Magazine or clip: You don't need to be in the Matrix to know the difference

I was watching the Matrix last night. You know, that most excellent sci-fi trilogy starring Keanu Reaves, Lawrence Fishburne and Carrie-Ann Moss. My favourite character, besides Trinity in her skin-tight leather outfits, has always been Morpheus played by Fishburne; He’s that all-knowing dude who trains Neo to fight and is pretty much the authority on everything Matrix related.

What he doesn’t know however, is what the difference between a clip and a magazine is! In The Matrix he mentions a clip in respect of loading a firearm. No guns in the Matrix are loaded using a clip, they are all external magazine-fed weapons. Shame on you Morpheus. I thought I’d do a little post on it so that you can avoid the error Morpheus made, in the advent of you being trapped in the Matrix at some point.

A Magazine

A magazine can be separate from, or integral to, the firearm. It simply holds ammunition prior to it being fed up into the chamber for firing. You may recall seeing a magazine getting pushed up and into a pistol, machine gun or rifle in the movies. It is pre-loaded with ammunition and then inserted to the gun. This would be called a detachable magazine. Some rifles, like my very first one, a Ruger M77 MKII has an internal magazine. One simply loads the ammunition directly into the magazine from the top of the rifle, one by one. In a combat scenario empty magazines are generally discarded during the reload process however in civilian life they are collected and reused as they are costly. I use 6 magazines for my competition pistol shooting at $75 per magazine. My rifle magazines are about $215 each and I run 4 of them in competitions. That’s why we keep them. In the image to the right you'll see a magazine and how the bullets are loaded inside it. They would not normally be cut out like that of course. image source

A clip

This item is completely, totally and irrevocably different from a magazine. A clip is simply a device designed to assist in the loading of ammunition into an internal magazine. Each round is held in place by the clip and the operator inserts the clip into the magazine ready for feeding into the chamber and firing. By having the clip retain the ammunition it can be fed into the magazine more rapidly rather than being inserted one by one. Clips are generally discarded once the ammunition has been pushed into the gun, or in some cases the clip pops back out of the chamber when the last round is fired. It is then discarded. That type of clip is called the En Bloc clip. The image below shows a person loading an SKS using a stripper clip. The clip will be discarded after loading the internal magazine in a combat scenario. image source

So, I hope this little explanation has cleared up that simple error many people make. I suppose it just goes to show how easy it is to make the error when a major film makes the error so glaringly. It’s a reasonably easy error to make though. As a general rule though very few m modern guns would use a clip and most militaries would avoid using weapons requiring it. If you happen to be watching a World War one or Two film they will probably be using guns that utilise clips. The M1 Garand for example.

If you ever get stuck in the Matrix and get to shoot some guns do go asking for a clip as the majority of modern guns don’t use them. I've kept this post quite generic. There are so many different guns using one system or another. I just wanted to explain the basic difference between a clip and a magazine.

Design and create your ideal life, don't get stuck in the matrix.
@galenkp