What firearms "terminology" makes you grit your teeth?

CLIP instead of a magazine

1. Guage or gage meaning gauge. C'mon!
2. Muzzle break. Just figure out what the gadget does: it BRAKES!

"Shotty" and "tooled".

I DESPISE cutesy, infantile Brit slang.

Anybody who calls a shotgun a "shotty" or says somebody carrying a gun is "tooled" never has to worry about masculinity, "toxic" or otherwise.

By far clip instead of mag or magazine.......

-jeff

ojh said:

1. Guage or gage meaning gauge. C'mon!

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Nevermind.

When politicians and anti gun activists refer to 30 round magazines as high capacity when we all know the truth.
They are really just full capacity magazines.

fully semi auto. assault rifle

Living in CA we hear a lot. Hell, we probably invented a good portion of it.
You learn to live with most of it.

I cringe a little bit at the term 'shotty'.

I don't get to fired up over clip vs mag. I just restate to them what they said but use 'mag' instead of clip.
"So I put the clip in the gun?"
"yep, you put the mag in the gun."

No emphasis added or anything. No need to make a big deal about it.

I really only get fired up at politically oriented statements like Hi Cap mag and 'fully semi auto'.

Don't even get me started on 'assault weapons'.

Seeing things like '.12 gauge' or '.9mm' annoy me, while reading stuff like perps wielding 22 and 40mm handguns makes me chuckle.

Corpral_Agarn said:

Don't even get me started on 'assault weapons'.

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Whenever somebody says "assault gun" I ask, "How many horsepower? Diesel or gas?"

Roscoe.

When someone refers to the wooden part of a gun as "furniture" and then refers to me as "archaic" for insisting that there is no reason a 400 year old term should be changed to the opposite of it's original meaning.
Anything that is not "lock, stock or barrel" is "furniture"

"Platform" (instead of design---JMB was a designer, not a carpenter)
"Run" (instead of shoot)
"Operator" (that's what collect calls are for)
"Shotty" (<removed>)

Really depends on how the person is using the phrase. If it is just some other guy that isn't as nerdy about firearms as I am but still really enjoys them I let about anything slide. Just like Corpral_Agarn said I just make sure to use the correct term back at them and leave it up to them to figure it out. Someone trying to stir up fear or other emotions by using phrases like "assault" or "high capacity" and then I'm ready to take off the gloves.

78tsubaki said:

When politicians and anti gun activists refer to 30 round magazines as high capacity when we all know the truth.
They are really just full capacity magazines.

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I like to say "designed capacity" or "standard capacity", especially when looking at pistols. Serious pet peeve for me as well, along with "assault rifle." My rifles have never assaulted anyone.

I can see abbreviations, but 'shotty' isn't any shorter than 'shotgun,' so...
Yeah, you guys have covered all of mine I can think of off the top of my head.
'clip vs. magazine' still gets to me. Surely that's the engineer in me (and not just the language stickler), since they're separate items. In fact, some old designs would take both, using a clip to reload the magazine without detaching it from the rifle, so by necessity they must be called different terms.

Actually, there are two distinct categories of irritating gun "terminology":

1. Terms used by those ignorant of guns, such as "clips" when "magazines" are meant, and "bullets" in place of "cartridges."

2. Terms used by those who fancy themselves experts on guns ("tier one operators," if you will), such as "running" a certain gun "platform."

I think the second category irritates me more than the first. The first is just ignorance, but the second is pretension.

AlexanderA said:

2. Terms used by those who fancy themselves experts on guns ("tier one operators," if you will), such as "running" a certain gun "platform."

I think the second category irritates me more than the first. The first is just ignorance, but the second is pretension.

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Out of curiosity, how do you describe the full set of actions/controls involved in handling a particular firearm (safety, magazine release, slide release, slide lock...)? I picked up "manual of arms" at one point and it has stuck with me for whatever reason, but I don't think I've ever seen it used as an official technical term. Can't say I've ever used "running the gun", but I've probably seen that more than "manual of arms."

Deanimator said:

Whenever somebody says "assault gun" I ask, "How many horsepower? Diesel or gas?"

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LOL

Going to start using this.

Media talking head in an earnest voice "and we're hearing from authorities that the shooter used a HIGH POWERED RIFLE"

Oh, it was a .30-06 or another common caliber.