Why people call Mags clips?
 

I want to know the origins of why people still call mags clips.

I've long since stopped correcting people because it never ends. I just want to know where it began

I form conjectures about this too. I think it originated with the mix of relatively new detachable magazine fed firearms with older firearms having fixed box magazines loaded by clips during the years around the Second World War. Whatever the case, magazines are not the same thing as clips and I usually explain that to people unless I feel it's going to incite an argument or something.

Pervasive ignorance of firearms terminology by the general public is the main reason.

Personally I don't get why people get all butt-hurt about it.

People don't get "butt-hurt" over it, they don't like it because it displays ignorance of very basic terminology. It's as incorrect as saying a lever arch file is a paperclip.

I'm with you. I think some people's favorite thing to do is to correct someone else when they call it a clip, to make themselves feel like an expert. My dad calls it a clip, his best friend calls them clips and he's a Vietnam vet. I've seen gun articles from the '90s where they were called clips. I always thought it was because of the Garand taking an en bloc clip.

I've never corrected anyone who's called it a clip. But I will keep referring it as a magazine in the conversation. For instance I was showing my SIG P220 to one of brothers friend he asked if they make an extended clip for it, I said they make a 10 round magazine for it.

It cant be ignorance if big companies in the industry also call them clips...take a look at at Marlin 17hmr rifle box because it says that the gun comes with a 4rd & 7rd clip....hmmmm....if marlin calls it a clip can people be concidered 100% wrong.

Around here clips and magazines are practically interchangeable. One notable gun store here has an old bucket helmet full of 1911 "clips." I know I called them magazines or clips up until several years ago when I was enlightened by you guys.

It's most likely because the people who wrote the advertisement is also wrong. Just because an "expert" says it, doesn't mean it is right all the time. People can be wrong

And I checked their site, Marlin actually calls them "clip magazines"

Does it really make a difference if someone refers to a mag as a clip. If you search 30 round clip in google search you'll get back 30 round magazine as a search result. Magazine and clip nowadays are interchangeable terms. Bagging on someone for calling a magazine a clip is just nitpicking. Stripper clip on the other hand.

It's not nitpicking since they are different in a simple technical sense. They are both different items and perform different functions. I agree it's one thing to correct someone for technical purposes and another to do it for the sake of being an elitist asshole, but small details matter in pretty much every hobby.

I find myself doing what predator20 does mostly though, constant reference to the item being a magazine and not a clip when referring to a magazine, as it's the most subtle and mannerly way of letting the correct information get out. Rarely do I outwardly dispute the difference between a magazine and a clip unless I'm among company who respects me and who I respect enough to know it's not about ego, it's just about correct terminology.

Depends, does it really matter if someone calls a TEC-9 a machine gun or an M1 Garand an assault rifle?

A tech 9 a machine gun? Ok, that's kinda true.

An M1 is NOT an assault rifle in any sense of the definition because it isn't select fire.

Um, except the part where it's semi-automatic. :confused:

Not really.
Though the M1 Garand's a bit of a stretch and TEC-9s can be machine guns..
All I'm saying is clip is now modern vernacular for magazine.

Perception is reality

Although I always use the term "magazine" myself, I think it's way too OCD and Aspergian to constantly correct others who use the wrong term. At the end of the day, it's a stupid thing to obsess over.

For the record, my grandfather carried a 1911 in WWII. He often tells me a story about how his platoon held its position during a Wehrmacht counter-offensive with very little ammo, and he always says that he had only "half a clip" for his 1911. Although my Dad and I agree that the story itself is probably exaggerated, I just think it's interesting that my grandfather says "clip" to refer to the magazine of his 1911. Apparently, this was acceptable at the time, before the Mazryonhs of the world gained the ability to proselytize over the Internet.

Watching my History Channel Tales of the Gun series, a lot of the old timers they have guests do actually say clip, but they also say magazine

The thing is, by that logic, a TEC-9 is a machine gun and an M1 Garand is an assault rifle, depending on someones definition or "perception" of the terms or weapons. What I'm saying is that in purely definitional terms, clips and magazines are different devices. Connotatively they are the same, but by definition (at least as I know them) they are not, just as those weapons are connotatively something to someone when they aren't to someone else.

Now without getting too deep into it and too technical, I understand appreciating that thee two terms are colloquially interchanged today, but just the same, it should be respected and understood that in a purely technical sense, they are different.

uh what? TEC-9 is NOT a machine gun. The full auto version CAN be called a submachine gun since it fires a pistol cartridge, but NOT a machine gun. A Machine gun fires rifle cartridges and higher (though when it's a lot higher it's either a HEAVY machine gun or an auto cannon). One could call it a machine pistol since it was NOT originally designed to be fire with a shoulder stock (like an Uzi, MP5, MP40, etc).

Here is my own rule of thumb list:

1) Machine pistol - fires pistol cartridge - (a full auto version of a handgun aka Glock 18 or Beretta 93R) or a full auto weapon designed to be fired either via one hand or without a buttstock (Tec-9, Micro Uzi (the version with no stock), Mauser 712, etc) For the purists, the stock for the Mauser 712 was also the stock for the non full auto Mauser

2) Submachine gun (any select/full auto weapon) that fires a pistol cartridge and was originally or generally is offered with a folding or telescoping stock. Examples: Uzi, Madsen M50, MP40, MP18, M1928 Thompson, etc.

3) Carbine (any shortened and lightened version of a full sized assault or battle rifle for specialty usage) like an XM-177E1 or a dedicated semi auto rifle like an M1 Carbine or short specialty manually operated rifle like a cavalry carbine (Carcano Cavalry Carbine M91/38, etc.)

4) Assault Rifle - Any select fire rifle that fires an intermediate cartridge (between a pistol and a full sized rifle cartridge)

5) Main Battle Rifle - Any infantry rifle that fires a full rifle cartridge. Some argue that .308 is an intermediate cartridge, but then people argue whether or not the G3 or FN FAL are assault rifles or MBRs. Depends on what you think a full sized rifle cartridge is. Either way, the M1 garand is a MBR as well as any Bolt action rifle that was fielded.

6) Squad automatic weapon/Light Machine Gun - a fire support Machine gun that fires the same intermediate cartridge as the rest of the infantry squad. (M249, RPK, RPD)

7) General Purpose Machine gun - a belt fed machine gun that fires a round that is not used by the rest of the squad (M60, M240, PKM )

8) Machine gun - belt fed machine gun (more vintage term) a crew served weapon that fires the same FULL SIZED rifle round as the rest of the squad (M1919, M1917, M1908 Maxim, .303 Vickers, MG42, etc)

9) Heavy Machine gun - any sort of machine gun that fires a round that is normally too large to be carried by any other squad infantry member, the most common example is the .50 BMG, even though in recent years we have seen marksmen using the Barrett 50 cal rifles in combat. (M2HB, M3, DShK, _

10) Auto cannon - 25mm Bushmaster, 40mm Bofors, etc.

:D

With all due respect, that's my point, the item in question is whatever the person or persons define it as. In this case, these guys are allowing common vernacular by ignorant or uninformed people (again, with all due respect) to define the term for them, when in fact there are true technical definitions or at the very least an opposing common vernacular used by more educated people like yourself or other gun enthusiasts. The two answers as to what something is are what it is according to actual definition of terms (which can be wide ranged and very complicated) or what groupthink among people allow it to be (which is not always accurate), and that's the way it is.

Well a TEC-9 can be a machine-gun by the basic dictionary or the US legal meaning of a firearm shooting more than one bullet with a pull of the trigger.

Also the 'perception' of mags being clips and so on is reality because it is very prolific. Not so much "tec-9 machinegun, m1 garand assault rifle". If I picked a random individual on the street he or she would likely not even know what a tec 9 or a m1 garand is. Also if said person knew of these firearms by name, more likely than not they would know that said firearm is not an mg or assault rifle.

Well, sure, but the actual meaning of the words doesn't match common usage. That's not really uncommon (for example, it's really common to call a weapon system like Phalanx a "turret" when it's correctly called an "installation" since it doesn't cross the armour of the thing it's mounted on) and in conversation as long as the person you're talking to understands what you mean it doesn't matter, but it's still not correct.

While I'd agree obsessing over it isn't good and people go overboard, it's the same question as if someone you know is trying to use deodorant to cover that they haven't washed (and failing). Sure, they might take offence if you tell them, or they might honestly not know it isn't working and be glad you saved them embarassing themselves. And in the end it isn't your fault for pointing it out unless you're a dick about doing so.

Well, it's more that someone who uses a weapon for a living doesn't really have to care too much about what the correct terms are for the various bits of it. For, say, the guy at the depot trying to work out if the guys on the front want thirty cases of preloaded mags or thirty cases of stripper clips, then it's a bit more of an issue. (Let's not even get into things like what ground crews think of pilots' knowledge of their aircraft).

Well yeah, but by the US legal meaning a sear can be a machine gun, even though a sear isn't a gun at all.

That's not exactly quantifiable.

Of a block of metal with a S/N stamped on it that has a Tax stamp associated with it. Remember when the ATF tried to declare a 'shoelace' when tied to the trigger of a weapon whose vibration would initiate another firing pin actuation, to be a machine gun. Yes, a SHOELACE would be a machine gun if attached to a semiauto rifle. Either way that is WHY no historian or scholar would use the Lawyer's definition of a machine gun.

According to government lawyers, if you spill a bunch of water on your own property and don't drain it in less than 30 days, that property magically becomes a 'wetland' and is protected by the EPA. Doesn't matter that NO environmental scientist or botanist or whatever would EVER even look at that land as a 'wetland'.

Acceding to Lawyer speak in this realm means giving in to 'crazy town' definitions.

Never heard of preloaded mags coming straight from the depot.

I'm playing devil's advocate and yeah it's incorrect practice to call a mag a clip.
I just think it's obnoxious to snap on someone for something small like that.

As I recall, wasn't the reason that failed because a shoelace would be a machine gun even if it wasn't attached to the rifle? I guess they were hoping that by now America would be free of everything but grandfathered shoelaces and they could get on to tackling the threat of velcro.

I thought I'd heard of it being done, though I can see why you wouldn't, it's just asking for springs to fail on you. Still, just empty mags would be the same problem if you wind up with 30 cans of them when you wanted 30 cans of bullets.

Well, depends on usage, really. If you discuss things at a technical level a lot you need the terms to mean different things since otherwise it's rather hard to explain, say, what the difference is between a Mauser C96 and an M712 (one uses a 10-round clip and the other uses...a 10-round clip? A 10-round detachable clip? But, um, isn't the first one's clip...argh). Obviously the "perception" argument doesn't apply to the things themselves; if you put a C96 clip and a Schnellfeuer box magazine on the table side by side, no matter who looks at them it will be clear they are two different things. The trouble is the common usage leaves no word to describe one but not the other.

To give the example I should have given to begin with, "chaingun" is a good example of a term almonst universally used incorrectly. You ask your average man on the street what a chaingun is and you'll almost certainly have a gatling gun described to you. Which is fine until you're trying to explain what kind of gun a Bradley has and realise the actual term for it doesn't mean what it's supposed to anymore.

Maybe it is a regional thing (I'm from England) but I have never heard someone refer to a rifle magazine as a clip, only pistol magazines. Also soldiers today definitely know the difference between a magazine and a clip, otherwise you would get situations like you carry 8 clips in your webbing and 15 clips in a bandolier and to fill up a clip you empty 3 clips into it. This is just my personal opinion, but I've always thought that the reason clip is used rather than magazine is because it is a "cooler" sounding word, so gets overused (relative to the correct term magazine) in films, television and music, leading to people thinking it is the correct term. Personally I won't correct someone if they use the term incorrectly in conversation, I will just take that as a cue that I probably know more about the subject than them.