Terminology of S&W Firearms

  • .38/200 British Service Revolver not a .38 S&W M&P ("Victory Model" is weak but acceptable if "V" SN.)
  • .44 Hand Ejector not "Tripple Lock"
  • A 38 British Service Revolver is "reamed" to accept .38 S&W Special but a 38/44 is not reamed to accept .357
  • .45 Colt - Leave the "Long" behind.
  • "Beakeart"? - Prove it
  • "Banana Grips"? - come on now.
IMHO Here is one we should not encourage ".45 Hand Ejector U.S. Service Model of 1917"

While we are on the topic; why is an "ejector shroud" called a "lug" when it goes to the end of the barrel?
 
In the 50 years since I was 10 years old, trying to communicate with a WIDE variety of people (e.g. different background, geographical area, language, education, mechanical skills, intelligence, age ....) you must know a vast vocabulary of interpretive words, some including hand signs or motions ( I warn you all, hold our tongue on the Italian cracks like how do you get an Italian to stop talking ... by tying his hands ... I warn you DON'T DO IT ) to state precisely the part you choose to buy, sell, fix ... etc. the bottom line is .... if the both people completely understand each other, IT IS ALL GOOD, and there are NO wrong words. All in agreement say HEY !! (Hey Mike, this is the double whammy just for you)
 
k22fan said:
I associate "auto-loader" with old rifle literature, not writings about handguns. As previously posted, until fairly recently handguns were ordinarily called automatics. Occasionally gun writers who were desperate to meet their word quota would point out that calling ordinary pistols automatics must be technically wrong because in the military "automatic rifle" meant BAR or M14, full autos. They were entirely ignored.
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The earliest John Browning pistol patents from the 1890s used only the term "Firearm." A Browning patent issued in 1902 was the first to use the term "Automatic Firearm."

From the very beginning of production, Colt called their products "Colt Automatic Pistols." Also the earliest 20th Century Colt patent literature used the term "Automatic Firearm."

When the Model 1911 was adopted, the official U. S. Army nomenclature assigned for it was "Automatic Pistol, Calibre .45 Model of 1911."

Therefore, it appears that use of "Automatic" as a pistol descriptor has the historical originality precedent due to its being the first used to describe such a pistol. But there is nothing incorrect about using autopistol or autoloading pistol or semi-automatic pistol. They just weren't first.
 
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My main peeve is with people who mis-pronounce the brand name of our favorite hand guns.

They actually leave out the letters, T,E, and R; and put in an additional "S", and the letter "O", and deliberately say it like, Smith & WESSON !
 
rog8732 said:
My main peeve is with people who mis-pronounce the brand name of our favorite hand guns.

They actually leave out the letters, T,E, and R; and put in an additional "S", and the letter "O", and deliberately say it like, Smith & WESSON !
Click to expand...

I GET ANNOYED WHEN ONE IS CALLED A SMITH & WESTIN………..
 
You gonna pull those pistols, or whistle dixie? .... Josey Wales didn't seem to know he was in the wrong...... :-> I used to correct folks on some terminologies but care less as the years go by....and after living in north, south, east and west, I've come to appreciate the vocabulary of many different local lingo within our American society...it makes people interesting to me. Now, go ahead, skin that smoke wagon and see what happens!
 
Seriously

DWalt said:
The earliest John Browning pistol patents from the 1890s used only the term "Firearm." A Browning patent issued in 1902 was the first to use the term "Automatic Firearm."

From the very beginning of production, Colt called their products "Colt Automatic Pistols." Also the earliest 20th Century Colt patent literature used the term "Automatic Firearm."

When the Model 1911 was adopted, the official U. S. Army nomenclature assigned for it was "Automatic Pistol, Calibre .45 Model of 1911."

Therefore, it appears that use of "Automatic" as a pistol descriptor has the historical originality precedent due to its being the first used to describe such a pistol. But there is nothing incorrect about using autopistol or autoloading pistol or semi-automatic pistol. They just weren't first.
Click to expand...

This thread has been fun and entertaining, but I have a serious question; ...... Was the acronym "acp" first used in the description of the newly introduced .45acp for the M 1911, and if so, what did they actually stand for back then/now? I won't state what I think. I would rather hear it from the historians. ............. Big Cholla
 
Big Cholla said:
This thread has been fun and entertaining, but I have a serious question; ...... Was the acronym "acp" first used in the description of the newly introduced .45acp for the M 1911, and if so, what did they actually stand for back then/now? I won't state what I think. I would rather hear it from the historians. ............. Big Cholla
Click to expand...

Actually, early references to the cartridge use .45 CAP as its name (Colt Automatic Pistol). I have also seen references to .32 CAP and .380 CAP. I have even seen CAPH (H=hammerless, .32 and .380 pistols) Somewhere along the line, someone must have felt that switching the C and A had some advantage. Or maybe they just didn't like calling it a .45 "CAP". The official U. S. Army cartridge name is neither .45 ACP nor .45 CAP - it's "Pistol Ball Caliber .45 M1911 (or Model of 1911 on early boxes)."

Didn't the short-lived .45 GAP stand for .45 "Glock Automatic Pistol"? I guess it's still around, but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time. Now if they had named it the .45 AGP, it might have been a marketing success story. I have an interesting tale about the .45 GAP as a potential military pistol cartridge, but it it's too long and involved to discuss here, and nothing ever came of it anyway.
 
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"D", so you are saying the original acronym "acp" was convoluted from "cap" and that stood for "Colt Automatic Pistol"? Then it follows that the answer to my question is that "acp" stands for "Automatic Colt Pistol". In my reading on JM Browning, that is the meaning that I gathered. I did a college thesis on JMB. It was more fun than almost any other thing I did for a college credit.

And getting back to the OP's theme for this thread; Colt nor JMB called his Design of 1911 "Colt's Semi-Automatic Pistol". It was only after JMB developed for the Army his two famous machine guns did the marketing departments of most of the big firearm manufacturers start making the distinction between 'Automatic and Semi-Automatic" actions. .............
 
Absalom said:
As for the grips vs. stocks, has somebody pointed out yet that Roy Jinks in his letters ALWAYS calls them "grips"? Interestingly, in the Colt letters, they are always stocks.
And the two parts of a grip are not sides or pieces, but panels (on whose authority? Mine, of course!).

The problem I have always had with applying the term "stocks" to a handgun's grip is that stock already has a more comprehensive meaning in firearms terminology. A rifle has a stock, which consists of a lot more than just the grip; an AK's stock has four parts, the buttstock, the grip, the forearm, and the handguard. So calling a couple of wood slabs attached to the grip "stocks" just seems a bit pretentious.

But maybe Haggis is right. I'm overthinking this; I should just go have a nice dram of Dickel's.
Click to expand...

Don't we all know what we are talking about no matter what term is used?
Folks just need to get a grip. :D
 
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