How do guns get their names

Other parts of the round are the casing, which is typically a brass, steel, or plastic housing that holds everything together. Every round has gunpowder inside.

That powder is ignited by a primer. The popular and small. Shotgun ammunition is a little different because it fires lots of little projectiles instead of one bullet. You have a casing with a primer, gunpowder, and then the projectiles that are launched down the barrel. Some types of guns — particularly revolvers and shotguns — are designed to hold a few rounds of ammo inside the main body.

Other types hold the ammo in a separate, detachable housing that you load into the main body of the gun.

Those detachable containers are called magazines. Review : Best magazines. Most states in the US limit the size of magazines to 10, 15, or 30 rounds in a single container. Their thinking is that by limiting how many rounds are in a single magazine, it makes it harder for a criminal to shoot lots of bullets since they have to take the time to replace an empty magazine with a new one. But that also creates limitations in something like a home-defense situation, too.

One of the next big decisions is deciding what kind and size of ammunition you want to shoot. There are other measurements that might matter as well, such as the length of the casing. But usually the length is standardized and implied — eg. Because America is stubborn and refuses to join the rest of the world, sometimes things are measured in imperial and sometimes in metric.

Sometimes the differences seem small, like the 9 millimeter round vs. But these are precision-built machines with exploding parts, so every fraction of a millimeter or extra grain of gunpowder matters. But the specs are open source. But the naming convention is often more confusing than standard pistol or rifle bullets, and in many ways is a leftover from before the industrial revolution.

By far, the two most common shotgun sizes are 12 gauge and 20 gauge. A 12 gauge is bigger than a 20, however. Imagine you start with a one-pound block of lead and want to make spherical pellets to use as shot in a shotgun shell. Another way to think about it: it would take 20 lead balls with the same diameter as the barrel of a gauge shotgun to weigh one pound.

Taking down a buck deer takes more force than a bird, so buckshot is configured differently than birdshot. If you shoot a methed-up home intruder with birdshot, for example, they will bleed but might not be hurt enough to go down. Good for close targets up to 25 yards away 23 meters , but can be effective up to 50 yards 46 meters.

Shotguns typically require two hands and are held against your shoulder. Rifles are large, usually requiring both hands and being held against your shoulder. Good for targets up to a mile away 1. The type of ammo used is typically dependent on the type of gun.

Shotgun ammo is always limited to just shotguns. Instead of making laws that focus on bad people and what causes them to do bad things, many governments instead regulate the specific mechanical pieces and designs for everyone. And part of what makes the legal difference between a rifle with a short barrel and a pistol with a long barrel is the buttstock — if a gun has a buttstock you hold to your shoulder creating three points of contact vs. Similarly, some places limit or prohibit the use of vertical foregrips or detachable magazines.

The explosion pushes against the back of the bullet or the wad in a shotshell , forcing it to separate from the casing. That energy keeps building as it continues pushing down the barrel. Single shot vs. There has to be some kind of reset to eject the leftover casing and make room for a new round to fire. How that happens is the difference between labels like semi-auto or full-auto.

Think about the old-school guns used back in the s. Fire, manually reload, fire, manually reload, repeat. Those are single-shot guns. You have to do a physical movement with your hand to eject the old round and bring in a new one. There are still guns like that today. The main benefit is better accuracy since there are fewer moving pieces during the explosion, which should in theory help keep the muzzle more stable.

In a car engine, the momentum gained from the first explosion is what helps the machine rotate around and reset itself for the next cycle. The fundamental innovation that took us from s-style guns to modern weapons is similar. Instead of letting the gas only escape in one direction out the barrel , designers add a second escape path in the opposite direction.

So the same force pushing the bullet towards the front is also pushing backwards towards your body. Semi-automatic and fully-automatic guns take advantage of that rearward force, using it to perform other mechanical actions such as physically ejecting the just-fired waste casing. So it becomes a loop that feeds and resets itself every time a bullet is fired. A well-trained person using a semi-auto gun in ideal conditions can fire up to rounds per minute. Full-auto guns can shoot hundreds or even thousands of rounds per minute — just like a car engine that can cycle thousands of times per minute.

More : A great animation of how an AK can fire in semi-auto and full-auto. There are some minor exclusions for older grandfathered weapons eg. Single action vs. Because of their manual nature, bolt action guns are accurate but slow to fire.

Bolt action rifles hold between four and ten bullets in an internal or detachable magazine. Examples of a bolt action rifle include the Remington and Howa Lever action rifles : These rifles date back to the 19th century and are often seen in Western films.

A pull of a lever attached to the rifle loads a fresh bullet, the user pulls the trigger, and another pull of the lever ejects the empty cartridge and loads a fresh one. The position of the lever makes it much faster to fire than a bolt action rifle. Modern examples include the Winchester 94 and Marlin Semi-automatic rifles : These weapons can vary greatly, but the common feature is that every pull of the trigger releases one bullet and loading a new round is automatic.

Many semi-automatic rifles have external magazines holding five to thirty rounds, which can be changed quickly to reload the weapon. Notice the difference in appearance of both.

The shot flies from the barrel in a narrow cone-shaped pattern. This dispersal aids the shooter in hitting small game animals, especially those in flight, such as ducks. The size of the shot varies, with smaller birdshot less likely to kill or incapacitate a human, while larger buckshot is more useful for home defense.

Shotguns can be single-shot weapons, pump action weapons in which a single pump chambers a round, and semi-automatic. Examples of shotguns include the Mossberg and Remington Revolvers : Often seen in the hands of cinematic cowboys, revolvers were the first multi-shot handguns, storing up to seven bullets in a revolving cylinder that mates with the gun barrel and firing mechanism including the firing pin. In modern revolvers, a single pull of the trigger advances the cylinder to a fresh cartridge, pulls back the hammer, and releases the hammer to strike the primer with the firing pin, firing the handgun.

Modern revolvers are considered semi-automatic weapons. Pistols : Pistols are handguns that do not use revolving cylinders. Although some single shot pistols exist, most pistols these days are semi-automatic handguns that load cartridges from a detachable magazine located in the grip. Unlike revolvers which are typically limited to up to six or seven rounds, modern pistols can carry up to 17 rounds in a magazine.

Semiautomatic guns fire one bullet per pull of the trigger until the magazine is empty. Fully automatic guns will fire multiple bullets as long as the trigger is depressed until the magazine is empty. Semiautomatic guns are completely legal in all 50 states. Fully automatic guns in the hands of private citizens are very rare and heavily regulated.

The replacement bump stock mechanism can fire much faster than a normal gun user can pull the trigger, dramatically increasing the gun's rate of fire. How are bump stocks not automatic weapons? The distinction lies in the fact the mechanism still fires one shot for every pull of the trigger. Bump stock-equipped guns are not semi-automatic weapons in the traditional way, but the mechanism was still approved by the ATF as semi-automatic weapon.

When commentators use it now, they generally mean weapons such as the AR that are descendants from the kind of gun a soldier would carry, the kind that can kill many people in a short time.

Lever action rifles were used during the Civil War and in the Indian Wars of the 19th century. Revolvers and pistols were used and are still in use with armies around the world. Firearms such as the AR are the latest in a long line of weapons that have gone from military to civilian use. Guns are just much deadlier than they used to be. All modern firearms have internal mechanisms to prevent accidental firing. The most common is the safety. At its most basic, it is a lever that, once flipped, blocks the firing pin from dropping on a cartridge primer.

Other mechanisms are less intrusive and are meant to prevent accidental discharge in the event the gun is dropped or mishandled. The Colt MA1 and the Springfield XD both have grip safeties, levers that must be pressed when the gun is held properly for the gun to fire. The Glock pistol has a safety on the tip of the trigger itself, ensuring that a finger must be on the trigger for the gun to fire.

Sometimes people forget a gun is loaded. Sometimes the weapon was loaded without their knowledge. If someone hands you a firearm, it is always a good idea to assume it is loaded. It is also a good idea to visually inspect the gun for a round in the chamber, even if you just saw someone else do it. They might have missed something. Guns should always be pointed in a safe direction when handled.

This goes for whether the gun is unloaded or loaded. This sounds blindingly obvious. The fact is, a shocking number of people new to firearms immediately find their trigger fingers gravitating to the trigger. To people new to guns, it just seems like the place where the index finger is supposed to go. If the person holding the gun is surprised, jolted, pushed, or shoved, his or her finger could reflexively squeeze the trigger, discharging the weapon before it is properly aimed.

Aiming a gun with eyes focused on the target, a shooter develops tunnel vision. This makes potential safety hazards between you and your target hard to spot until the very last moment.

Furthermore, bullets can travel for miles beyond your target before gravity brings them down.