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Contrary to popular belief, “AR” doest NOT stand for “Automatic Rifle” or “Assault Rifle”. The “AR” actually comes from the name of the company that first mass produced a rifle known as the AR15. The company’s name is Armalite. The development of the original AR15 was lead by one of the greatest firearms designers of the 20th century, Eugene Stoner [..]

The term “automatic firearm”, or sometimes just “automatic” really is a misnomer and is often misused. What are often refered to as automatic pistols such as the Glock 19 or the Beretta 92 are actually semi-automatic firearms. This means they fire one bullet each time the trigger is pulled (see above for the definition of semi-automatic). People of [..]

Blowback refers to a semiautomatic pistol action in which the top (or “slide”) of the pistol is forced backwards by the gases expelled when a bullet cartridge is fired. The blowback motion ejects the spent round and loads the next round into the firing chamber.

Put simply, the breach is the back of a firearm. More specifically the back portion of the gun where the firing chamber is located.

Nearly all modern firearms and just about any firearm manufactured since the mid-19th century is a breach loading-loading firearm. This simply means that the round is loaded into the gun near the rear of the firearm rather than dropped down the muzzle (or front) of the gun the way muskets and similar single-shot firearms were loaded in the centurie [..]

Burst firing is a type of automatic firing mode whereby multiple rounds are fired with a single pull of the trigger. This is commonly found only in military rifles as in most countries civilians are not allowed to own automatic firearms or they have to get special licensing to own automatics. One of the most historically relevant firearms to fire i [..]

Caliber refers to the size of a bullet and also the barrel of a gun. Specifically, caliber refers to the diameter of the bullet or the inside of the barrel. Read more about bullet caliber and bullet sizes here

The action of expelling spent bullet cartridges (or casings) from a firearm and subsequently loading a fresh round into the firing chamber is know as cycling.

Machine Guns are any style of firearm that can fire in fully automatic mode meaning that the weapon will continue to fire as long as the trigger is held down and there is ammunition being fed into the chamber. Machine guns were outlawed for civilian use in the United States under the National Firearms Act of 1934. In the United States, only civilia [..]