Magazine or Clip? Don’t be a Noob.
We’ve all heard people on the range and in movies ask for another “clip” for their gun or say how many rounds their “clip” holds when they’re actually referring to a magazine. I’m not trying to nitpick semantics here, but if you went to the auto parts store to get a wheel, you wouldn’t want the clerk to bring out a tire. There is a difference between a clip and a magazine, and knowing the difference will help your overall shooting satisfaction when the world of magazine/clip accessories is revealed to you.
- A great accessory for AR-15s is a stripper clip guide that lets you load 10 rounds at a time from a stripper clip into the magazine.
- With the stripper clip in its guide, all of the cartridges are pushed into the gun’s magazine with one shove of your thumb
- This is a magazine. A magazine feeds a gun
- This is a clip. This one is used to charge the magazine on an SKS.
- There is a difference between a magazine (top) and a clip (bottom).
The difference is simple: a clip feeds a magazine and a magazine feeds a gun. There are lots of examples to help you remember. The magazine on an SKS is charged with 10-round stripper clips. Unless you’re shooting something like a Mauser Broomhandle, your semi-auto pistol takes a detachable magazine that you charge by hand one cartridge at a time. On the M1 Garand, the fixed magazine is charged with an 8-round en-bloc clip that springs free after the last round. The AR-15 uses detachable magazines and you can charge those magazines one cartridge at a time, or you can also get a stripper clip guide and charge AR-15 magazines quickly using stripper clips.
Next time you’re on the range and someone asks about a “clip” and you know they mean magazine, help them out by politely explaining the difference.
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