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by Juba The Baghdad Sniper on August 3rd, 2008
A clip feeds into an internal magazine, such as in the M1 garand of Mosin Nagant. It is simply a small metal rod that you can feed bullets into beforehand to load them quickly.
A magazine is something that feeds bullets into the gun to fire, either internal like in the two guns mentioned above, or external, like in the M4, AK74, or almost any modern assault rifle.
The terms got confused by people raised around WWII vets who called what they reloaded with a "clip" because, well, it was. However, the proper term for anything you remove from a gun, fill with bullets, and replace into the magazine well, is a magazine, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
by Ascendent Gerbil on August 3rd, 2008
heres a simple chart to explain the difference
by bigjohn on January 4th, 2008
A clip is not a magazine and a magazine is not a clip. For instance, an M-1 used a clip to load its magazine.
by philosopher-saint on March 28th, 2008
A "clip" is like the deal in an M-1 military rifle. A "magazine" is all the others around. People who say "clips" in reference to modern weapons watch too much TV! ;-)
by JohnOBonno on October 8th, 2009
I've heard people call a magazine a clip, but this is the first time I've ever heard it the other way around. A magazine stores ammunition. A clip binds ammunition. A (weapon) magazine is any device which stores ammunition In such a position as to enable the weapon bolt to feed ammunition into the chamber for firing.
It can be a tubular magazine under the barrel (such as your pump shotgun or Remington .22 repeater, Marlin .30-30 for example) it can be an internal (non removable), such as the M-1 Garand or most bolt action rifles which load from the top with the bolt open to allow loading.
It can be a removable box which pushes the ammunition upward from the bottom by means of a spring,
It can be a drum which takes advantage of it's larger size to hold more ammunition than a box, also spring operated.
A clip on the other hand binds bullets together to prepare them for loading into a magazine.
An M1 Garand has uses both simultaneously and this is the genesis of the moniker of *clip* being erroneously used in place of magazine. In combat it was common for a man load a *clip* into the magazine, the men handled clips all day long.
When the military began using detachable box magazines, some still referred to them as a clip. Ironically during that period of transition it was not uncommon to do a ton of pushups for getting caught calling a magazine a clip. We still see clips in use today, clips are used to bind together revolver cartridges for easy loading into the cylinders (individual chambers), we call this a speed loader. Some revolvers which fire rimless ammo (Automatic chambering cartridges) use a half moon clip which holds the un- rimmed rounds at their rear and prevents them from seating improperly into the cylinder thus causing a malfunction.
Most military battle rifle ammunition comes pre loaded on a stripper clip, you stick the end of the stripper clip into the rear top of the magazine to line up the cartridges and push the entire line directly into the magazine.
Now get down and give me fifty! ;)
by Fiddle Playing Creole Bastard on October 6th, 2009
The two are not the same, and your question would more adequately be phrased as "Why is a magazine referred to as a clip?"
The two are definitely not the same.
A clip is usually a metal frame that holds cartridges together to elicit easy loading of a magazine. There are different types of clips, such as stripper clips which are used to guide cartridges into a magazine (such as in the Mauser, Lee Enfield, and Mosin Nagant rifles) and En-bloc clips which remain in the magazine and eject after all rounds have been expended (such as in the M1 Garand and the Steyr Mannlicher).
A magazine is the detachable or permanently attached receptacle for which holds cartridges and feeds them into the chamber of a gun. They are usually of the detachable "box" type, such as in the Ak-47 and the M-16, or the permanently fixed type, such as in most bolt-action rifles.
Hollywood and gangsta rap has permanently inserted this misconception into modern culture. Always remember that clips do not really = magazines. Clips are used to easily load magazines.
by BlahJay on March 28th, 2008
Simply, a magazine is the fully enclosed storage of bullets, whereas a clip is the part that actually binds the bullets together.
So a clip is one of the parts of a magazine.
by chuck on March 28th, 2008
a clip and a magazine are the same or one or the other a magazine has a cetain ring to it where as a clip is more of a Jargon term. you know what i mean.
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Comments
Excellent, Juba! Thanks for un-confusing the confused. +6
by Anonymous on August 3rd, 2008
I love you Juba
by Anonymous on August 4th, 2008
I love you to. :3
by Juba The Baghdad Sniper on August 5th, 2008