A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and used 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 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 are used extensively in warfare, law enforcement, hunting and target shooting sports.
A shotgun is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small spherical projectiles called shot, or a single solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are most commonly used as smoothbore firearms, meaning that their gun barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, but rifled barrels for shooting sabot slugs are also available.
The Colt AR-15 is a lightweight, magazine-fed, gas-operated semi-automatic rifle. It is a semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle sold for the civilian and law enforcement markets in the United States. The AR in AR-15 stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. Colt's Manufacturing Company currently owns the AR-15 trademark, which is used exclusively for its line of semi-automatic AR-15 rifles.
A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially designed, large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke, or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The most common type are man-portable, shoulder-fired weapons issued to individuals, although larger crew-served launchers are issued at higher levels of organization by military forces.
A gun barrel is a crucial part of gun-type weapons such as small firearms, artillery pieces, and air guns. It is the straight shooting tube, usually made of rigid high-strength metal, through which a contained rapid expansion of high-pressure gas(es) is used to propel a projectile out of the front end (muzzle) at a high velocity. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, and the diameter of the bore is called its caliber, usually measured in inches or millimetres.
The Mossberg 500 (M500) is a series of pump action shotguns manufactured by O.F. Mossberg & Sons. The 500 series comprises widely varying models of hammerless repeaters, all of which share the same basic receiver and action, but differ in bore size, barrel length, choke options, magazine capacity, stock and forearm materials. Model numbers included in the 500 series are the 500, 505, 510, 535, and 590. The Revelation 310 and the New Haven 600 were also variations of the 500 series produced by Mossberg under different names. By 2021, 11,000,000 M500s had been produced, making it the most-produced shotgun of all time.
A magazine, often simply called a mag, is an ammunition storage and feeding device for a repeating firearm, either integral within the gun or externally attached. The magazine functions by holding several cartridges within itself and sequentially pushing each one into a position where it may be readily loaded into the barrel chamber by the firearm's moving action. The detachable magazine is sometimes colloquially referred to as a "clip", although this is technically inaccurate since a clip is actually an accessory device used to help load ammunition into a magazine or cylinder.
The M26-MASS is a shotgun configured as an underbarrel ancillary weapon attachment mounted onto the handguard of a service rifle, usually the M16/M4 family of United States military, essentially making the host weapon a combination gun. It can also be operated as a stand-alone shotgun by attachment to a pistol grip/collapsible buttstock module. Rollout commenced in 2013, replacing the M500 shotguns in service.
The TT-30, commonly known simply as the Tokarev, is a Soviet semi-automatic pistol. It was developed in 1930 by Fedor Tokarev as a service pistol for the Soviet military to replace the Nagant M1895 revolver that had been in use since the Russian Empire, though it ended up being used in conjunction with, rather than replacing, the M1895. It served with the Soviet Armed Forces until 1952, when it was replaced by the Makarov pistol.
The Robinson M96 is a 5.56 x 45mm NATO, semi-automatic rifle based on the Stoner 63 Modular Weapon System. Made by the Robinson Armament Co., the M96 can be arranged in a variety configurations from a standard rifle with a 20' barrel, to a carbine with a 16" barrel or even a top-fed carbine with a 17.5" barrel.
The OTs-14-4 "Groza-4" is a Russian selective fire bullpup assault rifle chambered for the 9×39mm subsonic cartridge. It was developed in the 1990s at the TsKIB SOO in Tula, Russia.
Strayer-Voigt, Inc. is a manufacturer of M1911-styled modular pistols. The Strayer-Voigt system is called modular because the lower grip and trigger guard, which is made of carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium or aluminum, is a separate component from the metal upper portion of the frame that comprises the dust cover and frame rails. They are the most famous for their Hybrid series of pistols as well as their IMM Open division pistols made for competitions. SVI markets its products under the brand name Infinity Firearms. The Infinity pistols are sometimes unofficially known by the combined name of Strayer-Voigt Infinity among some enthusiasts, a play on the SVI acronym.
The HK21 is a German 7.62 mm general-purpose machine gun, developed in 1961 by small arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch and based on the G3 battle rifle. The weapon is in use with the armed forces of several Asian, African and Latin American countries. It was also license-manufactured by Fábrica de Braço de Prata in Portugal as the m/968 and in Mexico by SEDENA as the MG21. In the German military (Bundeswehr) and the federal police (Bundespolizei) it is designated "G8".
The Mendoza RM2 was a light machine gun similar to the M1918 BAR manufactured in Mexico by Productos Mendoza, S.A. Rafael Mendoza have been producing machine guns for the Mexican Army since 1933 and all have been noted for their lightness, simplicity, ease of maintenance, and economic construction without sacrificing reliability.
The following are terms related to firearms and ammunition topics.
During the American Civil War, an assortment of small arms found their way onto the battlefield. Though the muzzleloader percussion cap rifled musket was the most numerous weapon, being standard issue for the Union and Confederate armies, many other firearms, ranging from the single-shot breech-loading Sharps and Burnside rifles to the Spencer and the Henry rifles - two of the world's first repeating rifles - were issued by the hundreds of thousands, mostly by the Union. The Civil War brought many advances in firearms technology, most notably the widespread use of rifled barrels.
The CPW is a multi-caliber submachine gun developed by ST Kinetics as a PDW-class firearm. The prototype is chambered in 9×19mm Parabellum, but the manufacturer assures that the weapon's modular design allows for a simple caliber conversion to either 5.7×28mm or 4.6×30mm.
The Adaptive Combat Rifle (ACR) is a modular assault rifle formerly designed by Magpul Industries of Austin, Texas, and known initially as the Masada.
The Desert Tech Hard Target Interdiction (HTI) is a bullpup bolt-action sniper and anti-materiel rifle designed and manufactured in West Valley City, Utah, United States by Desert Tech.
