Magazine (firearms)
A magazine, often simply called a mag, is an ammunition storage and feeding device for a repeating firearm, either integral within the gun or externally attached. The magazine functions by holding several cartridges within itself and sequentially pushing each one into a position where it may be readily loaded into the barrel chamber by the firearm's moving action. The detachable magazine is sometimes colloquially referred to as a "clip," although this is technically inaccurate since a clip is actually an accessory device used to help load ammunition into the magazine or cylinder of a firearm.
Magazines come in many different shapes and sizes from integral tubular magazines on lever-action and pump-action rifles and shotguns that may hold more than 5 rounds to detachable box magazines and drum magazines for automatic rifles and light machine guns that may hold more than 50 rounds. Various jurisdictions ban what they define as "high-capacity magazines".
Nomenclature
With the increased use of semi-automatic and automatic firearms, the detachable magazine became increasingly common. Soon after the adoption of the M1911 pistol, the term "magazine" was settled on by the military and firearms experts. Although the term "clip" is often used to refer to detachable magazines, this usage remains a point of strong contention. The defining difference between a clip and a magazine is the presence of a feed mechanism, typically a spring-loaded follower, which a clip lacks. Whereas a magazine consists of four parts: a spring, a spring follower, a body, and a base. Whereas a clip may be constructed out of a single continuous piece of stamped metal and may contain no moving parts. Examples of clips include moon clips for revolvers; stripper clips, as those used in association with speedloaders for modern military rifles; and en bloc clips for older M1 Garand military rifles.History
The earliest firearms were loaded with powder and a lead ball in paper, and to fire more than a single shot without reloading required multiple barrels, such as in pepper-box guns, double-barreled rifles, double-barreled shotguns, or multiple chambers, such as in revolvers. The main problem with these solutions is that they increase the bulk and/or weight of a firearm, over a firearm with a single barrel and/or single chamber. However, many attempts were made to get multiple shots from loading a single barrel through the use of superposed loads. While some early repeaters such as the Kalthoff repeater managed to operate using complex systems with multiple feed sources for ball, powder, and primer, easily mass-produced repeating mechanisms did not appear until self-contained cartridges were developed in the 19th century.Early tubular magazines
The first successful mass-produced repeating weapon to use a "tubular magazine" permanently mounted to the weapon was the Austrian Army's Girandoni air rifle, first produced in 1779.The first mass-produced repeating firearm was the Volcanic Rifle which used a hollow bullet with the base filled with powder and primer fed into the chamber from a tube called a "magazine" with an integral spring to push the cartridges in to the action, thence to be loaded into the chamber and fired. It was named after a building or room used to store ammunition. The anemic power of the Rocket Ball ammunition used in the Volcanic doomed it to limited popularity..
The Henry repeating rifle is a lever-action, breech-loading, tubular magazine-fed repeating rifle, and was an improved version of the earlier Volcanic rifle. Designed by Benjamin Tyler Henry in 1860, it was one of the first firearms to use self-contained metallic cartridges. The Henry was introduced in 1860 and was in production until 1866 in the United States by the New Haven Arms Company. It was adopted in small quantities by the Union Army in the American Civil War and was favored for its greater firepower than the standard issue carbine. Many later found their way Westward and was famed both for its use at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and being the basis for the iconic Winchester lever-action repeating rifle, which is still in production to the present day. The Henry and Winchester rifles would go on to see service with a number of militaries including Turkey. Switzerland and Italy adopted similar designs.
The second magazine-fed firearm to achieve widespread success was the Spencer repeating rifle, which was designed by Christopher Miner Spencer in 1860, also saw military service during the American Civil War. The Spencer used a tubular magazine located in the butt of the gun instead of under the barrel and it used rimfire metallic cartridges. The Spencer was successful, but the rimfire ammunition did occasionally ignite in the magazine tube and destroy the magazine. It could also injure or kill the user.
The new bolt-action rifles began to gain favor with militaries in the mid-1880s and were often equipped with tubular magazines. The Mauser Model 1871 was originally a single-shot action that added a tubular magazine in its 1884 update. The Norwegian Jarmann M1884 was adopted in 1884 and also used a tubular magazine. The French Lebel Model 1886 rifle also used 8-round tubular magazine.
Tubular magazines remain in common use on many types of shotguns, including some rifles.
Integral box magazines
The military cartridge was evolving as the magazine rifle evolved. Cartridges evolved from large-bore cartridges to smaller bores that fired lighter, higher-velocity bullets and incorporated new smokeless propellants. The Lebel Model 1886 rifle was the first rifle and cartridge to be designed for use with smokeless powder and used an 8 mm wadcutter-shaped bullet that was drawn from a tubular magazine. This would later become a problem when the Lebel's ammunition was updated to use a more aerodynamic pointed bullet. Modifications had to be made to the centerfire case to prevent the spitzer point from igniting the primer of the next cartridge inline in the magazine through recoil or simply rough handling. This remains a concern with lever-action firearms today.Two early box magazine patents were the ones by Rollin White in 1855 and William Harding in 1859. A detachable box magazine was patented in 1864 by the American Robert Wilson. Unlike later box magazines this magazine fed into a tube magazine and was located in the stock of the gun. Another box magazine, closer to the modern type though non-detachable, was patented in Britain by Mowbray Walker, George Henry Money and Francis Little in 1867. James Paris Lee patented a box magazine which held rounds stacked vertically in 1875, 1879 and 1882 and it was first adopted by Austria in the form of an 11mm straight-pull bolt-action rifle, the Mannlicher M1886. It also used a cartridge clip which held 5 rounds ready to load into the magazine. One of the first detachable box magazines with a double-stack staggered-feed was the Schmidt-Rubin of 1889. Other examples include the patent of Fritz von Stepski and Erich Sterzinger of Austria-Hungary in May 1888 and the British patents by George Vincent Fosbery in 1883 and 1884. James Paris Lee is sometimes claimed to have invented the double-stack, staggered-feed detachable box magazine but he did not design one until 1892 for the Mark II Lee-Metford, three years after the Schmidt-Rubin. The first pistol with a double-stack, staggered-feed magazine was the Mauser C96 although it was an integral design fed by stripper clips and located in front of the grip rather than in the modern configuration of in the grip. A detachable, double-stack staggered-feed box magazine was used in the Bergmann Mars pistol, designed in 1903, but it too was in front of the grip rather than in it. The first detachable double-stack, single-feed magazine in the grip for pistols was probably the one patented by the American Elbert H. Searle in 1904 and adopted by Arthur Savage though he did not apply it in practice to his designs until much later. One of the first double-stack, single-feed box magazines was patented in November 1888 by an English inventor called Joseph James Speed of Waltham Cross. Another was patented in May 1887 by the Austro-Hungarian Karl Krnka.
The bolt-action Krag–Jørgensen rifle, designed in Norway in 1886, used a unique rotary magazine that was built into the receiver. Like Lee's box magazine, the rotary magazine held the rounds side-by-side, rather than end-to-end. Like most rotary magazines, it was loaded through a loading gate one round at a time, this one located on the side of the receiver. While reliable, the Krag–Jørgensen's magazine was expensive to produce and slow to reload. It was adopted by only three countries, Denmark in 1889, the United States in 1892, and Norway in 1894.
Clip-fed revolution
A clip is a device that is used to store multiple rounds of ammunition together as a unit, ready for insertion into the magazine or cylinder of a firearm. This speeds up the process of reloading the firearm as several rounds can be loaded at once, rather than one round being loaded at a time. Several different types of clips exist, most of which are made of inexpensive metal stampings that are designed to be disposable, though they are often re-used.The first clips used were of the en bloc variety, developed by Ferdinand Mannlicher and first adopted by the Austro-Hungarian Army, which would be used Austro-Hungarians during the first world war in the form of the Mannlicher M1895, derivatives of which would be adopted by many national militaries. The Germans used this system for their Model 1888 Commission Rifle, featuring a 5-round en bloc clip-fed internal box magazine. One problem with the en bloc system is that the firearm cannot be practically used without a ready supply of clips. Paul Mauser would solve this problem by introducing a stripper clip that functioned only to assist the user in loading the magazine quickly: it was not required to load the magazine to full capacity. He would continue to make improved models of rifles that took advantage of this new clip design from 1889 through 1898 in various calibers that proved enormously successful, and were adopted by a wide range of national militaries. In 1890 the French adopted the 8mm Lebel Berthier rifles with 3-round internal magazines, fed from en bloc clips; the empty clips were pushed from the bottom of the action by the insertion of a loaded clip from the top.
In the late 19th century, there were many short-lived designs, such as the M1895 Lee Navy and Gewehr 1888, eventually replaced by the M1903 Springfield rifle and Gewehr 98 respectively. The Russian Mosin–Nagant, adopted in 1891, was an exception. It was not revolutionary; it was a bolt-action rifle, used a small-bore smokeless powder cartridge, and a fixed box magazine loaded from the top with stripper clips, all of which were features that were used in earlier military rifles. What made the Nagant stand out was that it combined all the earlier features in a form that was to last virtually unchanged from its issue by Russia in 1894 through World War II and with its sniper rifle variants still in use today.