Tim Currie
Member
Alright I got a real dumb one. I've always kinda wondered when I saw it but never could ask.
What does carbine mean?
What does carbine mean?
Back in the late 1800s when Winchester was turning out lever guns by the hundreds of thousands, it assigned specific configurations to the terms “carbine†and “short rifleâ€.
Simply stated, a carbine had a wide but slightly curved buttplate, a light round barrel secured by one or two barrel bands, and its own peculiar type of ladder type rear sight.
Conversely, a short rifle was fitted with a crescent steel buttplate, a steel forearm cap instead of barrel band(s), and heavier barrels (compared to carbines) that could be either round or octagon in shape. Also, a short rifle had standard rifle-type, buckhorn sights with which elevation was adjusted by a notched slider.
Take any rifle, whack it off to a shorter barrel length, and you can have a 'carbine'.