A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries.
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles have been used in warfare, law enforcement, hunting and target shooting sports.
Bolt-action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by directly manipulating the bolt via a bolt handle, most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the firearm. The majority of bolt-action firearms are rifles, but there are also some variants of shotguns and handguns that are bolt-action.
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.
The Colt AR-15 is a product line of magazine-fed, gas-operated, autoloading rifle manufactured by Colt's Manufacturing Company ("Colt") in many configurations. The rifle is a derivative of its predecessor, the lightweight ArmaLite AR-15, an automatic rifle designed by Eugene Stoner and other engineers at ArmaLite in 1956.
A semi-automatic firearm, also called a self-loading or autoloading firearm, is a repeating firearm whose action mechanism automatically loads a following round of cartridge into the chamber and prepares it for subsequent firing, but requires the shooter to manually actuate the trigger in order to discharge each shot. Typically, this involves the weapon's action utilizing the excess energy released during the preceding shot to unlock and move the bolt, extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case from the chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism, and loading a new cartridge into the firing chamber, all without input from the user. To fire again, however, the user must actively release the trigger, and allow it to "reset", before pulling the trigger again to fire off the next round. As a result, each trigger pull only discharges a single round from a semi-automatic weapon, as opposed to a fully automatic weapon, which will shoot continuously as long as the ammunition is replete and the trigger is kept depressed.
The Lee–Metford is a British bolt action rifle which combined James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt system and detachable magazine with an innovative seven-groove rifled barrel designed by William Ellis Metford. It replaced the Martini–Henry as the standard service rifle of the British Empire in 1888, following nine years of development and trials, but remained in service for only a short time until replaced by the Lee–Enfield.
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.
Marlin Firearms is an American manufacturer of semi-automatic, lever-action and bolt-action rifles. In the past the company made shotguns, derringers, and revolvers. Marlin owned the firearm manufacturer H&R Firearms. In 2007, Remington Arms, part of the Remington Outdoor Company, acquired Marlin Firearms. Remington produced Marlin-brand firearms at its Kentucky and New York manufacturing facilities. In 2020, Sturm, Ruger & Co. bought the Marlin business from bankrupt Remington Outdoor Company.
A rim is an external flange that is machined, cast, molded, stamped, or pressed around the bottom of a firearms cartridge. Thus, rimmed cartridges are sometimes called "flanged" cartridges. Almost all cartridges feature an extractor or headspacing rim, in spite of the fact that some cartridges are known as "rimless cartridges". The rim may serve a number of purposes, including providing a lip for the extractor to engage, and sometimes serving to headspace the cartridge.
The Leader T2 MK5 Series firearms were chambered for the 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge and manufactured by Leader Dynamics of Smithfield, NSW, Australia (1978-1982/1983). The Leader was the brainchild of British weapons designer Charles St. George. It was originally a contender for a 5.56 mm Australian military service rifle to replace the then-issued Lithgow L1A1 SLR and Colt M16A1 rifles. What was unique about this endeavor was that Australia had never designed or manufactured its own commercial gas-operated semi-automatic rifle. The rifle was abandoned when the Steyr AUG was adopted for use by the Australian military.
Polygonal rifling is a type of gun barrel rifling where the traditional sharp-edged "lands and grooves" are replaced by less pronounced "hills and valleys", so the barrel bore has a polygonal cross-sectional profile.
The Marlin Model 60, also known as the Marlin Glenfield Model 60, is a semi-automatic rifle that fires the .22 LR rimfire cartridge. Produced by Remington Arms in Huntsville, Alabama formerly in Mayfield, Kentucky, formerly by Marlin Firearms Company of North Haven, Connecticut, it was in continuous production from 1960 to 2020 and the company says it is the most popular rifle of its kind in the world. Major features include a micro-groove barrel, a cross-bolt safety, hardwood stock with Monte Carlo comb, and brass or blued steel inner magazine tube. The Marlin Model 795 is a very similar rifle and based on the Marlin Model 60, changed only to accept a detachable box magazine.
The QBU-88 sniper rifle is a Chinese bullpup designated marksman rifle developed by Norinco for the People's Liberation Army.
A caliber conversion device is a device which can be used to non-permanently alter a firearm to allow it to fire a different cartridge than the one it was originally designed to fire. The different cartridge must be smaller in some dimensions than the original design cartridge, and since smaller cartridges are usually cheaper, the device allows less expensive fire practice.
The CETME Model L is a Spanish 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle developed in the late 1970s at the state-owned small arms research and development establishment CETME located in Madrid. The rifle retains many of the proven design elements the institute had used previously in its CETME Model 58 battle rifles.
The following are terms related to firearms and ammunition topics.
The Colt Canada C20 DMR is a 7.62×51mm NATO designated marksman rifle created by Colt Canada, in response to a request by the Canadian Armed Forces to replace their earlier 5.56mm C8 carbine in sniper sections. The weapon is intended to enter service in the Canadian and Danish militaries, beginning in 2021. C20 rifles are fitted with the Schmidt & Bender 3-20×50 Ultra Short riflescope.
