or four rounds and advances similarly to the rotating cylinder of a revolver. rEVOLVEr is the fourth studio album by Swedish metal band The Haunted.
The term high capacity magazine is a term used to describe magazines with a certain arbitrary capacity. This term is generally used as a pejorative and has no definition beyond the media and various legislation enacted within the United States.
This term originally referred to "extended" pistol and rifle magazines which hold more than the "standard-capacity" factory-designed magazines, and/or "double-stack" magazines which have higher capacity than a "single-stack" design. However, in various jurisdictions where ammunition capacity is restricted to a set limit, many double-column or detachable rifle magazines as originally designed by the factory have more than this limit and are banned as "high-capacity" in those jurisdictions. The term currently has a pejorative connotation because of its common use by the media in connection with violent crime. It has no universal definition; the term is largely defined according to state and local legislation enacted within the United States. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban in effect from 1994-2004 defined "high capacity" as holding more than 10 rounds if removable, 5 rounds if fixed. Some state and local jurisdictions and the media still enforce this 10-round limit. Other jurisdictions ban more than 15, 18, or 20 rounds allowing more "standard-capacity" magazines, while some states have no restriction on capacity allowing use of "extended" and "drum" magazines which can hold many more rounds. These magazines are generally regarded as novelty items as they hinder concealed carry but often find use in competitions and home defense situations.
For a description and legal definitions of high capacity or large capacity magazines, see Federal Assault Weapons Ban
|
. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban ( AWB) was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a Federal law of the United States 50 Caliber Belt |