Old-Timey Reloading/Casting Terms: Where'd They Come From?

[emrah]

I was thinking the other day that there is a LOT of terminology in reloading and casting that most who don't reload or cast would never understand. For example:

- Meplat
- Ogive
- Leade
- Sprue
- Ingot

The list goes on. How'd we get these names? I'm assuming most people nowadays don't work in a foundry. And what's more, some of these terms you have to look around quite a bit to find their meaning; sprue for example. When I was very new to casting (before I began), it took forever to find a definition for "sprue". What an odd name!

And other ammo/reloading related terms seem backwards to me or are too similar to some other term that it is confusing to the new reloader. For example, DA and SA are backwards to me. If you first cock a hammer, then pull the trigger, to MY mind that's Double Action, right? If you JUST pull the trigger, regardless of whether it also cocks the hammer or not, it's ONE action. Hence I think it should be named Single Action, although we all know the term is really DA.

Beginner reloaders get "headspace" and "freebore" mixed up. I don't think most reloading manuals do an adequate enough job to REALLY separate and define them, as most newbies STILL are confused and call the space in front of the bullet in the bore "headspace".

And why is the bottom of a cartridge called the "head"? If the mouth is at the top, how the hell can the head be at the bottom. The "head" of most things is at the top. It leads. It's first. Not in ammo talk.

And how many times have you tried to explain to someone that they are holding a "rimless" cartridge in their hands, when clearly, it has a rim?

Emrah

[kenyerian]

Yep, when you are instructing grand kids some of the hardest questions come up. "But it has a rim old man. Cann't you see it?" "How can a automatic be a single action. It's an auto" " "where do Zombies live?" " ETC. Some of the questions I just tell them to google it and out pops their cell phones. "Does the Sprue go up or down" What is a Dove tail.?

[mdi]

A lot of terms are from other industries; a dovetail is a woodworking joint, a method of mating two pieces of wood that looks like the shape of a dovetail. From foundry work comes sprue and ingot. A cartridge head comes from the largest part of the cartridge; the head being the most "important" part of the cartridge. Meplat and Ogive are techinical terms adapted to bullets during bullet developement in the 19th century. Leade is an old machinist's/engineer's term, and so on. I'm not being a smart a$$! Just giving my opinion. Many firearm terms are industrial terms that are not used as much any more as our language evolves. Do today's kids know what a telephone dial is? Or how about a "45" as 45 RPM record? Or even record as far as that goes...

[RevGeo]

It seems that most, if not all, skilled activities develop their own lingo. Medicine, shipwrighting, engineering, music et al - all seem to have their own terms and discriptors. Probably comes from a history of keeping the secrets of the skills within the guild.
It's cool to have at least a passing knowledge of the lingo used in the different things we do, IMO.

[emrah]

Do today's kids know what a telephone dial is? Or how about a "45" as 45 RPM record? Or even record as far as that goes...

Heck, kids today don't even know that the Titanic was a REAL FREAKING SHIP and not just a sappy movie!

Emrah

[runfiverun]

try learning all those terms when you don't have anybody to ask what they mean.
i know i missed out on a lot of available knowledge when i was younger simply because i had no one to show me what many of those terms meant.
i was reading jamison for a long time and never could figure out what he was talking about.
now reading his old articles,it seems he was speaking in simple english that a 3rd grader could understand.
but like anything else in life, education sure makes things easier.

[emrah]

That's precisely my point. When you know what they mean, it's just standard lingo and no biggie. But I think reloading manuals, article writers, web sites, etc. need to do a better job with some of these definitions for the newbie.

You read articles in some magazines and wonder how anybody new to the hobby will understand what this person just wrote. Heck, there are times when you read something and "understand" what they meant, but the way they worded it, if you weren't "in the know", you'd be lost or take the meaning a totally different way. I'm trying to think of examples, and coming up blank, but I see it in gun mags all the time.

Another pet peeve of mine is calling a semi-auto an "auto-pistol". To someone who knows nothing of guns - other than that they are bad, shoot kids, shoot up malls and kill people unecessarily - they might read that and literally read: automatic. To them, an automatic is like they see in the movies where an M-16 or Desert Eagle shoots unlimited amounts of ammo, an incredible 4-foot sheet of flame in front of it, and every bad guy has access to one to shoot up streets and dockyards/warehouses/banks with. They don't get that it stands for "auto-LOADING", not fully automatic.

I guess some people will say that changing terminology is giving in to the anti-gun lobby and ill-informed sheeple. However, how the hell are you going to convince liberal Jane Voter that most people - or criminals for that matter - do not have access to automatic weapons, when they might read "auto-pistol" or "autos" uttered by some gun scribe?

Sorry, just venting.

Emrah

[rhead]

You are making me feel old. I didn't know any of those terms were old-timey.

[Von Dingo]

Technical jargon is just that, after all, there is no such thing as a thing.

[geargnasher]

Yep, Jargon. Boolit casters and reloaders borrow a lot of technical terms from other facets of the technological world too, like "obturate" from the field of medicine. Actually, that's an old artillery term borrowing from the medical encyclopedia, as in "obturation ring" on the shell, a band of softer material that would engrave the rifling and seal the gases behind the projectile.

Gear

[Rocky Raab]

Every fairly technical undertaking from sewing to orbital mechanics has a unique vocabulary of terms. Many such terms are used nowhere else (like meplat.) When I worked at NASA, we were issued a TWO-VOLUME set of acronyms! You could "speak NASA" using sentences of nothing but acronyms, with a verb inserted somewhere.

BTW, the cartridge head is derived from similar "rims" on nails and pins. The real confusion comes when some people call bullets "heads." Now you've got a critter with a head at each end - and if THAT isn't confusing, nothing is.

[prs]

Well, here in West Virginia, if'n you are standng at the mouth of the holler and look'n up toward the head of the holler, then the right branch of the holler is to your right and the left branch is to your left. But if'n you are at the head of the holler and look'n down toward the mouth, then the right branch is to yer left and the left branch is toward your right. Got, it?

What was the question again?

prs

[emrah]

Hmmm... What about coolies and draws?

Emrah

[rockrat]

Understand you perfectly "prs". Lets also add "tinhorn" and "bar ditch"

Took my teenager out shooting this last weekend. Only second time they have wanted to go. Kept asking me about single action and double action and auto VS semi-auto. Why they were shooting 38's in a 357, wasn't that 35 cal and the other shells were too big, ect? Spent half the shooting time, explaining.

Maybe "single action" came about from the Colt 1873 "peacemaker" aka Single Action Army, so that type of operation was known as "single action", just like the Colt 1873.

[mdi]

I believe that the terms single or double action started out as functions of the trigger. Single action triggers did one (single) thing; release the cocked hammer to fire the gun. And double action triggers did two things (double); cock the hammer and release it to fire the gun. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it...

[RevGeo]

Learning the language goes along with learning the rest of the skills required for any reasonably complex endeavor, and taking the time to learn the proper terms shows a sense of deeper interest in, and respect for, the very complexities that make the endeavor so interesting in the first place.
In the guitar playing world we always say 'If it was easy anybody could do it'. You have to put in the time.

Experienced folks should always try to help the newbie, and the newbie should always try to expand his skills using both his own hands-on application and by applying what he's learned from older hands. And that includes talkin' the talk.

[blackthorn]

And then there are the words that are spelled alike but pronounced differently depending on their application. The one that springs to mind is “lead”, i.e.:
I have been lead [led] down the garden path. Or you can lead a horse to water---.
The space in front of the rifle’s chamber is the lead [leade].
I have been gifted with several tons of lead (I wish).

Another is “tear”, i.e.:
I have a tear in my eye.
I have a tear in my shirt.

When I start to think of all the words that are pronounced the same but used differently, I have a great deal of sympathy for people who must learn English as a second language.

[runfiverun]

ahh it's easy.
american is just a bunch of foreign words changed to sound right by another dude that spoke another language first.

[hardy]

And then there are the words that are spelled alike but pronounced differently depending on their application. The one that springs to mind is “lead”, i.e.:
I have been lead [led] down the garden path. Or you can lead a horse to water---.
The space in front of the rifle’s chamber is the lead [leade].
I have been gifted with several tons of lead (I wish).

Another is “tear”, i.e.:
I have a tear in my eye.
I have a tear in my shirt.

When I start to think of all the words that are pronounced the same but used differently, I have a great deal of sympathy for people who must learn English as a second language.

Yes Sir ,you can lead a horse to water but a BOOLIT must be lead!!!Sorry ,bout that!LOL. Mike.

[bumpo628]

Add "bbl" for barrel to the pile.

[HangFireW8]

To actually answer your question,


I was thinking the other day that there is a LOT of terminology in reloading and casting that most who don't reload or cast would never understand. For example:

- Meplat
- Ogive
- Leade
- Sprue
- Ingot

The list goes on. How'd we get these names?

Meplat we get directly from the french meplat (with an accent on the "e") meaning surface plane (geometry), or flat surface.

Ogive is an architectural term for a pointed arch. It matches the shape of a Spitzer bullet. We got that from the French, who got it from the Romans.

Leade we get from the French who got it from the Romans for "loose" (as in slack, or free space).

Sprue and Ingot are standard casting terms.

As for headspace, understanding it is deceptively simple but complex- while it is simply the free space before the cartridge is prevented from further entering the chamber, the possible geometries involved and implications are quite complex.

HF

[Bret4207]

Every fairly technical undertaking from sewing to orbital mechanics has a unique vocabulary of terms. Many such terms are used nowhere else (like meplat.) When I worked at NASA, we were issued a TWO-VOLUME set of acronyms! You could "speak NASA" using sentences of nothing but acronyms, with a verb inserted somewhere.

BTW, the cartridge head is derived from similar "rims" on nails and pins. The real confusion comes when some people call bullets "heads." Now you've got a critter with a head at each end - and if THAT isn't confusing, nothing is.

The rim is the iron on a wooden wheel. Just in case you were wondering.

I got thinking about the word "tack" the other day enroute to a "tack" auction, horse tack that is. I sort of figure horse "tack" comes from "tackle"- an assemblage of rope and blocks on a boat or ship. I have no idea where "tackle" came from...:confused:

[Echo]

BTW, the cartridge head is derived from similar "rims" on nails and pins. The real confusion comes when some people call bullets "heads." Now you've got a critter with a head at each end - and if THAT isn't confusing, nothing is.

Sounds like a Crocagator to me - saw one once. Stayed in bed all day, next day...

[Harter66]

Tacking also means sailing into the wind rather than w/it.

Let us not forget our many interchanged words leade,throat,bore,groove dias even though bore dia is the land dia,crown,muzzle,breach,chamber,boolit,bullet,etc.

[ColColt]

Do today's kids know what a telephone dial is? Or how about a "45" as 45 RPM record? Or even record as far as that goes...

Reading over this tonight made my mind go back to 1995 when I use to do weddings on the side. A bride to be had asked me about a song by Celene Dion(sp)(can't think of the name now) and if I could get it to play at her wedding. The first place I thought of was Wal-Mart. I went into their electronic department and started looking around and couldn't find a 45 anywhere. In fact, there were no records at all! I went up to the cash register and asked where they were keeping their 45's and you wouldn't believe the smirks I got. The gal said, "They're back in the sporting department, sir, if they have them." I said, "No, I mean 45 records, I just need one song." She said, "Honey where have you been? They don't make records anymore. You have to get those at the flea market."

Now, that will make you feel old. It surprise me. They always had made records. I went away confused.:-( That really happened.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Like the definition for "a length of pipe" plumbers use. "Whatever the distance is from one end with a hole in the center to the other end with another hole in the center". It also took me over 35 years being a plumber to remember that hot water is usually on the left side of a sink.Robert