Automatic firearm
From Free net encyclopedia
An automatic firearm is a firearm that uses the energy of firing to extract and eject the fired cartridge case, and load a new case. The term can be used to refer to semi-automatic firearms, which fire one shot per pull of the trigger, or fully-automatic firearms, which will continue to load and fire ammunition as long as the trigger (or other activating device) is pressed or until it runs out of ammunition. Which meaning is intended is generally discernable by context. "Automatic pistol" or "automatic shotgun" generally refers to a semi-automatic design, while "automatic rifle" more often means a fully-automatic or selective fire design.
Fully-automatic weapons tend to be restricted to military and police personnel in most developed countries. In the United States, machine guns registered after 1986 have been off the public market since the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. See Gun politics for more information.
Fully-automatic firearms are covered in these articles:
Other similar designs not usually classified as automatic firearms are:
- Autocannon, which are over 20 mm in bore diameter and thus considered cannons, not small arms.
- Gatling guns, multi-barrelled bolt-action designs, often used with external power supplies to generate rates of fire higher than automatic firearms.
- Metal Storm, an electrically-fired system that uses the same principle as Roman candle fireworks.
See also
Patents
- Template:US patent — Automatic gunfr:Arme automatique
ko:자동화기 nl:Automatisch wapen no:Helautomatisk skytevåpen sv:Automatvapen