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Automatic firearm

 
Automatic Firearm

 
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Automatic firearm
 
 
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An automatic firearm is a firearm
Firearm

A firearm is a tool that projects either single or multiple projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion. The firing is achieved by the gases produced through rapid, confined combustion of a propellant....
 that fires, automatically extracts the used cartridge
Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and Percussion cap into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm....
 case from the barrel and ejects it, then loads a new case into the barrel; generally by harnessing the recoil of the cartridge's explosion. The term can be used to refer to semi-automatic firearm
Semi-automatic firearm

A semi-automatic, or self-loading firearm is a gun that after being fired, ejects the empty cartridge that has been fired, loads a new cartridge, and cocks itself....
s, which fire one shot per pull of the trigger, or fully automatic firearms, which will continue to load and fire ammunition
Ammunition

Ammunition, often referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery....
 until the trigger (or other activating device) is released or until the ammunition is exhausted.






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Encyclopedia


M2 Machine Gun
An automatic firearm is a firearm
Firearm

A firearm is a tool that projects either single or multiple projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion. The firing is achieved by the gases produced through rapid, confined combustion of a propellant....
 that fires, automatically extracts the used cartridge
Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and Percussion cap into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm....
 case from the barrel and ejects it, then loads a new case into the barrel; generally by harnessing the recoil of the cartridge's explosion. The term can be used to refer to semi-automatic firearm
Semi-automatic firearm

A semi-automatic, or self-loading firearm is a gun that after being fired, ejects the empty cartridge that has been fired, loads a new cartridge, and cocks itself....
s, which fire one shot per pull of the trigger, or fully automatic firearms, which will continue to load and fire ammunition
Ammunition

Ammunition, often referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery....
 until the trigger (or other activating device) is released or until the ammunition is exhausted. An "automatic pistol" or an "automatic shotgun
Shotgun

A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called lead shot, or a solid projectile called a shotgun slug....
" generally refers to a semi-automatic design, though fully-automatic pistols and shotguns do exist (such as the Steyr TMP
Steyr TMP

The Steyr TMP is a select-fire 9x19mm Parabellum caliber machine pistol manufactured by the Austrian company, Steyr Mannlicher. It is renowned for its controllability, allowing a shooter to accurately fire the weapon in bursts of more than 10-15 rounds, instead of the typical two or three round bursts that other submachine guns are limited t...
 and Daewoo USAS-12, respectively). Conversely, an "automatic rifle" generally refers to a fully automatic or hybrid semi-auto/full-auto
Selective fire

A selective fire firearm can be fired in both Semi-automatic firearm and any number of Automatic firearm modes by means of a selector. Some selective fire weapons utilize burst fire mechanisms that limit the maximum or total number of shots fired when in this mode....
 design.

Fully automatic weapons tend to be restricted to military
Military

A military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or Threat of force ....
 and police
Police

Police are agents or agencies, usually of the executive , empowered to enforce the law and to ensure public and social order through the legitimized use of force....
 organizations in most developed countries due to their potential for damage if used on human targets by civilians. In the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, machine guns registered after 1986 have been off the public market since the Firearm Owners Protection Act
Firearm Owners Protection Act

The Firearm Owners' Protection Act , Pub. L. No. 99-308, 100 Stat. 449 , codified at et seq., is a United States federal law that revised many statutes in the Gun Control Act of 1968....
 of 1986.

See Gun politics
Gun politics

Gun politics is a set of legal issues surrounding the ownership, use, and regulation of firearms as well as safety issues related to firearms both through their direct use and through legal and criminal use....
 for more information.

Fully automatic firearms are covered in these articles:
  • Machine gun
    Machine gun

    A machine gun is a Automatic firearm mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire List of rifle cartridgess in quick succession from an Belt or large-capacity Magazine , typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
    • General purpose machine gun
      General purpose machine gun

      A general purpose machine gun in concept is a multi-purpose weapon, a machine gun intended to fill the role of either a light machine gun or medium machine gun, while at the same time being man-portable....
    • Heavy machine gun
      Heavy machine gun

      The heavy machine gun is a larger class of machine gun generally recognized to refer to two separate stages of machine gun development. The term was originally used to refer to the early generation of machine guns which came into widespread use in World War I....
    • Light machine gun
      Light machine gun

      A light machine gun or LMG is a machine gun that is generally lighter than other machine guns of the same period, and is usually designed to be carried by an individual soldier, with or without an assistant....
    • Medium machine gun
      Medium machine gun

      A medium machine gun or MMG, in modern terms, usually refers to a Belt automatic firearm firing a full-power rifle Cartridge and typically weighs from 15 to 40 pounds ....
    • Squad automatic weapon
      Squad automatic weapon

      A squad automatic weapon is a light machine gun or general purpose machine gun, used by a military. They are designed to give infantry squads or Section s a compact and mobile method source of suppressive fire....
  • Submachine gun
    Submachine gun

    A submachine gun is a firearm that combines the automatic firearm of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol, and is usually between the two in weight and size....
  • Assault rifle
    Assault rifle

    An assault rifle is a rifle designed for combat, with selective fire . Assault rifles are the standard small arms in most modern Army, having largely superseded or supplemented battle rifles such as the World War II-era M1 Garand rifle and SVT-40....
  • Automatic rifle
    Automatic rifle

    Automatic rifle is a term generally used to describe a self-loading rifle chambered for a rifle cartridge, capable of delivering both Semi-automatic firearm- and Automatic firearm fire....
  • Pancor Jackhammer
    Pancor Jackhammer

    The Pancor Corporation Jackhammer is a 12-gauge, gas-operated automatic shotgun. It is one of very few fully automatic shotguns, and although patented in 1987, it never entered full-scale production....
     (one of the only automatic shotgun
    Automatic shotgun

    An automatic shotgun is a form of shotgun that is able to fire cartridges continuously while the trigger is squeezed, without needing to release and re-squeeze the trigger or any manual chambering of another round being required....
     to be designed, though there are many semi-automatic shotgun
    Semi-automatic shotgun

    A semi-automatic shotgun is a form of shotgun that is able to fire a cartridge after every trigger squeeze, without any manual chambering of another round being required....
    s)
  • Machine pistol
    Machine pistol

    A machine pistol is a handgun-style, magazine -fed and self-loading firearm, capable of Automatic firearm or burst fire, and normally chambered for pistol cartridges....


Other similar designs not usually classified as automatic firearms are:
  • Autocannon
    Autocannon

    File:Autocannon MLG27.jpgAn autocannon is a rapid fire projectile weapon. Autocannon often have a larger caliber than a machine gun , but there is no maximum or minimum caliber that makes a weapon an autocannon....
    , which are 20 mm in bore diameter or larger and thus considered cannons, not small arms.
  • Gatling gun
    Gatling gun

    The Gatling gun was one of the most well known rapid-fire weapons to be used in the 1860s by the Union forces of the Civil War, following the 1851 invention of the mitrailleuse by the Belgian Army....
    s, multi-barrelled
    Gun barrel

    A gun barrel is the tube, usually metal, through which a controlled explosion or rapid expansion of gases is released in order to propel a projectile out of the end at great speed....
     bolt-action
    Bolt-action

    The term bolt action refers to a type of firearm action in which the weapon's Bolt is operated manually by the opening and closing of the Breech-loading weapon with a small handle, most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the weapon....
     designs, often used with external power supplies to generate rates of fire higher than automatic firearms.


Similar in appearance but not able to fire in full-auto mode are some semi-automatic rifles. The visual similarity has led to the public usage of the term assault weapon
Assault weapon

Assault weapon refers to a broad category of firearms, including military-style semiautomatic rifles derived from assault rifles, and also including some pistols and shotguns....
 to describe some semi-automatic weapons (as opposed to the military usage of the term).

Patents


See also

  • Firearm action
    Firearm action

    In firearms terminology, an action is the physical mechanism that manipulates cartridges and/or seals the breech. The term is also used to describe the method in which cartridges are loaded, locked, and extracted from the mechanism....
  • Bump fire
    Bump fire

    Bump firing is the act of using the Newton's Third Law of a firearm to fire multiple bullet in rapid succession. This process involves holding the foregrip with the non-trigger hand, releasing the grip on the firing hand , pushing the rifle forward in order to apply pressure on the trigger finger from the trigger, and keeping the trigger fin...
     - a technique to simulate fully-automatic firing with a semi-automatic rifle
  • Federal Firearms License
    Federal Firearms License

    A Federal Firearms License, , is a license that enables an individual or a company to engage in a business pertaining to the manufacture of firearms and ammunition or the interstate and intrastate sale of firearms....
  • Gun Control Act of 1968
    Gun Control Act of 1968

    The Gun Control Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-618, 82 Stat. 1213 is a federal law in the United States that broadly regulates the firearms industry and firearms owners....