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Clips vs Magazines

ConditionThree

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News media have been talking alot about guns and accessories recently.

There's one thing dogging me everytime some uninitiated reporter opens their mouth.

They keep calling magazines, 'clips'.

To me, a clip is a piece of metal fabricated to hold ammunition that has no mechanism to feed ammunition into the chamber- as with moon clips or stripper clips. Once charged they do not remain attached to the firearm.

A magazine however, is usually spring loaded or has some other mechanism by which ammunition is fed into the chamber. It is charged and remains attached to the firearm until empty.

Anyone agree? Disagree?

This bug the hell out of anyone else?

Do these distinctions really make a difference?
 

personaltrainer1987

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Condition 3 you are absolutely, positively 100% correct. "Clips" are not "magazines." However, the left-leaning, biased, liberal media doesn' know the difference, nor do they care. "Clip" sounds more dangerous and deadly, so that's the term that they use.
 

Flowmaster

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i was seriously just about to start a thread about the media mislabeling magazines. i went to the main page and saw this thread in the column on the left.

now the M1 garand has a clip which stays in the gun until all the ammunition contained within it is used. even though it lacks any spring or mechanism, is that considered a clip or a magazine.

stripper clips, now that's pretty obvious.
 

Lew

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Flowmaster wrote:
now the M1 garand has a clip which stays in the gun until all the ammunition contained within it is used. even though it lacks any spring or mechanism, is that considered a clip or a magazine.

stripper clips, now that's pretty obvious.
This is one that bothers me, being relatively young to the discussion. It's a clip right? And yet, it seems to act as a magizine...I know someone can set us straight on this one.
 

HankT

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Well, it's a rather benign errorfor the media to call magazines 'clips.' I don't see what the big deal is. Although the media consistently does spin certain words, termsand concepts in a manner adverse to pro-gunners, 'clip' is not a good example of this spinning. 'Clip' is just as neutral a word as 'magazine.'

By far, most of the people in this country who misuse the word 'clip' are gun guys. It doesn't really matter much which word is used as long as people know what you're talking about.
 

OC-Glock19

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HankT wrote:
By far, most of the people in this country who misuse the word 'clip' are gun guys. It doesn't really matter much which word is used as long as people know what you're talking about.

You're right, Hank. I grew up around guns and everyone I knew called magazines clips. I didn't know the correct terminology until I started becoming a Second Amendment activist about 5 years ago.

As an aside, my first exposure to an online discussion on the subject of gunowner rights was the CNN "Guns Under Fire" discussion board. Was anyone else here an active member there?
 

HankT

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Lew wrote:
Flowmaster wrote:
now the M1 garand has a clip which stays in the gun until all the ammunition contained within it is used. even though it lacks any spring or mechanism, is that considered a clip or a magazine.

stripper clips, now that's pretty obvious.
This is one that bothers me, being relatively young to the discussion. It's a clip right? And yet, it seems to act as a magizine...I know someone can set us straight on this one.

Technically, it's referred to as a maglip.

Or, less formally,a cligazine.
 

cato

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This reminds me of a line from the movie Sweet Liberty. A film crew member is holding one of the re-enactors firearms during a moment of contention between the crew and re-enactors. He hands it to the re-enactor saying, "here's your gun." Re-enactor replies, "It's a musket, moron!"
 

Legba

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As I observe the usage, even among people who know the distinction, "clip" and "magazine" seem to be becoming synonymous. I doubtmost people have ever used aclip proper, so there's usually no confusion about which people are referring to, unless you're at a Garand shoot-off, perhaps (I think Springfield reissued a commemorative version which takes a box magazine). Anyway - no, it doesn't bug the hell out of me, to answer the question. Just my opinion (worth its weight in gold).

-ljp
 

kparker

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HankT,

Technically, it's referred to as a maglip. Or, less formally, a cligazine.
I've only ever heard the more formal technical term en bloc clip. Then again, I've never served in the military, though by the time I could have the Garand was history anyway.

I don't see any problem with slang terms per se, but I do object to the deliberate or uninformed conflation of two existing terms with their own separate technical meanings.

Also, seeing "clip" used for "magazine" is a great marker for "writer has no actual experience or knowledge of firearms"!
 

tarzan1888

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Most of the people I talk to don't know the difference.

I believe the confusion started back during WW1. The magazine was part of the gun and they had a clip that held the ammunition together so that it could be loaded into the gun in one motion. They associated being permanently attached with the term magazine and not being permanently attached with clip.

My dad who was in the army just following WW1, in the mid 1920's, gave memy first gun which was a Marlin .22, semi auto with a 7 shot magazine. I remember distinctly him telling me "I got one with a clip instead of a tube so that you would have to slow down and re-load every once in a while." I called any detachable ammunition holder a clip, until I learned the true terminology some 10 years ago.

It now bothers me a little when gun guys say it, but I don't usually correct people, but rather use the correct term and let them learn for themselves. If they ask me I inform them.
 

DreQo

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This is one of those facts that they drill into you when you join the military. I also hear people make the mistake from time to time (mostly gun guys) and I am quick to correct them.

I just wish they had been dumb enough to restrict the "clip" capacities of firearms, lol.
 

Jackal

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Lew wrote:
Flowmaster wrote:
now the M1 garand has a clip which stays in the gun until all the ammunition contained within it is used. even though it lacks any spring or mechanism, is that considered a clip or a magazine.

stripper clips, now that's pretty obvious.
This is one that bothers me, being relatively young to the discussion. It's a clip right? And yet, it seems to act as a magizine...I know someone can set us straight on this one.
Well, in the description of an M1 it uses an "internal box-magazine", so I suppose that magazine would be the most appropriate. Perhaps we could say that it is a clip if YOU are the one that feeds the ammo off of it and a magazine if the weapon does.
 

HerbM

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Boths me --not just because "clip" is the wrong term but because it has a specific and clearly different meaning.

It is about as stupid OR ignorant (no matter where you learned it) as calling a "semi-auto" a "revolver" -- the words have different meanings and using them correctly helps us to communicate.

But then, I detest the media's (and other's) tendency to misuse "beg the question" to mean (incorrectly) "demands the questions" instead of to avoid or slip the question.

Again, this correct use of the phrase has specific meaning in discourse and debate, where no other simple term can express the important meeting.
 

apjonas

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"begging the question," at least in the classical logic sense means to use the conclusion to prove the premise:

Because I have a CC permit I am a good guy. What makes you a good guy? Well I have a CC permit, don't I?

By the way, is a M1911 Automatic pistol and automatic weapon?

HerbM wrote:
Boths me --not just because "clip" is the wrong term but because it has a specific and clearly different meaning.

It is about as stupid OR ignorant (no matter where you learned it) as calling a "semi-auto" a "revolver" -- the words have different meanings and using them correctly helps us to communicate.

But then, I detest the media's (and other's) tendency to misuse "beg the question" to mean (incorrectly) "demands the questions" instead of to avoid or slip the question.

Again, this correct use of the phrase has specific meaning in discourse and debate, where no other simple term can express the important meeting.
 

Tomahawk

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My take on the M1 is that it's a clip, because the amo comes attached to it from the bandolier. The magazine for an M1 is the metal encasement part of the receiver which holds the cartridges before they are fed into the chamber.

My Remington Model 78 (basically a cheap version of a 700ADL) has an "internal magazine", which is basically just a square tube of metal extending down from the receiver. The follower rides inside it, and the bottom of the follower spring just rests on the floor of the wooden stock.

So, extending this idea to an M1, the M1 uses both an internal magazine and a clip. Does that make any sense, or am I just talking out off my......?


EDIT: Also, a magazine is a place on a ship where cannon shells are stored, and this jives with my idea of a magazine as something ammo is stored in, not clipped onto....
 

Legba

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At the risk of straying off-topic, apjonas makes a good point. I find the substitution of "automatic" for "semi-automatic" more annoying than clips vs. magazines. I don't even correct the wannabe-"gangstas" any more, thosewho come in the store and look at the Mac-11 with flash suppressor/barrel extension and ask "wow - is that an automatic uzi with a silencer?" I like tocorrect people in a non-patronizing way whenI can and when it might actually be helpful, but I'm afraid there are suchthings asstupid questions at the same time.

-ljp
 
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