Terminology of S&W Firearms

Admiral Lee sunk the Japanese battleship Kirishima with his 16" 45 caliber rifles.
 
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Admiral Lee sunk the Japanese battleship Kirishima with his 16" 50 caliber rifles.

Indeed. And all that shooting at innocent exotic birds the artillerymen did during the Civil War. You know, with those "Parrott Rifles" .....
 
How you feel about "skinny"?

Well, let's see. It is an adjective, so it is certainly better than "pencil". On the other hand, it's not as good as "tapered", since being tapered is a stand-alone attribute like being triangular; it's clear without needing a point of reference. "Skinny", however, begs the question "skinny compared to what?"
Compared to Jabba the Hut, I'm skinny, compared to Taylor Swift, not so much.
Semantics Nerd, over and out. ;)
 
Well, let's see. It is an adjective, so it is certainly better than "pencil". On the other hand, it's not as good as "tapered", since being tapered is a stand-alone attribute like being triangular; it's clear without needing a point of reference. "Skinny", however, begs the question "skinny compared to what?"
Compared to Jabba the Hut, I'm skinny, compared to Taylor Swift, not so much.
Semantics Nerd, over and out. ;)


Skinny and fat. Compared to each other. :p
 
Close to the Limit

How about Automatic Revolvers and revolvers with safety catches?

My gosh, now you are really trying to mess with our minds. Not to worry, Sir. I remember way back in the dim recesses of my memory that there in fact were "Automatic Revolvers" and "Revolvers with safety catches" developed and at least experimented with for feasibility and marketability. ...............
 
My gosh, now you are really trying to mess with our minds. Not to worry, Sir. I remember way back in the dim recesses of my memory that there in fact were "Automatic Revolvers" and "Revolvers with safety catches" developed and at least experimented with for feasibility and marketability. ...............

Actually there were several recoil-operated revolvers which were actually marketed, the most famous of which was the British Webley-Fosbery. I think there were also several German and American designs, but I don't remember their names. Seems like I remember that in "The Maltese Falcon," Archer was killed by someone who used a Webley-Fosbery.
 
Automatic revolvers were not only made in the early 20th century. The Mateba Autorevolver was made from 1997 through 2005 and imported into the U.S. They don't load their chambers automatically, so, gun vocabulary gurus, are Autorevolvers and Webley-Fosbery automatic revolvers auto-loaders?
 
Good Info

Automatic revolvers were not only made in the early 20th century. The Mateba Autorevolver was made from 1997 through 2005 and imported into the U.S. They don't load their chambers automatically, so, gun vocabulary gurus, are Autorevolvers and Webley-Fosbery automatic revolvers auto-loaders?

LOL! This is one of the reasons I am so fascinated by the world of firearms. Inventors', engineers'and gunsmiths' ingenuity shows no bounds and has been so since the conversion of firecracker explosive to gunpowder. My thought is the answer is NO, because the cylinder chambers are preloaded before firing. Therefore those Automatic Revolvers are only and exactly 'auto revolvers'. :-) ...................
 
Language is mutable. It changes and evolves, though not always for the better in my opinion. For example, the "verbing" of nouns and adjectives has become accepted practice. And even though it still sets my teeth on edge when I hear someone say, "We transitioned to a new operating system," I acknowledge it with a sigh of resignation.

Language is important, however. Lawyers and politicians have careers because they understand the importance of language and how to exploit it. For example, in my state we now have a ban on "large-capacity magazines." Notice that they didn't use the term "high-capacity magazines" because the words high and low beg a comparison where the words large and small do not. When someone says, "that's a high number of X," we immediately ask, "high compared to what?" Well, "It's high compared to last year," or "high compared to average," or "high compared to STANDARD." Uh-oh...that's where our politicians could run into trouble because a standard-capacity magazine can hold more rounds than they arbitrarily deem as "safe." On the other hand, they can say, "17 rounds is a large capacity because I say so" and be covered semantically even if not logically.
 
As a S&W purist, I have been promoting many of these terms for some time and receiving much flak for doing so.

Lemon squeezer, Ladysmith are other terms that fall into this area.


They have even recycled old workhorse terms like Ladysmith to become Lady Smith and Chief Special to become a semi automatic when we all know that a Chief Special will always be a small J frame revolver in .38 special. Oh, the horrors of change and progress??????

James
S&W never used the terms "Lemon squeezer, Ladysmith". It was the public. The later models were called those names.
 
Automatic revolvers were not only made in the early 20th century. The Mateba Autorevolver was made from 1997 through 2005 and imported into the U.S. They don't load their chambers automatically, so, gun vocabulary gurus, are Autorevolvers and Webley-Fosbery automatic revolvers auto-loaders?

I think it would depend on how you think of an autoloader.

If you consider the cylinder as a magazine (which it is - it holds the rounds that have not yet been fired), then when you shoot the gun, the gun automatically loads the next round into the firing position.

If you think that autoloader means that the gun loads the chamber on its own, then it's not, but neither is my 1911. I pick up the 1911, shove a loaded mag up the butt, and lay the gun on the table, it's not going to load itself, on its own. I have to load the chamber.

If I'm shooting CCI CB Longs in my 10/22, they don't have the umph to work the action. I have to feed them myself, for each shot. Is the gun still an autoloader?
 
James
S&W never used the terms "Lemon squeezer, Ladysmith". It was the public. The later models were called those names.

Don, perhaps I wasn't clear. I never meant to infer that these were S&W factory terms. Other than Chief Special that was a factory term and then recycled as a semi automatic. Terms like Ladysmith and Lemon Squeezer were public terms that were, at least in the case of the term Ladysmith recycled by the factory as Lady Smith.

I do believe that most collectors today identify with the term Ladysmith more so than the correct termonology of Model 22 Hand Ejector or Model M.

Since the original Chief Special was a J frame .38 special revolver and the Ladysmith was an M frame .22 revolver, reusing the names for a semi automatic and a J frame model 36, 60 and 65 respectively just seems in bad taste to me. Just my opinion. ;)
 
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