Slang, jargon, and misused words

What you are doing (I do it also) would be better described not by saying that you raised your front sight (afterall, you still hold that front sight under your target same as always), but that you very much lowered your rear sight…
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I don't think lowering the rear sight (relative to the front sight) is a "better" description. Its accurate, describing the relationship of the sights, relative to each other when I take the shot, but is not descriptive of what I do, to get there.

I physically raise the muzzle of the pistol, I don't lower the rear sight. And while raising the muzzle has the effect of lowering the rear sight, that is the effect of the action I am performing (raising the front sight), not me lowering the rear one. Perhaps this is an optical delusion, because I don't see me lowering the rear sight, it stays in place, relative to my eye. What I see is me raising the front sight (by raising the muzzle) so that it stands up above the top of the rear sight blade.

this is also called "standing proud in the notch", meaning it sticks up /stands out.

Some folks call it "Kentucky windage". I don't know what they call it in Kentucky (maybe just "windage" :rolleyes:) but in my part of the country where I grew up, the old timers called ALL aim corrections, up, down, left, right, were "Kentucky windage".

Physically moving the sight (via an adjustment screw or by drift) was NOT "Kentucky windage" it was a sight adjustment.
 
You haven’t convinced me yet!

Let us describe this scenario captured by video drone, we have a bird’s eye view of 44 AMP and he is standing at the firing line and holding his trusty Model 27-2, aiming at a 25 yard steel plate. With great care and aim he touches off a shot and rings that 25 yard plate. Quickly back on target, he considers another shot at the 25 yard plate. However, on a whim he chooses to stretch the legs a bit. With the revolver still leveled, he spies the 250 yard plate and moves over to take aim at it.

He certainly does not raise that front sight. For if he did raise that front sight, that front sight would obscure the 250 yard plate, which he assured us he does not do. As he explained earlier, he lowers the rear of his 27-2 all the while sure NOT to obscure that 250 yard target with his front sight.
 
Close, but I have a 28-2. :D
And I usually ring the 200yd gong with my Ruger Blackhawk .45 Colt.

having over 3 decades of practice with that gun and the load I shoot, I know just how to aim it.

You can describe it any way you want, but here's what I do, as I see it.

I raise the the front sight up in the rear notch, until the point where the sight slope "breaks" (which is the right amount for the load I use and that distance) is level with the top of the rear sight, and THEN put the gong on top of the front sight blade.

and, I like doing it offhand, one handed, with my left hand in my hip pocket and a lit Marlboro in the corner of my mouth. :D
 
I haven't heard it in a long time, but many years ago when I was competing just about every weekend at some local muzzle loading rifle match, I'd come to work on Monday, and someone would always ask me if I shot my "musket loader" that past weekend. I'd always have to slap my forehead, look up with a squint in my eyes, and give a big sigh...

Always liked the term, "Kentucky windage." It just goes well, as it should, with an open sighted, patched round ball shooting rifle.
 
One of my rifles is "Killdeer" and a friend calls one of my pistols "Alice". But their calibers are .308Win and .45ACP..
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If the details matter, as you say they do to you, then you would know that .308 Win and .45 ACP are CARTRIDGES, not CALIBERS.......................... ;)
 
then you would know that .308 Win and .45 ACP are CARTRIDGES, not CALIBERS............
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US gunmakers and the government have been using cartridge names as caliber designations for a long, long time. Possibly as long as we've had metallic cartridges.

Caliber is a multi definition word, dependent on context. It is used to describe the bore size (diameter), and the barrel length (in artillery), and the cartridge which the gun is chambered for (in registration forms and in the maker's catalogues, etc).
 
Was going through customs into Canada to go fishing once. Pickup,camper shell,boat.
The Agent asked me several times if I had ANY weapons. I did not bring any guns. Eventually I figured out that "No Sir,I did not bring any weapons" was not the answer he was looking for.
I tried "Wait,I DO have a machete in the back of the truck,but I consider it a tool,not a weapon."

With that,the agent sent me on my way.

I sincerely hope any Law Enforcement I have a conversation with can recognise and understand the difference between an Assault Weapon and my Counter Assault Weapon.

And surely y'all know the terms Gulley Whomper, Toad Strangler, Tow Sack,and Turtle Hull
 
One of the "great lies" of the modern era, and almost universally accepted without question is that dictionaries are the ultimate arbiter of what is, and is not a word, and the proper spelling and definition of them.

Countless teachers and others over the last few hundred years have used this as their final and ultimate argument when correcting a student. "It isn't in the dictionary, so you're wrong" is quite common, still, today.

But the fact is, that dictionaries are not, and never were the be all, end all source of words and their uses. In fact, if you read the fine print found at the beginning of dictionaries (at least the real book ones, I don't know about the online ones) they will all TELL you that the dictionary contains words and definitions as found in common popular use, and some historical usages as well. They do not claim to be all inclusive, or the only source of accurate information.

there are a LOT of terms used in various technical fields that have definitions not found in general dictionaries. "Caliber" is just one among many such terms.
 
If you call a cartridge a "bullet", then what do you call a bullet? I heard a guy call it a "bullet head"!?!?

Another guy, unfamiliar with 1911 parts nomenclature, inquired about the "lower barrel lug swivel pin plate" . . . aka, the link.
 
I've heard people say "bullet heads", "bullet tips" and "bullet points".

If you correct them, once in a while you get a thank you, but most of the time you get an irritated "you know what I mean!" and a glare...:rolleyes:

Can't begin to tell you the number of people over the years who've told me that to get a semi to fire full auto, all you have to do is file the sear pin..(or sometimes, they call it the shear pin...)

And, they honestly think they're right.....

Ever work with one of those folks, who, if they don't know the correct name for something, make up their own name for it?? I have. One of them was an industrial maint electrician. He was a good guy, knew his electrical stuff, but otherwise was a "poor fit" for the industrial situation he worked in, because he would make up his own names for the equipment, and if you didn't know him, and know that he did that, you had no idea what he was talking about, or if he was right or not...

I worked for many years in a nuclear chemical plant. One of the tanks in one of the processes had an unusual agitator. Unlike the spinning blades used in all the other tanks, this one had a large slow moving paddle that "wagged" back and forth to stir the solution. It had an odd name, it was actually named the "Wig-Wag agitator" by the people who made it.

So, it breaks down. Maint gets called, our guy checks it out, and because he can't remember (or never knew) the correct name, he makes up his own. He tells management that they need parts for the "Weedle Beetle" .

The group manager, who most of us thought was in that position due to EEOC concerns and not her process knowledge doesn't know its NOT a "weedle beetle" and orders parts for the "weedle beetle.

Weeks pass, no parts, process is down....Upper Management want's to know why its not fixed yet... SOMEONE....:rolleyes: suggests to them they look into what parts got ordered.... they do, and find out NO parts got ordered because there's no such thing as a "weedle beetle".....
Bosses not happy. Group Mgr gets reassigned. Workers in the trenches,..chortle and giggle...(because we TOLD them what was wrong and were ignored):D

The point here is, that if you need parts, and you don't use the RIGHT names you won't get the right parts, if you get any parts at all....

Works that way with guns, too...
 
A friend has gotten a lot of bargains off Gunbroker because items were listed wrong and drew few bids. He said he had six different spellings of Anschutz that would all turn up a rifle every now and then.
 
I'm not a Veteran ,or a sniper.

I was looking for ballistics stuff when I found a site where the author kept talking about "come-ups." By which he meant "holdover" or "bullet drop"; it was hard to tell. Then I found a bunch more references to "come-ups" on other sites.
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I don't know from personal experience,but I think you will find "come ups" to be normal professional language among military sniping folks.

Its a "Dope" thing. Assuming you go to field with your rifle sighted at a given range ,its unlikely your target will be at that range. The "come ups" are known sight corrections for other ranges.

My guess is that if a US Army Sniper in Afghanistan e-mailed a sniper school cadre in Ft Benning about "Come Ups" with a new ammunition they would be sharing a common (to them) terminology.
 
I don't know if it is current sniper slang or not, but I've heard and used the phrase "come up" while helping or being helped sighting in.

"Come up on your sight 3 clicks" is just a different way of saying "raise your sight 3 clicks".

Never heard it used as a plural, "Come Ups" but I suppose somebody might use it that way.

Might be a regional thing, too, saying "come up" instead of "raise". Means the same thing.
 
I read accounts by Buffalo Bill where he referred to his "needle gun". He meant his Trapdoor Springfield, but to me the "needle gun" is the Dreyse rifle.
 
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