Archives: Glossary

Extra long screws used by stockmakers during the inletting operation to maintain alignment of the trigger guard and other auxiliary items with the action. Also known as Inletting Screws or Guide Screws.

This term is used when a firearm stops firing due to a malfunction of either the gun mechanism or ammunition. This term is normally used in connection with automatic firearms, machine guns, etc.

A failure to eject where the fired case is caught in the ejection port by the forward motion of the bolt The case protruding upward out of the ejection port is said to resemble an old fashioned stove pipe.

On shoulder firearms, describes a butt stock without a pistol grip.

A bolt action firearm in which the bolt need not be rotated to open or close the action but is reciprocated by a straight backward and forward motion of the shooter’s hand.

The rate of spin of a projectile fired from a rifled barrel.

A bullet which has lost all of its kinetic energy.

Smokeless Propellant manufactured by a process in which nitrocellulose is first lacquered with solvents then being processed into a sphere. The finished product may take the form of a sphere, flattened sphere, or cylinder.

The deviation from the expected flight path of a bullet due to the gyrational spin of bullet imparted by the rifling.

A pointed projectile characterized by a sharply secant ogive or a conical nose profile.