Wessel Gun Shop, Inc.

UNDER DEVELOPMENT; CONTRIBUTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS WELCOME The following definitions are generally used on this website:

.40 S&W: caliber invented by Smith & Wesson in 1987; not necessarily evidence that the gun itself was made by Smith & Wesson;

ACP: used in names of ammunition calibers; denotes Automatic Colt Pistol; refers to calibers invented by Colt's Patent Firearms Company, or for its products;
Ammunition: gunfood: each cartridge or shell comprises one or more bullets, pellets, or slugs, a powder charge, a primer, and either a case or a hull to hold them all together; for handguns and rifle, cartridges; for shotguns, shells;
Assault rifle: not actually used on this website, since we use the definition established by the Department of Defense - the only objective definition available. An assault rifle (German Sturmgewehr) is a shoulder-fired weapon, chambered in an intermediate caliber, and capable of being fired either automatically or semi-automatically. Dealing in assault rifles requires a Class 3 federal firearms license - which we lack;
Assault weapon: also not used on this website, owing to the lack of an objective definition - other than the Congressional definition "guns that makes us pee our panties";

Bayonet: refers to a spike or knife-like blade attached permanently or temporarily to the muzzle-end of a battle rifle, and intended for use in close-quarters combat after shooting has become impractical or impossible;
Blow-back operation: a system of operating a firearm featuring automatic conveyance of each cartridge from the magazine to the firing chamber, and ejection of the fired cartridge case from the open action afterward; primarily uses recoil of the firearm as manifested by rearward movement of a slide or bolt backward until it is halted by its own mass and the intervention of a recoil spring; very common in small-caliber firearms, fairly rare in large-caliber, owing to the heavy slide required.
Bullet: the component of a single cartridge which is expelled from the muzzle of a handgun or rifle, and impacts the target (the shooter hopes);

Clip: any device used for reloading a firearm's Magazine (q.v.);
Cocking: preparing the action of a firearm by moving various components from their resting position into their cocked position, from which a pull on the trigger will release them to transfer their energy into striking the primer in the head of the cartridge or shell;

Derringer: any small one- or two-shot pocket pistol, normally in one of the smaller calibers, e.g. .22 - .38 calibers;
DWM: Deutsches Waffen und Munitionsfabrik (German Weapons and Munitionsmakers), a major German manufacturer of weapons, ammunition, and other related products;
Dillinger, John: one of the robber/murderers active during the decade of the 1930s; sometimes confused with Derringer, named for 19th-Century gun designer Henry Deringer;
Double action: used to describe a handgun with two different trigger-pulls, usually determined by the shooter's ability to cock the gun with the trigger; see also Single action and Trigger-cocked;

Hammer: protrudes from the rear of the frame of many modern firearms, but completely concealed in others; if included in the design of a gun, a major component in the ignition system, often accessible for manual operation in preparing the action for firing ("cocking");

Inverse rails: said of semi-automatic pistols made with one of the elements of the SIG P210, used in the Star M28 and M30, the CZ-75 and its daughters; in this design, the frame rails invert the pattern used by Browning, Colt, and most other police, military, and sporting pistols: the frame embraces the slide, rather than the slide embracing the frame; inverse-rail pistols start out accurate and become more accurate with time, instead of the opposite; inverse rails increase the pistol's cost of manufacture, but they can make a service pistol as easy as a target pistol to shoot well;

Magazine: any ammunition storage area or device, either fixed or detachable, included in the design of a "repeating firearm"; see also Clip;

Schnabel (German: "beak"): used to describe the fore-arm of a rifle or shotgun when the end of the fore-arm nearest the muzzle turns down, ending in a point (more or less);
Single action: used to describe a handgun with only one trigger-pull, because the action must be cocked (prepared for firing) by a separate manual operation;see also Double action and Trigger-cocked;

Trigger: a small lever, protruding downward from the underside of the frame of the gun; a pull on the trigger will usually fire the gun;
Trigger-cocked: used to describe a handgun with only one trigger-pull, because the gun may only be fired by a uniformly stout pull of the trigger; in a trigger-cocked semi-automatic pistol, cycling the slide only ejects spent cartridge cases and loads fresh cartridges, without preparing the action for firing; see also Single action and Double action;

Last update WED05JAN11 WebMaster