This design originated with the British gunmaker Holland & Holland for the purpose of headspace certain of their more powerful cartridges. Belted magnum or belt: Any caliber cartridge, generally rifles, using a shell casing with a pronounced 'belt' around its base that continues 2 to 4 mm past the extractor groove.Belt: An ammunition belt is a device used to retain and feed cartridges into some machine guns in place of a magazine.

Bayonet lug: An attachment point at the muzzle end of a long gun for a bayonet.

Battle rifle: A service rifle capable of semi-automatic or fully automatic fire of a full-power rifle cartridge.

Often broken down into internal ballistics, transitional ballistics, external ballistics and terminal ballistics.

Ballistics: a field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behavior and impact effects of projectiles.

BC is a function of mass, diameter, and drag coefficient. It is inversely proportional to the deceleration – a high number indicates a low deceleration.

Ballistic coefficient (BC): A measure of a projectile's ability to overcome air resistance in flight.

On machine guns, a barrel nut is a screw on component at the rear of the barrel that has locking lugs and a notch for quick barrel change and helps install it in the trunnion. On handguards, a barrel nut may refer to the component that holds the handguards to the barrel.

Barrel nut: A firearm component used on barrels.

Barrel: A tube, usually metal, through which a controlled explosion or rapid expansion of gases are released to propel a projectile out of the end at high velocity.

They are, however, still commonly used with shotguns, as a traditional bandolier conveniently stores individual shells. Bandoliers are now rare because most military arms use magazines, which are not well-suited to being stored in a bandolier.

Bandolier or bandoleer: A pocketed belt for holding ammunition and cartridges, usually slung over the chest.

Done in an attempt to reduce felt recoil, improve patterning, or change the balance of the shotgun.

Back bore, backbored barrel: A shotgun barrel whose internal diameter is greater than nominal for the gauge, but less than the SAAMI maximum.

Automatic rifle: A self-loading rifle that is capable of automatic fire.

Automatic pistol: A pistol that is capable of automatic fire a machine pistol.

Automatic fire: A weapon capable of automatic fire is one that will continually expend ammunition for as long as the trigger is held.

Assault weapon: A term used in some jurisdictions within the United States, usually used to describe semi-automatic rifles that fire from a detachable magazine.

Assault rifle: A service rifle capable of semi- or full automatic fire, that fires intermediate cartridges.

Since the design of the cartridge, the meaning has been transferred to the assembly of a projectile and its propellant in a single package.

Ammunition or ammo: Gunpowder and artillery.

Adjustable sight: Iron sights that allow the user to change the markings, intended for firing at multiple possible ranges.The mechanism that fires a muzzleloader is called the lock. A firearm action is technically not present on muzzleloaders as all loading is done by hand. Actions are generally categorized by the type of mechanism used.

The term refers to the method in which cartridges are loaded, locked, and extracted from the mechanism. Action: The physical mechanism that manipulates cartridges and/or seals the breech.Accurize, accurizing: The process of altering a stock firearm to improve its accuracy.

Man shooting hot brass at range