Clip or Magazine

[Kramer Krazy]

I usually call all box-type magazines a "magazine" but sometimes a "clip". Recently, my wife and I have an ongoing joke of calling all of them "bullet holders". She always was forgetting what to call them, and I kept correcting her, then it just became an inside joke. I've caught myself in gun shops and pawn shops with her talking about the different "bullet holders". We usually get some strange looks.

 

[Diggler]

My father in law was in the Navy, and he calls them 'clips' because he said that is what they were called there. Magazines were where the bulk ammo was kept for storage.

??

 

[Firethorn]

Diggler, that makes sense, as back in the sands of time when guns were all blackpowder. The gunpowder storage areas of ships and fortresses were called "magazines". Considering that the navy tends to be the most traditional in naming things, I can see why they do that.

 

[MICHAEL T]

Its Gun Snobs , P.C. Most of the world calls them clips, but in todays world we must all be P.C. or else we will hear about it from the P.C. Police

Clip,clip,clip,clip,clip,

 

[Gordon Fink]

I like words to have meanings. It makes language easier to understand. Clip has a specific meaning. Magazine has a specific meaning. Proper usage helps avoid confusion.

~G. Fink, gots mad language skillz

 

[Seafarer]

deej said it right

deej, you beat me to it. Your response should be the end to this discussion. Continued misuse of a term does not make it correct.

 

[mainmech48]

Luckyorwhat: Don't recall the proper name for the design right now, but the Jap LMG he was refering to was chambered for one of their standard infantry rifle cartridges. Loaded strippers of five rounds each were dropped into the hopper, theorectically after being passed down the line by members of the rifle squad.

Don't know for sure whether it borrowed anything from the Breda design or not. It's possible, given that the Nambu pistol appears to have borrowed some elements from the Italian Glisenti design.

 

[AZ Jeff]

elsdude said:
"Languages evolve over time from the usage of those who speak it. Dictionaries have rules for when, whether and why a word will have the meaning altered or added.

Go look up both words on www.dictionary.com which draws from several sources. You will find that in modern parlance either is acceptable in the place of the other.

...

The purpose of language is communication. ... "
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Unfortunately for elsdude, this applies in general conversational language MUCH more than it does in technical language. Technical definitions (and that's what we are talking about here) tend NOT to change over time. Instead, new words are invented to supplant obsolete definitions of existing words, more often than not.

So.......since we ARE talking about technical definitions, let's stick to using the approach for technical English, and agree that "clip" and "magazine" mean distinctly different things in world of technical English.

 

[BondageJaguar]

Clip and Magazine are not interchangeable as they both have their own seperate definitions. For example, You have a screwdriver and a hammer, they're two different things and they have their own names, you can call the hammer a screwdriver, but you would not be correct (even if you can drive screws with it ) and vica versa.

I prefer wikipedia.com over dictionary.com as it's more of a 'for the people, by the people' kind of dictionary/encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_(firearm)

 

[Bridger]

I usually call all box-type magazines a "magazine" but sometimes a "clip". Recently, my wife and I have an ongoing joke of calling all of them "bullet holders". She always was forgetting what to call them, and I kept correcting her, then it just became an inside joke. I've caught myself in gun shops and pawn shops with her talking about the different "bullet holders". We usually get some strange looks.

You mean cartridge holders right?

 

[Diggler]

I think the proper term is BANANA clip.

 

[Bridger]

I had one of those but could never get the spray and pray from the hip feature to work.

 

[Jim K]

That is silly. Everyone knows that banana clips hold bananas in a row so they can be eaten more easily.

Mainmech, the Japanese machinegun that used rifle clips was the Type 11 (1922), in 6.5mm. The loaded clips were placed flat in a hopper, and an arm pushed the cartridges in sideways; when a clip was empty, it fell out through a slot and the next loaded one was pushed down by a spring loaded arm. It was a native design, and not too bad an idea since it did not require separate ammo packaging for the MG. That benefit, though, was outweighed by the extra work required in operation compared to a belt-fed or magazine fed system.

The Japanese used two basic Hotchkiss type strip fed machineguns; one was the Type 92, which was designed for a semi-rimmed cartridge, but which could use the rimless rifle round. The later Type 99 was similar but could use only the rimless round. Japanese WWII guns have often been criticized, somewhat unjustly in many cases. But their ammo situation must have been complete chaos.

Jim