I’ve always delighted in discovering things that I didn’t know. Firearms terminology is rife with obscure terms, or words borrowed or bastardized from other places. Here are a few things I learned while I was looking up other things.

Tip 1: A Name or a Slogan?
The 9mm handgun round is still often referred to as the 9mm Parabellum, which I had assumed was some guy’s name. However, the guy, Georg Luger, had his name appended to the semiautomatic pistol he designed for the German Army, and the official designation is in fact, “9mm Luger.” The common term parabellum comes from the motto of the German company Luger – “Si vis pacem, para bellum” – Latin for “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

Tip 2: Know Your Social Standing.
Many times the origin of a particular word is lost to history. One source said “caliber” is a mid-16th century word that refers to “social standing or importance,” and it started as a Greek word for “shoemaker’s last.” It moved to an Arabic word, kalib, meaning “mold.” It was then traced to the Italian calibro, and finally to the French calibre. However, a different source said that the Spanish and Italian usage happened long after the Arabic word kalib was used to mean “a mold for casting.”

Tip 3: The Other Caliber Problem.
When used with firearms, ‘caliber’ is the diameter of a projectile, which is also the interior measurement of the barrel. Sometimes. For rifled firearms, the measurement is from top of land to top of land across diameter. However, a 38-caliber handgun or bullet has an actual measurement of .357 of an inch. Common 30-caliber rifles use bullets that measure .308 of an inch, while the iconic .44 Magnum has an actual diameter of .429 inch.

Tip 4: Do You Understand Balistics?
The word “ballistics” comes from ancient Greek words meaning “to throw.” Rocks, spears, and arrows were the first ballistic objects. Ballistics is the study of what happens to a moving projectile, and for firearms includes internal (what happens inside the barrel), external (how the bullet moves through the air), and terminal (what the bullet does inside the target). Ballistics is incredibly complicated because it involves many variables including caliber, bullet shape, weight, changing velocities, rotation, gravity, air resistance, and humidity. The invention of calculus was a vital component in ballistics research, but computers really aided the process, which involves solving equations with hundreds of thousands of computations.

Tip 5: A Literal Bull’s-Eye.
Bull’s-eye is common and ubiquitous, but the origin is uncertain. One source said it has been used for hundreds of years, far outside of firearms or archery, such as referring to a blemish in the center of a glass windowpane. Perhaps it came to mean “the center.” There was a different reference which said that hundreds of years ago in England, archers would compete after church services and they used a bull skull as a target, with a shot into the empty eye socket the highest score.

Tip 6: Lost Meaning.
Many terms lose their original meaning and become known for something completely different. Here are two from when muzzleloaders were advanced technology. Lock, stock, and barrel – Early rifles were built one at a time, hand-fitted by gunsmiths. If you had a barrel and stock, you could have a smith build them with a lock mechanism to make a rifle. Lock, stock, and barrel refers now to everything needed to make a complete unit. Flash in the pan – Flintlocks had a “pan” where a small amount of powder was placed to set off the powder inside the rifle. Sometimes the flint ignited the powder in the pan, creating a flash, but it failed to ignite the powder inside the rifle. So a flash in the pan produces light and smoke, but no results.

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