Gun terms that just don't go together

Personally, I think all this slicing and dicing of the language to say an assault rifle is evil and something ever so close (let's say, it's blue) is a sporting rifle is pure baloney. Of course, baloney is never all that pure to begin with but sometimes is quite tasty.

I personally think a M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle is a very good example of an assault rifle, auto or semi. However, it was never really a light machine gun but it did get the concept of a squad automatic off to a good start. They weren't originally issued with bipods and later, in the Good War, the bipods were often dispensed with. And there was one variation that was called a machine rifle, a term I'm becoming rather fond of. And I think there is good justification for retaining the term machine carbine.

Good post, by the way, Mr 44 AMP.
 
Even earlier, there was another infantry rifle chambered in .30-06 that was select fire, though it had no bipod or pistol grip but it had a high capacity magazine and was select fire. The marketing people claimed that it was intended to be used in the assault. You were supposed to fire a burst when your left (or was it the right) foot hit the ground. Was it an assault rifle or not? It was designed by some guy named Browning but I don't know whatever became of the idea. It sounds like it had promise.
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I hope your joking, but since I'm captain serious, it's the Browning automatic rifle. :D
 
You're a little slow on the uptake there, Captain Serious, Sir (but I don't read every post, either).

Of course I was referring to the B.A.R., an especially successful infantry weapon that really was intended to be an assault rifle in one sense of the term. The term machine rifle was also applied to it and also light machine gun. But just like the expression "Peep" never got off the ground, practically everyone called it a B.A.R., intermediate cartridge or not.

Is a .30-30 an intermediate cartridge?
 
Is a .30-30 an intermediate cartridge?
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I suppose performance wise, you could put it in that category today. By WWII standards? I don't think the idea would have occurred to anyone considering how the .30-30 was a well established rifle round well before the war.

Note that the "original" intermediate cartridge was the 7.92mm Kurz (7.92x33), and was followed soon by the Soviet 7.62x39mm. Both of them were considerably shorter, fired lighter bullets at severl hundred fps less than the standard infantry rifle cartridges of the day, even though they shared the same bore size.

Now, the .30-30 with a 150gr bullet at 2200fps is very close to the 7.62x39 with a 129gr @ 2200fps, so, compared to a 7.62x54R or a .30-06 I guess you could say the .30-30 is in the intermediate power class, but its fairly long case works against it as a true intermediate class round.
 
:eek:I agree with jgcoastie that the word "tactical" is way over used. I think if it keeps going as it is now, you will not even be able to buy toothpaste that is not labeled as "tactical".
 
OK, Mr 44 AMP, here's a tough one: the .30 carbine. Unlike the .30-30, the .30 carbine was widely used by our military as well as by France and Great Britain and who knows who else. It was even chambered in other (military) rifles (or carbines). So it is really a military cartridge.

Could one say it is an intermediate cartridge? It was not without precedent, there having been very similiar cartridges chambered in very similiar rifles earlier, which had a certain amount of popularity in some circles. So it might be possible to say that the concept of an intermediate cartridge was well established by the time the Germans developed their short 7,9 cartridge, although I doubt there was any connection.

I might even go on to point out that reduced load ammunition for military use has not been unheard of, beginning with some of the first cartridge firearms used by the army. There was a reduced load for carbines during the time the army used single shot rifles and carbines. And the Spanish used a reduced load for their CETME rifle because, as you say, the 7.62 NATO was not suitable for full auto in a rifle-sized rifle, although I believe dimensions were the same. But what do I know?
 
Not really that tough...

Today, the .30 carbine would be considered an "intermediate" round, following the general definition of "more powerful than a standard pistol round, less than a full size rifle round".

At the time of its introduction, the .30 carbine was not thought of as an intermediate round, although it could be considered the first one fielded. It was considered the "carbine" round, and in a class by itself. At the time, the defintion of intermediate round had not been formed the way it was a few years later.

The Carbine round was rather unique (although some very similar rounds from Winchester had been in rifles since around 1907). Yes, we did lead the pack, so to speak, with our short .30 caliber (and had even pioneered the idea with the Pedersen device during WW I, although it was never fielded), but at the time, we weren't thinking in the terms of "intermediate" that we later came to adopt. It wasn't until after the 7.92x33mm came to our attention that we created the definition of intermediate power round, and then decided the .30 carbine fit it, also. Just as some years later we decided the 5.56mm(.223) also fit in the category, even though it is an oddball compared to the majority of intermediate rounds because it does not share the common WWII era infantry rifle bore size.

In general, intermediate class rounds have the same bore size as full power infantry rifles, with a smaller case, shooting a lighter weight bullet at lower velocity. There are exceptions, most notabley the .30 carbine and the 5.56mm which have been put in that class because of overall power and also because of the primary rifles they are used in.

The .30 carbine is on the bottom end of the power range, being closer to a pistol round (like the .357 Magnum, but still clearly a step above the military pistol rounds used as the standard in WW II), and the 5.56mm and the 5.45mm Soviet round are in there, due to the lower energy of the small bore bullet, compared to the full size .30 caliber rounds used earlier.

Its not a hard and fast defintion, with clearly defined limits of bore size, bullet weight, case size/shape, velocity, etc., but a general category to indentify military cartridges, based on the general use cartridges from WWII.

Soemthing more powerful than a 9mm Luger, .38/200, .45ACP, 7.62x25mm, but less than the .30-06. 8mm Mauser, 7.62x54R, .303 British, 6.5/7.7mm Jap, 6.5mm Carcano, Swede, etc. Military rounds, not sporting rounds. Many sporting cartridges do fall in that range, but were and are not thought of as 'intermediate power rounds" the same way.

I do not think reduced power loading of the standard cartridges, for better suitability in carbines (like the carbine load for the .45-70) or full auto fire in certain weapon designs (like the CETME you mentioned) would not be "intermediate cartridges", they are "reduced loadings" of standard cartridges, because they are using the standard round case.

Getting back to gun terms that don't go together, another one (IMHO) is a "safety" on the trigger. Its NOT at safety, its a trigger activation switch!
 
Thanks for the good reply. You have been making very thoughtful posts and I agree about the safety on the face of the trigger, an idea which has been around for a very long time.

This is all stretching the subject of the thread but you're probably right about the .30 carbine being in a class by itself, at least with respect to military cartridges. There is a lot of accidental development, so to speak, amongst military cartridges in that the starting point for a new cartridge is rarely a blank piece of paper. They have mostly all started with one or more cartridges that have already been in use. No doubt the .30 carbine was influenced primarily by the older Winchester self-loading cartridges. The 5.56mm NATO was based on the .222, a mostly forgotten fact today, I suspect.

With commercial sporting cartridges, the categories are even less rigid. They span the entire range of loads, at least if you include cartridges that are mostly rare or obsolete, even when many of them started as military loads. Useless but interesting, I suppose.
 
How about "rifled musket?" I know, it's a perfectly accurate word applied to, uh, rifled muskets in the 1850s and 1860s. It just doesn't seem like a musket would be rifled. There were even lever action Winchesters called "muskets." My son even told me the M16 is sometimes called a musket because it is longer than the M4. Makes sense.
 
Some terms hang on, even when no longer accurate..

The guns referred to back in the 1850s were originally muskets (smoothbore). Later on some of the existing muskets were rifled, hence "rifled musket". Then more of those pattern guns were produced with rifled barrels to begin with, but they were called "rifled muskets" just the same.

The Winchester NRA Musket was produced to meet certain requirements for match shooting. Being a "musket" it could conceivably be a milita weapon, and therefore eledgible for certain matches.

I do not know of any US unit that ever used them, but I think there might have been some sales to customers in South America. Kind of a cool gun, a winchester 94 .30-30 with a 30 inch barrel and full wood forend nearly to the muzzle.

as to what troops today call their firearms, I'm sure they use as much slang as their fathers and grandfathers did, although probably not as many of the same words....
 
As far as what the troops say, I remember a showing of "Saving Private Ryan," followed by interviews with some WWII veterans. One old gentleman said, "I don't think we cussed that much."

Strange movie, nothing like "The Longest Day."
 
There are a number of slang terms that irritate me, to a greater or lesser degree. Most of them I can live with well enough, and just consider the probably age and firearms education of the source.

However, one that has been irking me lately is the use of the word "boolits", usually in reference to cast bullets. I realize it may be valid slang where you are, or where you grew up, but to me, it sounds like you either don't know the proper term, or just can't spell it correctly.

its a personal gripe, and a small matter really, but if the proper terms are known, why not use them?
 
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