Forum Dictionary, Terminology and meanings Options

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FORUM DICTIONARY  The Forum Dictionary has been compiled using various sources freely available. Every effort has been made to ensure that the entries are accurate and up to date. If you find an incorrect entry or wish to submit your own, please do not hesitate to contact one of the Moderators.

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O
Object lens
The lens of a telescopic sight (or any optical device) nearest the object being viewed.

Obturation
The expansion of a cartridge case on firing to seal off the chamber and prevent gases from escaping.

Ogive
The curved portion of a projectile between the cylindrical radius and the metplat (diameter of the tip of the projectile).

Open season
Dates during which quarry species may be taken legally, also known as the shooting season

Open Sights
See metallic sights.

Over-and-under
Shotgun in which one barrel is on top of the other

Over-travel
The amount of rearward travel of the trigger after the release of the sear.

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P
Pan
That part of a matchlock, wheel lock or flintlock muzzle loading gun that holds the priming powder next to the flash hole so that the main charge can be ignited by it.

Parallax
The apparent shift in position of a viewed object attributable to the difference between two separate and distinct points of view. A major problem for users of telescopic sights without parallax adjustment, as these sights will only be free of error at one distance, usually 100 yards. Note that this is not the same thing as focussing and if a telescopic sight does not have an adjuster ring near the object lens, then almost certainly it does not have parallax adjustment. This means that apart from the one distance it is parallax free (usually 100 yards) it will be of little value for accurate target shooting purposes, no matter with what gun or ammunition it is used.

Patch
A small piece of leather or cloth that is greased and placed around a bullet before ramming it down the barrel of a muzzle-loader so as to hold it firmly in place and prevent it rolling out, OR, A piece of cloth drawn through the bore of a firearm to clean it.

Paunching
To pierce or rip the belly of; to eviscerate; to disembowel

Pellet
Either an airgun projectile, usually of lead, or a component of a shotgun cartridge which is fired out of the gun. Normally shotgun pellets are round balls of lead, or often these days, of steel.

Pelt
The skin of an animal with the fur or hair still on it, OR, A stripped animal skin ready for tanning.

Percussion
The name given to firing a gun by means of a percussion cap placed over the flash hole (called a 'nipple' on a percussion gun). Percussion guns are normally muzzle loaders and can be either single shot, or multi shot.

Picker-up
Person who retrieves dead and wounded game with the aid of gundogs

Pistol
A relatively short gun, usually under 24 inches long and held in one or both hands. Typically it will fire a reduced load cartridge compared to a rifle and normally in modern construction the barrel will be rifled to improve accuracy. See also the entries for Automatic and Revolver.

Plinking
An American term for casual, non-precision shooting, usually aimed at informal targets such as tin cans etc.

POA Point of Aim
The point at which you aim.

POI Point of Impact
The point at which the projectile impacts the chosen target.

Primer
An explosive compound fitted either all around the rim of a rimfire cartridge case, or in a centrally mounted cap (usually replaceable) for centre fire cartridges. It is used to set off the main charge, OR, The small charge of fine grained Black Powder used to ignite the main charge of a Matchlock, Wheel Lock or Flintlock gun.

Progressive
Name given to a type of reloading press whereby one pull of the operating lever competes one stage of the process and allows the press to be moved to the next stage.

Projectile
The name given to any item coming out of the barrel of any type of gun when it is fired.

Propellant
Any substance which can be used to operate a gun by burning in a controlled manner. In the UK propellants are not subject to the laws governing explosives and so can be freely bought by anyone over the age of 16 without a licence. Propellants are substances that support the spread of combustion at speeds below that of sound (approximately 1100 fps). They cannot be sent through the post within the UK.

Proving safe
The action of demonstrating that a gun is not loaded.

Pump Action
A type of action that loads and ejects shells by pumping the forearm of the stock back and forth.

Pyrodex
A Black Powder substitute: in the UK it is classed as a propellant and is thus free of licensing restrictions. It is corrosive to steel and guns have to be cleaned thoroughly after use.

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Q

No entries for Q.

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R
Ramrod
A rod of non ferrous construction used to 'ram' the ball (or bullet) down the barrel of a muzzle loading gun so as to seat it firmly on the charge of Black Powder. It must be made of a material which cannot strike sparks off the steel of the barrel. The ramrod can also be used to determine if a muzzle loading gun is actually loaded, by marking it so that one can tell when it reaches the end of the chamber and thus indicates that there is no charge present.

Range
The distance from the firing point to the target, OR, The location, either indoors or outdoors at which shooting takes place.

Receiver
The part of a breech loading firearm comprising of the chamber end of the barrel with the loading / unloading port.

Recoil
The rearward movement of a gun when fired. Note that it is in general more comfortable to fire a gun with heavy recoil from the standing, rather than the prone position. See also: felt recoil.

Refuge
A safe haven for wildlife where human activity is restricted

Reloading
The practice of reloading brass cartridge cases with primer, propellant and bullet so as to use them again. With light target loads straight-walled brass cartridge cases can be reloaded 20+ times. Note that other materials than brass have been used for cases, but brass is the only material to date which has demonstrated sufficient flexibility and elasticity to allow successful reloading of high pressure ammunition.

Reticule
The aiming device built into a telescopic sight, usually in the form of cross-hairs for target shooting purposes. There are many different forms of reticule for sporting use.

Rifling
Spiral grooving in the bore of a firearm that is used to spin-stabilise the projectile and thus improve its accuracy after leaving the barrel. Rifling can be either clock, or anti-clockwise in direction and can have either an even, or an odd number of grooves. Pistols can and usually do have rifled barrels, the system is not unique to 'rifles'.

Rimfire
A system of priming a cartridge case where the primer is held in the rim of the case and is set off by the cartridge case rim being struck and crushed. The cases cannot be reloaded and the system is only suitable for low pressure ammunition such as the .22 commonly used for target shooting.

Rough Shooting
Form of sport which is not pre-planned. See Walked up

Round
A complete item of ammunition with all components present to allow the firing of one shot. It can take several forms: for modern metallic ammunition it consists of a cartridge case with fitted primer, main charge and projectile(s) all assembled together, that is all the components together required to fire one shot, OR, for muzzle loading guns it refers to all the required components either in loose, or part assembled form to fire one shot (see this glossary for description of individual items).

Round nose
A bullet with a rounded head such as used in most .22 rimfire target cartridges. These bullets need the use of a scoring gauge on the target in order to determine the true value of the shot, due to the way that the hole closes up after they have passed through the paper.

Rut Rutting
An annually recurring condition or period of sexual excitement and reproductive activity in male deer, OR, A condition or period of mammalian sexual activity, such as estrus.

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S
Sabot
A lightweight carrier in which a sub-calibre projectile is carried: it comes from the French for a clog or shoe. The term, Sabotage, comes from the practice, during the Industrial Revolution, of disenchanted workers throwing their sabots into the new-fangled machines in order to break them.

Safety Safety Catch
A mechanical device to reduce the likelihood of accidental discharge of any gun to which it is fitted (provided that it has been engaged at the time): not much used in target shooting circles.

Sear
The part of a gun's action that is 'tripped' by the trigger to release the hammer, or firing pin and initiate firing the cartridge.

Semi-automatic
A type of action automatically ejects the spent shell and loads another.

Semi-wadcutter
A bullet shape halfway between roundnose and wadcutter. Often used in semi-automatic guns to facilitate easy feeding of ammunition from the magazine to the chamber. The shape of the bullet head makes for a neater hole that is easier to score than that of a roundnose.

Serpent
The part of the action of a Matchlock gun which carries the match to the pan when the trigger is pulled in order to ignite the priming powder and hence fire the gun.

Set Trigger
A very light trigger that is prepared, or set, by the operation of either another lever, or by manipulating the trigger itself.

Sectional density
The ratio of the bullet mass to the square of its diameter in inches, so therefore SD=bullet weight in pounds / bullet diameter in inches2.

Shot
One of many pieces of lead or steel fired out of a shotgun cartridge, the person using a gun

Shot Pattern
The concentration of shot measured in a circle at a given range, usually 30 to 40 yards.

Shotshell
The ammunition fired by shotguns, consisting of five components: The case, primer, powder charge, wad, and shot.

Side-by-side
Shotgun in which one barrel is alongside the other

Sight
Device fitted to a gun to assist the aiming of it in relation to a target. Non optical sights are in two parts, the fore sight mounted at the muzzle end and the rear sight mounted as far to the rear as practical.

Sight adjustment
With adjustable rear sights, move the sight adjuster in the direction you wish the shot to go on the target. To move the shot right, move the rear sight to the right etc. Usually sights have right-hand threads on their adjusting screws and this means that clockwise = up on the elevation adjuster and clockwise = right on the lateral (or 'windage') adjuster.
With adjustable front sights, move the sight adjuster in the opposite direction that you wish the shot to go on the target.

Sighting picture
The appearance of the sights when they are correctly aligned with each other before the target is in view. See also, aiming picture.

Single Action
The type of firearm action whereby one pull of the trigger performs the single function of firing the gun. This term is often used to refer to revolvers, but it applies to all classes of firearm.

Skid shot
A shot that hits a turning target whilst it is turning and thus produces an elongated hole. Depending on the length of the 'skid' the shot may be discounted from the total score and thus count as a miss.

Smallarm
A military term used to mean any gun designed to be held in the hand when fired.

Smallbore
Generally taken to mean .22 rimfire.

Smokeless powder
A term usually used to refer to nitro powders. Note that nitro is not totally smoke-free, but compared to Black Powder (gun powder) it is a huge improvement.

Smoothbore
A gun which is not rifled and whose barrel is completely 'smooth' all the way from breech to muzzle. The projectile is not spin-stabilised and hence the guns are relatively inaccurate. The most common modern gun that is a smoothbore is a shotgun.

Snap Cap
An inert cartridge with a spring loaded primer, used to check gun functioning and for dry fire practice: see Dry Fire above.

Spotter
A companion to the shooter on the firing point, who undertakes recording the accuracy of shooting and can advise on wind conditions, especially for long range shooting.

Spotting Scope
A telescope on a stand, used to observe the position of a shot on the target from a distance and without having to retrieve it. This is done either by directly viewing the hole, or watching the signals of a marker in the butts (especially at long ranges). Normally a magnification of between 20 and 30 times is used.

Stalker
See Deer stalker

Sustainable harvest
The amount which can be shot without detriment to the population as a whole

Swaging
A process of manufacturing bullets out of lead wire using great pressure to cut and 'swage', or 'squeeze' the bullet into shape. Swaged bullets can be jacketed. This is not usually a practical proposition for home manufacture, due to the large forces and relatively expensive equipment involved.

Swiss
Very fine Black Powder, finer than FFFFg and used as a primer in muzzle loading guns.

Syndicate
Group of people who shoot together, sharing the costs of a day's or season's sport

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T
Tanning
The art or process of making leather from rawhides.

Target
The object, usually made of thin card, at which shooting is directed and which enables scoring of the results.

Telescopic Sight
A sight built into a telescope and designed such that the reticule and the target are in focus at the same time. For target shooting purposes the sight must have parallax correction to be of any use.

Throat
The unrifled part of the bore immediately in front of the chamber.

Throat erosion
The erosion of the throat area caused by the hot gasses of the propellant burning away the metal and limiting the barrel's useful life. This is mainly a problem of high pressure rifle cartridges.

Torque reaction
The tendency for the gun when fired to twist in the opposite direction to the rifling. This can be a real problem for pistols when shot single handed, less so for rifles.

Trajectory
See bullet path.

Trap
1. Mechanical device to capture legal pest and predatory species.
2. A device which throws clay pigeons

Trigger
The device normally operated by the shooter's index finger that initiates the firing of a gun.

Trigger Shoe
A device which fits over the standard trigger so as to offer a wider surface to the trigger finger and thus give the impression of reducing its apapparent weight.

Trigger stop
A device to limit the over-travel of a trigger when pulled: see over-travel above.

Trigger Weight
The weight that a trigger must support to comply with competition rules e.g. for air pistol it is 500 grams, for air rifle there is no lower limit as long as the gun is safe to use, or, the weight used to check a competitor's trigger before passing the gun as complying with the rules for shooting.

Turning Targets
A device, usually electrically operated (but may be pneumatic) that twists a target through 90o very rapidly so as to present the target to the shooter. Used in timed fire events and controlled by an electronic timer.

Twist
The turn of the rifling. For example a barrel with a 12 inch twist means that for every 12 inches of movement down the barrel towards the muzzle, the projectile makes one complete turn (revolution).

Two stage trigger
A type of trigger which has (normally) about half the trigger weight to fire the gun taken up by a relatively long rearward movement and the remainder by a crisp sudden let off. This is a device to enable easier shooting, by giving the shooter some idea as to how much weight has been taken up before the shot is fired.

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U

No entries for U.

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V

Velocity
The speed of a projectile after it has left the barrel normally measured in Feet Per Second.

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W

Wad
A disk, or series of disks of soft material used to seal the projectile and powder into the cartridge and or, gun.

Wadcutter
A bullet with a flat, circular head the same diameter all the way along its length. Especially used in target shooting as they punch a neat round hole the same diameter as the bullet and thus make scoring easier.

Wheel Lock
An early type of muzzle loader lock system which came before the flintlock. A spring driven wheel was released by the trigger. This spinning wheel struck a shower of sparks off a lump of pyrite which led to ignition of the priming charge and hence the main charge. Wheel Lock guns were expensive to make and relatively difficult to keep in good working order; as a consequence many were converted to Flintlock operation.

Wildcat
A cartridge designed and made by a handloader by altering an existing cartridge case and usually displaying enhanced velocity over the original donor cartridge.

Windage
The lateral sight adjustment so as to move the point of impact sideways on the target, this is usually, but not always done by the rear sight.

Wind-doping
The ability to read the changing wind conditions at long range outdoors, so as to be able to compensate for them on a shot-by-shot basis.

Wiping-out
A somewhat vague term, used to indicate the removal of oil from a muzzle loading gun before attempting to load it for the first time at a shoot and also the quick clean and squirt of oil down the barrel at the end of a shoot before packing up to leave the range.

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X

X-Ring
The name given to a smaller inner ring enclosed within the 10 ring and used as a tie-breaker. Normally the X-Ring does not have a numerical value: see also 'Inner 10' above.

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Y

Yaw
The motion of a bullet in flight spinning erratically around its own axis, this is mostly due to air pressure on the nose of the rotating projectile.

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Z

Zero
The sight settings in windage (lateral) and elevation (vertical) where the point of aim and the point of impact coincide. It can be set to any range desired.

Zoom
A term used to describe variable magnification optical devices. In the case of telescopic sights a magnification of about 4x is the maximum for shooting from the unsupported standing position, 10x for prone shooting and anything up to 30x and above, for bench-rest shooting.