Firearm Parts

There are three basic kinds of firearm - handgun, rifle and shotgun - and they all have some common parts. There are several places to find firearm diagrams, including your local library and your State's Fish and Wildlife service. On-line resources include firearms manufaturers , the National Rifle Association , and Today's Hunter and HunterExam.com, which offer hunter education programs used for distance learning by many states. Click on a picture below to see an animation from Today's Hunter. (Graphics Source: Today's Hunter .) Additional animations for and hand guns are available at .

There are five types of action for a rifle: bolt, pump, lever, break and semi-automatic. The purpose of each of these actions is to eject the spent cartridge and replace it with a fresh cartridge. The bolt, pump and lever are manual actions use magazines which cycle the cartridges when the shooter moves the action. The break action does not use a magazine and requires the shooter to manually open the gun, remove the spent cartridge and place fresh ones in the barrel.

Click on a picture below to see an animation from Today's Hunter. (Graphics Source: Today's Hunter .) Additional animations for are available at .

Graphics source: Today's Hunter

The same action types used for rifles are used for shotguns. In addition, shotguns can have single or double barrels, which can be either side-by-side or over-under.

Graphics source: Today's Hunter

Here are are few more examples. Click on the pictures to enlarge.