pinfire

pinfire

English

Etymology

From pin +‎ fire.

Noun

pinfire (plural pinfires)

  1. (firearms) An obsolete kind of brass cartridge in which the priming compound is ignited by striking a small pin which protrudes radially from just above the base of the cartridge.
    • 1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados:
      "An early French make, I should say; one of Lefaucheux's probably," said Carrados. "You have removed the cartridges?"
      "Why, yes," admitted the sergeant, producing a matchbox from his pocket. "They're pin-fire, you see, and I'm not too fond of carrying a thing like that loaded in my pocket as I'm riding a young horse."

Coordinate terms

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.