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A roll or case of paper, etc., holding a charge for a firearm; a cartridge.

A complete charge for a firearm, contained in, or held together by, a case, capsule, or shell of metal, pasteboard, or other material. Ball cartridge, a cartridge containing a projectile. -- Blank cartrige, a cartridge without a projectile, -- Center-fire cartridge, a cartridge in which the fulminate occupies an axial…

To place within or upon any firearm, piece of apparatus or machinery, the quantity it is intended and fitted to hold or bear; to load; to fill; as, to charge a gun; to charge an electrical machine, etc. Their battering cannon charged to the mouths. Shak.

The hammer in the lock of a firearm. At cock, At full cock, with the hammer raised and ready to fire; -- said of firearms, also, jocularly, of one prepared for instant action. -- At half cock. See under Half. -- Cock feather (Archery), the feather of an arrow at right angles to the direction of the cock or notch. Nar…

ded; to let go the charge of; as, to discharge a bow, catapult, etc.; especially, said of firearms, -- to fire off; to shoot off; also, to relieve from a state of tension, as a Leyden jar. The galleys also did oftentimes, out of their prows, discharge their great pieces against the city. Knolles. Feeling in other cases…

uid to a test tube or other vessel. -- Dropping fire, a continued irregular discharge of firearms. -- Dropping tube, a tube for ejecting any liquid in drops.

A kind of firearm; a carbine.

The mechanism for closing the breech of a breech-loading firearm, in artillery consisting principally of the breechblock, obturator, and carrier ring.

The discharge of firearms; firing; as, the troops were exposed to a heavy fire. Blue fire, Red fire, Green fire (Pyrotech.), compositions of various combustible substances, as sulphur, niter, lampblack, etc., the flames of which are colored by various metallic salts, as those of antimony, strontium, barium, etc. -- Fi…

The act of disharging firearms.

In the breech mechanism of a firearm, the pin which strikes the head of the cartridge and explodes it.

A hand firearm fitted with a flintlock; esp., the old-fashioned musket of European and other armies.

In firearms, the wooden stock under the barrel, forward of the trigger guard, or breech frame. -- Fore girth, a girth for the fore part (of a horse, etc.); a martingale. -- Fore hammer, a sledge hammer, working alternately, or in time, with the hand hammer. -- Fore leg, one of the front legs of a quadruped, or multi…

A simultaneous discharge of firearms.

t greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion. Ezek. xxii. 12. Gaining twist, in rifled firearms, a twist of the grooves, which increases regularly from the breech to the muzzle. To gain on or upon. (a) To encroach on; as, the ocean gains on the land. (b) To obtain influence with. (c) To win ground upon; to move fast…

A weapon which throws or propels a missile to a distance; any firearm or instrument for throwing projectiles by the explosion of gunpowder, consisting of a tube or barrel closed at one end, in which the projectile is placed, with an explosive charge behind, which is ignited by various means. Muskets, rifles, carbines,…

One whose occupation is to make or repair small firearms; an armorer.

A spring device used in a hair-trigger firearm.

To set the cock of (a firearm) at the first notch. To go off halfcocked. (a) To be discharged prematurely, or with the trigger at half cock; -- said of a firearm. (b) To do or say something without due thought or care. [Colloq. or Low]

A firearm with match holder, trigger, and tumbler, made in the second half of the 15th century. the barrel was about forty inches long. A form of the harquebus was subsequently called arquebus with matchlock.