Magazine (firearms)
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A magazine (also called a mag or, commonly but incorrectly, especially when removable, a clip) is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a firearm. Magazines may be integral to the firearm (fixed) or removable (detachable).
The cartridges in the magazine are loaded into the firearm either automatically or manually depending on the type of gun, but almost always by a spring. Some magazines can in turn be loaded by a clip. The belt of linked ammunition used by most machine guns is an ammunition feeding device that is not a magazine, since it does not operate by feeding rounds out of a container.
The most common type of magazine is the detachable "box" type. Other types include the drum magazine, the "pan" magazine of the Russian DP-28 machine gun, and the fixed "tube" magazine found on many lever-action and semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns.
A particular firearm may use a variety of types of magazine, with some accepting both drum and box magazines of varying sizes, for example.
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[edit] Magazine types
[edit] Tubular
Many of the first repeating rifles, particularly lever-action types, used a tubular magazine which stored cartridges end-to-end inside of a spring-loaded tube typically running parallel to the barrel, although some early repeating rifles had tube magazines in the buttstock. This type of magazine is usually fixed to the firearm, meaning that it cannot be removed easily. The tubular magazine was made obsolete for most military purposes with the introduction of pointed "Spitzer" bullets, which risk igniting cartridges stored in the magazine as the pointed bullet impacts the primer of the centerfire cartridge ahead of it during recoil. Tubular magazines can still be found today, commonly in shotguns or firearms designed to use round-nose, flat-nose, or otherwise soft-pointed bullets. Such magazines can also be found in some rim-fire cartridge rifles intended for 22 Long Rifle cartridges. Some believe that tubular magazines tend to affect the harmonics of the barrel negatively, limiting the potential accuracy of the rifle.
[edit] Box
The most popular type of magazine in modern rifles and handguns, the box magazine stores cartridges in a column, either one above the other or staggered in a 'double stack' as it is called. As the firearm cycles, cartridges are moved to the top of the magazine, via spring tension, mounted beneath the cartridge stack. Box magazines may be built into the firearm or may be removable. Double-stack magazines can feed from a single position at the top or altrenate between one side and the other.
- An internal box magazine (also known as an integral, fixed, or if not visible, blind box magazine) is built into the firearm and not easily removable. This type of magazine is found most often on most pre-WWII military bolt-action rifles, as well as most modern bolt-action hunting rifles. An internal box magazine is usually loaded through the action, usually one round at a time. Military rifles utilized stripper clips or chargers, allowing multiple rounds to be loaded at once. Some internal box magazines utilize en-bloc clips, which are loaded into the magazine along with the ammunition and are ejected from the firearm along with the last spent case. Pistol magazines often fit entirely inside the gun, but they are detachable and so fall into the second category.
- A detachable box magazine is a self-contained magazine, capable of being loaded or unloaded while detached from the host firearm. They are attached via a slot in the receiver of the firearm, usually below the action. When the magazine is empty, it can simply be detached from the firearm and replaced by another full magazine. This significantly speeds the process of reloading the firearm, allowing the operator quick access to a relatively large amount of ammunition in a relatively short span of time. This type of magazine is common in most modern firearms and may be straight or curved, the curve necessary if the rifle uses rimmed ammunition or bottlenecked ammunition with a tapered case. In some situations, two or more detachable box magazines may be taped or otherwise attached together, allowing for faster access to a full reload. Magazines for the SIG 550 and G36 families of rifles have integrated attachment points for this purpose.
There are, however, exceptions to these rules. The Lee-Enfield rifles had a detachable box magazine only to facilitate cleaning. Others like the Breda Modello 30 had a fixed protruding magazine, which on first examination resembles a conventional detachable box, but are in fact loaded with clips. Furthermore, many rifles derived from hunting models have detachable blind magazines.
[edit] Rotary
The rotary or spool magazine consists of a star-shaped rotor, or sprocket, actuated by a torsion spring. The magazine may be fixed or detachable. Cartridges fit between the teeth of the sprocket, which is mounted on a spindle parallel to the bore axis, with the torsion spring providing the pressure necessary to rotate the rounds into the feeding position. Rotary magazines are usually of low capacity, from five to ten rounds, depending on the cartridge used.
The rotary magazine was first used in the Mannlicher-Schönauer rifles and is still used in a few modern firearm designs, most notably the Ruger 10/22 and the Steyr SSG 69.
[edit] Drum
Used in several light machine guns, submachine guns, and shotguns, a moving partition within a cylindrical chamber forces loose rounds into an exit slot, with the cartridges being stored parallel to the axis of rotation. After loading of the magazine, a wound spring or other mechanical force moves the partition against the rounds. The cylindrical design allows for larger capacity than boxes, without growing to excessive length, though the more complicated mechanism can lead to reliability problems. Many drum-fed firearms can also load from conventional boxes, such as the Russian RPK light machine gun and the American Thompson submachine gun.
Dual Drum magazines such as the 90 rounder and the Beta C-Mag are also available. They consist of two independent single column drums which feed into a double column arrangement between the two drums. These magazines are designed to increase the capacity of firearms originally designed to use detachable box magazines.
[edit] Pan
Often referred to as a drum magazine, the pan magazine differs from other drum magazines in that the cartridges are stored perpendicular to the axis of rotation, rather than parallel, and are usually mounted on top of the firearm. This type is used on the American-180 submachinegun, the Lewis Gun, and the Degtyarev light machine gun.
[edit] Helical
Helical magazines extend the drum magazine design so that rounds follow a spiral path, allowing for a very large ammunition capacity in a compact package. They have been used on the Calico 960 and Bizon submachine guns, but require a complex mechanism.
[edit] Hopper
The Gatling gun, Gardner gun, and others employed a hopper to feed loose ammunition through gravity from the top of the firearm. The Japanese Type 11 Light Machine Gun employed a hopper to feed loose stripper clips rather than loose rounds. Due to the lack of mechanical control, hoppers tend to be less reliable than positive feeding systems.
[edit] Belts
Another type of feeding system generally used in machine guns is the belt. It is not itself a magazine, but serves the same purpose of delivering rounds of ammunition to the chamber. Belts differ from magazines in that the machine gun actually draws the next round into the chamber with the recoil or gas energy from the previous round fired. Belts are commonly held in boxes or cloth bags that are directly attached to the weapon such as the M60 machine gun and the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), making them more closely resemble magazines.
[edit] Strips
Similar to belts, firearms such as the Japanese Type 92 and Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns fed from strips of cartridges. These strips were rigid and inserted manually from the side of the gun.
[edit] Harmonica slide
An early form of magazine was the harmonica gun. Cartridges were preloaded into a steel slide inserted from the side of the gun. Slides generally had a capacity of three or four rounds and advances similarly to the rotating cylinder of a revolver.
[edit] High capacity magazines
The term high capacity magazine is a term used to describe magazines with a certain arbitrary capacity. This term is generally used as a pejorative and has no definition beyond the media and various legislation enacted within the United States.
This term originally referred to "extended" pistol and rifle magazines which hold more than the "standard-capacity" factory-designed magazines, and/or "double-stack" magazines which have higher capacity than a "single-stack" design. However, in various jurisdictions where ammunition capacity is restricted to a set limit, many double-column or detachable rifle magazines as originally designed by the factory have more than this limit and are banned as "high-capacity" in those jurisdictions. The term currently has a pejorative connotation because of its common use by the media in connection with violent crime. It has no universal definition; the term is largely defined according to state and local legislation enacted within the United States. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban in effect from 1994-2004 defined "high capacity" as holding more than 10 rounds if removable, 5 rounds if fixed. Some state and local jurisdictions and the media still enforce this 10-round limit. Other jurisdictions ban more than 15, 18, or 20 rounds allowing more "standard-capacity" magazines, while some states have no restriction on capacity allowing use of "extended" and "drum" magazines which can hold many more rounds. These magazines are generally regarded as novelty items as they hinder concealed carry but often find use in competitions and home defense situations.
For a description and legal definitions of high capacity or large capacity magazines, see Federal Assault Weapons Ban
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