Thread: Bullets

So you have the "shoulders", "neck" and "mouth" up one end ... and the "head" at the butt? I get the confusion.

Remember the Naked Gun films? The posters contained the sort of drooling idiocy born out of people referring to cartridges as bullets. After all, bullets fly, right?

Originally Posted by mopheadrob

My kids always ask if I "caught" anything when I get back from hunting. I have mental images of chasing down a stag and wrestling it to the ground.

Re. the OP, I do have a problem with the occasional use in America (and thankfully less occasional on here) of calling them "freedom seeds". Please do not do that in my presence, or you will get a tongue-lashing.

Nah, I'll just casually refer to your "gun" or your "weapon" and study your reaction with interest.

I believe the projectile/ bullets question has been adequately answered so I’ll add this I have a firearms licence but I don’t have any firearms as I believe the police and the military have firearms. I have guns and rifles. I looked up firearms and it can been both but I’m sticking to my guns as they are not weapons.

Originally Posted by 2post

I believe the projectile/ bullets question has been adequately answered so I’ll add this I have a firearms licence but I don’t have any firearms as I believe the police and the military have firearms. I have guns and rifles. I looked up firearms and it can been both but I’m sticking to my guns as they are not weapons.

So you have a rifle and gun licence? Sounds good. The police and military have weapons which they don't need a licence for. The big brother miltaries even have weapons of mass destruction which they also don't need a licence to own. It's a mixed up world; enough to keep a man awake at night trying figure it out.

Sleep well tonight mate! I’m off to bed shortly… I shall lie there thinking about electric vehicles, climate change, angry men, bullet heads, Covid stats, water authorities, seeding trees and Cowboy’s nice dog. I am sure my subconscious powers will find a connection that ties them altogether. Then I will wake up.

What keeps me awake at night is my wife’s snoring.

Originally Posted by 10-Ring

Can anyone explain the kiwi obsession with calling bullets 'projectiles' exclusively? You never see bullets for sale in NZ it's always marketed as 'projectiles'.

Sure, bullets are projectiles but so are artillery shells and cannon balls. More losely defined a projectile is any object hurtled through the atmosphere. A bullet can only be one thing and that's a bullet. The non shooting public call cartridges 'bullets' because they don't know any better. That's to be expected.

I've never seen or bought a box of bullets with 'projectile' written on it.

It's 3:30 a.m. and I can't get to sleep and I've been trying to figure this out.

Are you a pom?

Originally Posted by Flyblown

The poms are a funny bunch. But you already knew that.

The term "head" or "bullet head" will cause a certain segment of the UK shooting fraternity to practically soil themselves in unbridled opprobrium.

They can get really nasty about it, and I am being dead serious.
@caberslash? Chime in here mate.

As far as they are concerned, "head" is a term used for a projectile by pikeys, chavs, the mentally deranged and poorly educated foreigners. They will go on and on and on and on and on... Providing various diagrams to demonstrate how the head is the base of the cartridge (cartridge head). And that the bit that flies through the air is the projectile. Someone called Miki got banned from one of the British forums for arguing about this so incessantly we were concerned he might have a breakdown. He'd start 3 threads a week on the matter, and you think I'm joking.

However...

Most online retailers in the UK refer to bullets/projectiles as heads or bullet heads. A fact that I delighted in telling Miki.

I couldn't give a toss either way, and it's not going to keep me awake tonight @10-Ring!

Farrrkkk... didn't think we would get into semantics on this forum!

Unfortunately don't have the authority to speak for "the English", despite being born there (the West Midlands... the horror... the horror...) and I currently reside on the right (Northern) side of the border.

Out of the 4 languages I speak, English is the second most spoken language on Earth, and probably high up on the list of how many borrowed words they are.

I find this ironic, what with Brexit, England losing in the Euro's etc. A lot of 'English Nationalist' idiots are waving the
St. Geroge's cross around. Well, St.G was Greek, and so are most of the younger members of the Royal Family through Philip.

Where were we again? Heads? Always better than tails!

Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

Are you a pom?

Ha, hardly. I'm a 68 year old kiwi. Are you a German?

Originally Posted by caberslash

Farrrkkk... didn't think we would get into semantics on this forum!

Unfortunately don't have the authority to speak for "the English", despite being born there (the West Midlands... the horror... the horror...) and I currently reside on the right (Northern) side of the border.

Out of the 4 languages I speak, English is the second most spoken language on Earth, and probably high up on the list of how many borrowed words they are.

I find this ironic, what with Brexit, England losing in the Euro's etc. A lot of 'English Nationalist' idiots are waving the
St. Geroge's cross around. Well, St.G was Greek, and so are most of the younger members of the Royal Family through Philip.

Where were we again? Heads? Always better than tails!

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
― James D. Nicoll

Geez, you guys must be bored.

Originally Posted by 2post

I believe the projectile/ bullets question has been adequately answered so I’ll add this I have a firearms licence but I don’t have any firearms as I believe the police and the military have firearms. I have guns and rifles. I looked up firearms and it can been both but I’m sticking to my guns as they are not weapons.

Gun is derived from the Old English word, "gonne" which means a military/war contraption. Indeed the earliest handheld firearm was the handgonne. Maybe the only safe place word left is "musket"? (-;

I reckon on some level we're aware of what words have been smeared by the press. 'Projectile' sounds less offensive than 'Bullet". Same as a rifle is a 'firearm', not a 'weapon'.

Originally Posted by T.FOYE

I reckon on some level we're aware of what words have been smeared by the press. 'Projectile' sounds less offensive than 'Bullet". Same as a rifle is a 'firearm', not a 'weapon'.

No real need for the press to smear them. Those things are devastating if used wrongly. Always point in a safe direction.

Originally Posted by 10-Ring

Ha, hardly. I'm a 68 year old kiwi. Are you a German?

Nein

But projectile is a nice generic term that covers slugs, pellets, buckshot, musket balls and a lot of other things as well as bullets. So...

Originally Posted by dogmatix

Geez, you guys must be bored.

Ah but you read enough of this to come tho that conclusion!