Popular gun-related sayings

On the bottom of my website and on the contact us page of my website, I have the following phrase. If you have any questions, just shoot me an email and I'll reply promptly. Its kind of a firearm related phrase, indirectly anyways.

Hope I did not miss these.
1- Hang Fire.
2- Hip shot, referring to a person, not a compliment.

"Shot him/her/them a nasty look."

"buy it cheap and stack it deep" in regards to ammo

Don't go off half cocked.

aomagrat said:

A flash in the pan.

Click to expand...

I thought this referred to panning for gold?

From the days of flintlock firearms, where the main charge was intended to be fired by a small charge of gunpowder in the priming pan. If the resultant fire did not pass through the touch-hole and ignite the main charge, it produced noise and smoke, but no substantial effect, and was termed a “flash in the pan”.

"shot his wad" -- to fire a muzzleloader without loading the ball. Also several X-rated definitions.

"Maggie's drawers".

"hotter than a $2 pistol"

shotgun wedding

"in the crosshairs"
"the whole shootin' match"
"caught in the crossfire"
and one of my favorites: The Firing Line

See my Sig...

"Sure as shootin"!

Yep! We got "The whole shooting match here". We are ready to go.

(I guess these last two are showing my age.)

Don't call a magazine a clip!
JT

"Keep your Powder dry"



'Shot his wad"...uhhhh, I think that was actually about something else...even though it seems to fit a Muzzle Loading condition also.

Well, I'll be a son of a gun, you all came up with a pretty good list.

Several months ago, I came up with a long, continuous and coherent paragraph incorporating most of these... but of course I never bothered to write it down.

What inspired me to do this was a column that appears in each issue of MHQ magazine -- Military History Quarterly (I highly recommend it). The column is called "Fighting Words" and it explores the origins and lexicography of many of these common gun-related sayings. Always fascinating reading.

By the way, "shot his wad" had its origins in battle, not in the bedroom. In the tense and fearful confusion of battle, it was not uncommon to fumble the priming pan/powder/wadding/ball sequence, resulting in an ineffectual shot. Just as common as shooting the wad (without the ball) was forgetting to remove the ramrod from the barrel before firing... which produced laughter from both sides.