SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Firearms Question - Fully and Semi-Automatic
Page 1 2 
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Firearms Question - Fully and Semi-Automatic Login/Join 
Legalize the Constitution
Picture of TMats
posted
This came about a the result of a discussion I was in. However you respond, please don’t condescendingly explain the difference—we know

Question:
Fully or Semi; are they both automatics?

Choices:
Yes
No

 


_______________________________________________________
despite them
 
Posts: 13907 | Location: Wyoming | Registered: January 10, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
I don’t think many know what a “matic” does. I sure don’t.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Too old to run,
too mean to quit!
posted Hide Post
As the definition describes! One continues to fire as long as the trigger is held down. The other automatically extracts the empty shell casing and loads the next round ready to fire.

So, to that extent, they both seem to be "automatics".


Elk

There has never been an occasion where a people gave up their weapons in the interest of peace that didn't end in their massacre. (Louis L'Amour)

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. "
-Thomas Jefferson

"America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." Alexis de Tocqueville

FBHO!!!



The Idaho Elk Hunter
 
Posts: 25656 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 16, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
posted Hide Post
They both have at least one automatic function.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 30228 | Location: Norris Lake, TN | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Go ahead punk, make my day
posted Hide Post
In common use, most people mean "fully automatic" when they use the term "Automatic weapons".
 
Posts: 45798 | Registered: July 12, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
E tan e epi tas
Picture of cslinger
posted Hide Post
Yes they both automatically, using normally wasted forces, to strip and chamber a new round without the need for human intervention, unless it’s a TEC9 but I digress Wink

Fully automatic simply takes it one step further and continues the firing process without additional human interaction.....unless ... NOTE SEE TEC9. Smile


Take Care, Shoot Safe,
Chris
 
Posts: 8091 | Location: On the water | Registered: July 25, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of sigproshooter
posted Hide Post
I say no. Since what you're talking about is how a weapon functions, specifically its firing mechanism, only one can be truly considered "automatic." The other would be, to me, merely considered "autoloading."
 
Posts: 314 | Location: Ohio | Registered: January 11, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
non ducor, duco
Picture of Nickelsig229
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sigproshooter:
I say no. Since what you're talking about is how a weapon functions, specifically its firing mechanism, only one can be truly considered "automatic." The other would be, to me, merely considered "autoloading."


It was my understanding that when the term Automatic was applied to firearms that it meant "automatically loads the next round"

It was after that invention they devised Automatic Firing weapons.

I'm not an expert though so I'm not 100 percent positive.




First In Last Out
 
Posts: 4929 | Location: CT | Registered: October 15, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Web Clavin Extraordinaire
Picture of Oat_Action_Man
posted Hide Post
By definition, yes.

Automatic means it performs the operation by itself, and both modes perform the operations of loading and firing by themselves.


----------------------------

Chuck Norris put the laughter in "manslaughter"

Educating the youth of America, one declension at a time.
 
Posts: 19837 | Location: SE PA | Registered: January 12, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Caribou gorn
Picture of YellowJacket
posted Hide Post
they both automatically reload themselves but only one automatically also fires the weapon, so I say no.

but I can see why many would say yes. semi-auto shotguns are typically called "autoloaders."



I'm gonna vote for the funniest frog with the loudest croak on the highest log.
 
Posts: 10718 | Location: Marietta, GA | Registered: February 10, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
posted Hide Post
Some people want to associate semi auto with fully auto to more easily ban semi auto. This is the point of questions like this much of the time. There is an alarmingly large number of politicians who would love to ban semi autos but know the political consequences would hurt them so they don't. That is why the Left works to change the culture by disseminating questions like this for the public to socratically work out. Change the culture, embolden the politician, ban the gun.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 30228 | Location: Norris Lake, TN | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of sigcrazy7
posted Hide Post
I voted no because of the way "automatic" is commonly used. In the military, if someone said "there's heavy automatic fire coming from that hilltop," we inferred it meant "fully" automatic fire.



Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus
 
Posts: 8292 | Location: Utah | Registered: December 18, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Legalize the Constitution
Picture of TMats
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by darthfuster:
Some people want to associate semi auto with fully auto to more easily ban semi auto. This is the point of questions like this much of the time. There is an alarmingly large number of politicians who would love to ban semi autos but know the political consequences would hurt them so they don't. That is why the Left works to change the culture by disseminating questions like this for the public to socratically work out. Change the culture, embolden the politician, ban the gun.

Nothing quite as sinister as that, darthfuster. I’m approaching 11 years here, and have made enough posts that my politics should be well known to anyone paying attention. It never occurred to me that a member here would take the question this way; call me naive, I guess


_______________________________________________________
despite them
 
Posts: 13907 | Location: Wyoming | Registered: January 10, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie
Picture of Balzé Halzé
posted Hide Post
Yes, they're both automatics.



~Alan

Acta Non Verba
NRA Life Member (Patron)
God, Family, Guns, Country

Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan

 
Posts: 31298 | Location: Elv. 7,000 feet, Utah | Registered: October 29, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
You don’t fix faith,
River. It fixes you.

Picture of Yanert98
posted Hide Post
Like Alan, I was also taught that the term 'automatic' originally referred to the loading process.

So yes.


----------------------------------
"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.." - Thomas Sowell
 
Posts: 2673 | Location: Migrating with the Seasons | Registered: September 26, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Nosce te ipsum
Picture of Woodman
posted Hide Post
About 5.5 hours into the poll, we're 50/50, 34 votes each way. My vote for YES evidently pushed up the truth to even-money.

I'm guessing it is an age-thing. The older you are, the more you'll recognize both variants as "automatics". The non-autos will be revolvers and lever/pump action rifles and shotguns.
 
Posts: 8759 | Registered: March 24, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Sigforum K9 handler
Picture of jljones
posted Hide Post
The definition is skewed.

The argument can be made they are both “automatics”, but they are not. Fully automatic is defined as a weapon that fire MULTIPLE rounds of ammunition with one depression of the trigger. Semi-automatic is defined as a weapon that fires one round of ammunition only with one depression of the trigger. The focus on the proper definition is round count, not self loading.

The definition focuses on the function of the self loading pistol where as the meat and potato’s of it is that the function of the weapon after the trigger is pressed.

It probably should have been classified as fully automatic and not fully automatic.




www.opspectraining.com

"It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it works out for them"



 
Posts: 37418 | Location: Logical | Registered: September 12, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
At Jacob's Well
Picture of jaaron11
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Woodman:
The non-autos will be revolvers and lever/pump action rifles and shotguns.


To play devil's advocate, wouldn't a double action revolver be a semi-automatic pistol the way that many are defining it here? It "automatically" indexes the next round for you. One trigger pull, one round fired. The only difference is a rotary magazine instead of a detachable box magazine.


J


Rak Chazak Amats
 
Posts: 5301 | Location: SW Missouri | Registered: May 08, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Cobra21
posted Hide Post
Well, with a review of history in mind, I'd say YES. They didn't call it a cartridge for a SACP. They called it ACP...Automatic Colt Pistol.

Now, with the benefit of revisionist history in mind, we can now say, NO, it's not automatic. We've decided to reserve that term for multiple projectiles fired with one depression of the trigger.

I voted YES, as I'll stand on the original definition (at least in my mind anyway). Wink


Risk the consequences of honesty...
 
Posts: 4504 | Location: DFW, TX | Registered: December 02, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
It sort of depends upon what the intention of the linguistic pissing contest is.
Both fully-Automatic and semi-automatic have "automatic" in the name, and are therefore both "automatic" and include some "automatic" function. But an "automatic rifle" is commonly implied to mean "fully-automatic" as in a "machine gun". A semi-auto is commonly referred to as a semiautomatic rifle, and it would be considered inaccurate to call it an "automatic rifle", even though it is "a rifle with some automatic functions".


"Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, 'What is the riddle of steel?' If I don't know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me."
 
Posts: 6641 | Registered: September 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata Page 1 2  
 

SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Firearms Question - Fully and Semi-Automatic

© SIGforum 2025