Quote:
Originally Posted by woj
turns out clip = magazine :winkwink:
clip:
"n 1: a metal frame or container holding cartridges; can be inserted into an automatic gun [syn: cartridge holder, cartridge clip, magazine]"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=clip
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Even reference.com can be wrong.. :winkwink:
A magazine is an enclosed box, usually steel but increasingly plastic, with a partially open top that contains cartridges. The magazine contains a strong spring, with a metal plate called a follower on top. Cartridges are inserted into the top of the magazine, and each successive cartridge compresses the magazine spring further, keeping upward pressure on the cartridges and ensuring that while the magazine contains cartridges, the top cartridge is always at the top of the magazine.
The partially open top of the magazine has lips that prevent cartridges from being pushed out vertically by the spring. When the weapon cycles, the bolt comes forward and pushes the top cartridge in the magazine forward and up into the firing chamber.
A magazine may be fixed (a part of the weapon itself) or removable. Removable magazines allow refreshing the weapon's ammunition supply very quickly. When a magazine is exhausted (or nearly so), it takes only a second or two to eject that magazine and insert a fresh magazine. A weapon with a fixed magazine must be reloaded by adding cartridges directly to the weapon, typically by opening the bolt of the weapon and pressing cartridges down into the magazine one by one until it is full.
A clip also contains cartridges, but is (typically) not used by the weapon directly. Instead, a clip provides a fast way to recharge a magazine. A stripper clip, for example, is a thin metal strip that holds five or ten cartridges by the base. Rather than reloading a magazine (fixed or detachable) cartridge-by-cartridge, you can align the stripper clip at the top of the magazine and simply press all of the cartridges down and into the magazine in one quick operation.
Most military bolt action rifles from WWI and WWII used stripper clips with a fixed magazine. Once the user pressed the five or ten cartridges into the rifle, the stripper clip was simply discarded. Using a stripper clip makes it five or ten times faster to reload a magazine than inserting cartridges individually. Stripper clips can also be used to reload detachable magazines. Replenishing a 20-round magazine using individual cartridges might take 30 seconds or more. Doing the same thing using two 10-round stripper clips takes about five seconds, and probably less when you're being shot at.
The one exception that immediately comes to mind about clips not being used by the weapon directly is the M1 Garand, the standard US service rifle in WWII and Korea. That weapon used an en bloc clip, which held eight .30-06 rounds in two columns of four. The M1 clip was pressed into the weapon itself along with its ammunition load. When all eight rounds had been fired, the M1 spit out the clip. The downsides to that were that it made it impractical to "top up" the ammunition load and that the sound of an M1 clip ejecting is a very distinct "ping" noise, which makes it clear to everyone that the weapon is now empty.
Very few pistols use clips (although it is of course possible to reload a pistol magazine using stripper clips). The exceptions were some autopistols with fixed magazines that were designed to be loaded using stripper clips. About the only common examples of that are some pre-WWII Mauser designs.
