Magazine or Clip ????

[Gunmeister]

Years ago, Navy ships had guns that were nicknamed "Pom Pom" guns, named for the sound they made as they were fired. I was a "trainer" on one of these twin barreled 40MM air defense guns. Now for my point. If I remember correctly, 40MM ammo was loaded into the guns in clips, I can't remember how many rounds there were to a clip but that's immaterial now.
The full clips were stored and made up below decks in the ship's magazine.
So what is the proper name for the device we insert into a bottom feeding semi-auto pistol? Is it a clip or a magazine, and why do we call them that?
Is it because clips are disposable and magazines are reusable?

 

[Hkmp5sd]

On everything but the M1 Garand...

 

[Gunmeister]

It appears I was correct, clips are throw away and magazines are reusable.

 

[Hemicuda]

Umm... "Clips" are re-usable too... my M-1 Garand uses "En-Bloc" clips, and my SKS uses "Stripper" clips, and I ASURE you that they are both "re-usable"...

 

[jmcc11]

Magazines contain springs clips do not.

 

[444]

They held 4 rounds.
I have a clip with empty cases.
I always intended to make the cases into lamps but never have.

 

[SKN]

A 'magazine', when applied to the device used to load smallarms, has four sides and a bottom and is used to hold cartridges for feeding and chambering into the action of the weapon.

A 'clip', when applied to the device associated with smallarms, has three sides and is used to insert/feed cartridges into the magazine of the weapon.

 

[RWK]

How about?
1. Magazines encase ammunition.
2. Clips only secure ammunition.

 

[Ktulu]

Clips feed mags. Mags feed guns.

 

[arinvolvo]

magazines are what you keep on the back of the toilet tank.

clips are what you use to keep your potato chip bag closed.

I use both.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Clips certainly can contain springs.

It's the purpose of the spring that makes the difference, though.

In a stripper clip, like that used for the 1903 rifle (Mauser style) the spring serves to help hold the rounds in place. The same with the spring "fingers" that are part of the stamped stripper clip used for the SKS rifle.

R. Lee Ermy from Mail Call probably gave the best definition, using a magazine like American Rifleman and a wire paper clip...

He picked both up, slipped the paper clip onto a couple of pages in the magazine, and then closed the magazine, saying "A clip fits into a magazine, but a magazine doesn't fit into a clip."

Another way of looking at it is that a clip feeds a magazine...

The enbloc clip for the M1 Garand or the Italian Mannlicher Carcano rifle, for example, or the Mauser style stripper clip. They feed the gun's internal magazines.

There are also strippers that can be used to load the detachable magazines found on the M1A/M14 rifle.


As for the Pom Pom gun, that's more a term used by the British to describe the guns they had on their ships.

The ones you're talking about caught that name later in the war, I believe. They're the Bofors 40mm guns. The shells were mounted in a clip that fit along the side of the round, IIRC. Each clip held 4 40mm shells. The clip had release buttons that, as the rounds fed into the mechanism, were depressed and released the round.

 

[Dave R]

Mags have a follower. Clips don't.

Follower is the thing that pushes the bullet up through the mag.

 

[Preacherman]

And strippers have a following...

 

[Mike Irwin]

"And strippers have a following..."



What the heck, Preacherman?

Are you the Rev. at the Pentacostal Church of Our Lady of the Evening or something?

 

[Croyance]

Properly speaking, a semi-auto pistol (with the exception of the Mauser) uses a box magazine. A magazine uses a spring to advance the next round up. I believe a clip is merely a device to hold bullets in place and do not actively advance rounds.

 

[jar]

A subject that always draws lots of comment.

For practical purposes, it's possible to tell from the context what device someone is refering to. So if someone wants to use clip when in reality they mean magazine, then fine. It's not quite as hard and fast a definition though as many would assume.

For example, almost all of my 45acps use clips, not mags. And all of the mags on my rifles are fixed in place and cannot be easily removed.

 

[Gunmeister]

MIKE IRWIN, I can assure you that I was a member of the United States Navy and I was in fact a "trainer" ( cranked the gun back and forth horizontally) on a 40MM gun and we did refer to them as Pom Pom guns and they were on decks of US Navy ships. Perhaps the Brits used that phrase also, I really don't know.
Like the old saying goes, "ya had to be there".

 

[Mike Irwin]

Gunmeister,

I didn't say you were lying, go back and REREAD my post.

The term "Pom Pom Gun" is actually a lot older than World War II. It originated during the Boer War and referred to a piece of small, automatic 37mm artillery gun that the Boers used against the British, and which the British later adopted. The concept for an automatic cannon was later picked up for anti-aircraft artillery.

And, as I also said, the term came to be used by the Americans during World War II to refer to the Bofors guns.

It's a GENERIC term.

 

[StuporDave]

And strippers have a following...

Are you the Rev. at the Pentacostal Church of Our Lady of the Evening or something?

Great laugh! Thanks guys!

Dave