In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breech-loading firearm that handles the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically not present on muzzleloaders, as all those are single-shot firearms with a closed off breech with the powder and projectile manually loaded from the muzzle. Instead, the muzzleloader ignition mechanism is referred to as the lock.
A semi-automatic pistol is a handgun that automatically ejects and loads cartridges in its chamber after every shot fired. Only one round of ammunition is fired each time the trigger is pulled, as the pistol's fire control group disconnects the trigger mechanism from the firing pin/striker until the trigger has been released and reset.
The .380 ACP, is a rimless, straight-walled pistol cartridge developed by firearms designer John Moses Browning. The cartridge headspaces on the mouth of the case. It was introduced in 1908 by Colt, for use in its new Colt Model 1908 pocket hammerless semi-automatic, and has been a popular self-defense cartridge ever since, seeing wide use in numerous handguns. Other names for .380 ACP include .380 Auto, 9×17mm, 9mm Browning, 9mm Corto, 9mm Kurz, 9mm Short, and 9mm Browning Court. It should not be confused with .38 ACP. The .380 ACP does not strictly conform to cartridge naming conventions, named after the diameter of the bullet, as the actual bullet diameter of the .380 ACP is .355 inches.
Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gas created by the ignition of the propellant charge.
The PM-63 RAK is a Polish 9×18mm submachine gun, designed by Piotr Wilniewczyc in cooperation with Tadeusz Bednarski, Grzegorz Czubak and Marian Wakalski. The RAK combines the characteristics of a self-loading pistol and a fully automatic submachine gun.
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to dispose of the spent case and insert a new cartridge into the chamber. Energy from the gas is harnessed through either a port in the barrel or a trap at the muzzle. This high-pressure gas impinges on a surface such as a piston head to provide motion for unlocking of the action, extraction of the spent case, ejection, cocking of the hammer or striker, chambering of a fresh cartridge, and locking of the action.
The Heckler & KochP7 is a German 9×19mm semi-automatic pistol designed by Helmut Weldle and produced from 1979 to 2008 by Heckler & Koch GmbH (H&K). The P7M13, a variant of the P7 with a double-stack magazine, was produced until 2000.
The Jatimatic is a Finnish 9×19mm Parabellum submachine gun developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Jali Timari. The submachine gun made its debut in 1983. The Jatimatic was manufactured in very limited numbers initially by Tampereen Asepaja Oy of Tampere and later—Oy Golden Gun Ltd. The firearm was designed primarily for police, security forces and armored vehicle crews. It was never adopted into service by the Finnish Defence Forces, although the later GG-95 PDW version was tested by the FDF in the 1990s.
In breechloading firearms, an extractor is an action component that serves to remove spent casings of previously fired cartridges from the chamber, in order to vacate the chamber for loading a fresh round of ammunition.
Locked breech is the design of a breech-reloading firearm's action. This is important in understanding how a self-reloading firearm works. In the simplest terms, the locked breech is one way to slow down the opening of the breech of a self-reloading firearm when fired. The source of power for the movement is recoil.
The Colt Model 1900 is a short-recoil operated "self-loading", or semi-automatic .38 caliber handgun introduced by Colt's Manufacturing Company at the turn of the 20th century. The M1900 was the first firearm to be chambered in .38 ACP and was the first handgun to utilize short-recoil operation.
A muzzle booster or recoil booster is a device fixed to the muzzle of a firearm, intended to harness the energy of the escaping propellant to augment the force of recoil on portions of the firearm. In spite of its name, a muzzle booster does not increase muzzle force or velocity but instead is usually used to improve the reliability and/or rate of fire of a recoil operated firearm. It was invented by Hiram Maxim in 1894.
A blank-firing adapter or blank-firing attachment (BFA), sometimes called a blank adapter or blank attachment, is a device used in conjunction with blank ammunition for safety reasons, functional reasons or a combination of them both. Blank firing adapters are required for allowing blank ammunition to cycle the bolts of most semi-automatic and automatic firearms. It can also be a safety feature designed to break up the plugs replacing the bullet in military blanks as well as divert the hot gases from a blank discharge out to the sides, reducing the risk of injury to the target of an aimed shot.
The KRISS Vector is a series of weapons based upon the parent submachine gun design developed by the American company KRISS USA, formerly Transformational Defense Industries (TDI).
The following are terms related to firearms and ammunition topics.
Glock is a brand of polymer-framed, short recoil-operated, locked-breech semi-automatic pistols designed and produced by Austrian manufacturer Glock Ges.m.b.H.
Muzzle rise, muzzle flip or muzzle climb refers to the tendency of a firearm's or airgun's muzzle to rise up after firing. It more specifically refers to the seemingly unpredictable "jump" of the firearm's muzzle, caused by combined recoil from multiple shots being fired in quick succession. It has an adverse effect on maintaining accuracy with using automatic weapons or rapid-firing semi-automatic firearms, as a moving muzzle can throw off the shooter's aim, causing subsequent shots to miss the intended target.
Blow forward is a firearm action where the propellant gas pressure and the friction of the bullet traveling down the bore drag the whole gun barrel forward to facilitate the opening of the breech. This forward barrel motion provides most of the energy required to eject a spent cartridge case and chamber a fresh round of ammunition, and contains a minimum of moving parts, and thus is more compact than other operating mechanisms of equal barrel length.
Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used to implement locked-breech autoloading firearms. Recoil operated firearms use the energy of recoil to cycle the action, as opposed to gas operation or blowback operation using the pressure of the propellant gas.
The Arsenal Firearms "Strike One" is a polymer or Ergal-framed, short recoil operated, striker-fired semi-automatic pistol introduced by the company Arsenal Firearms in 2012. The Strike One is known in Russia as the «Стриж».
