terminology, semi-automatic, fully-automaticI see guns referred to as semi-auto or full-auto, but I don’t know what that means. What is the difference between a semi-auto weapon and a full-auto weapon?
A semi-automatic weapon will fire one round, and replace the spent casing with a new round once per pull of the trigger. A fully automatic weapon will continue on to fire the newly loaded round and repeat the process until the trigger is released or the ammunition is spent.
Edit: I’ve slightly reworded my answer to cover a couple of interesting historical asides that I thought of later. There were at least a couple of “automatic revolvers” (might be more that I’m not aware of). Still “semi-automatic” in that they fire one shot per activation of the trigger. The Webley-Fosbery and the Mateba Model 6 Unica Although they didn’t eject the casings, they used some of the energy of the cartridge to rotate the cylinder and cock the hammer instead of all of the action relying on pulling the trigger.
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