What's the Difference Between a Clip vs a Magazine?

When getting into the gun world there are many new terms that a new gun owner may run across that they are not familiar with and wish to look up, but there are a fair amount of terms people may be familiar with from Hollywood and the news.  Those terms may be right, partially right, or flat out wrong but due to the pervasive misuse the technical definition is unclear and people chalk it up to a “same difference” or “you know what I mean” sentiment.  While that may work in some situations when talking about a technical topic words mean something.  One of the most misused and irksome terminology mix ups in the firearms world is the use of clip and magazine, mag for short.  

What are clips and magazines?

Clips and magazines both have to do with feeding ammo, which explains why they get mixed up, but they are actually different items and using the terms interchangeably may get you some weird looks from gun people.  

A clip is a device that holds multiple rounds together and is a tool for loading a magazine.  While a magazine stores and feeds the ammo and may be fixed internally or a detachable box like item.

What’s the difference?

To put it simply a magazine is what feeds ammo into the gun, while a clip is what feeds ammo into the magazine.   

The clip is used to make it easier to load multiple rounds in the magazine, this is not to be confused with an easy loader like the Uplula.  Sometimes the clip stays in the gun, like the en-bloc M1 Garand, when shooting and other times the rounds are stripped from the clip to load the mag.  If you have a gun that uses a clip it is essential to understand how it works, what the proper procedure is and that you can safely perform it whether in a dry or live environment.

Most shooters are likely familiar with a modern pistol or AR magazine in which you load the rounds into the mag and then put the mag in the gun.  While there are stripper clips available for modern AR rifle mags, shooters generally carry additional ready to go full mags for more ammunition.  

If you are unsure if you are holding a clip or a mag there are a few easy ways to tell them apart.  First, if most of the rounds are exposed rather than just the first 1 or 2 it is a clip, a mag is generally fully enclosed like a box.  The second tell is if there is a spring, a magazine has a spring and follower to push up the ammo as each round is expended, a clip is just holding ammo stationary and staged for loading.

Why the mix up on is it a mag or a clip?

The biggest reason people say clip when they mean mag is pervasive misinformation from popular culture.  It is unfortunate but for many people the most exposure they have to firearms is through movies, television and video games, our brains then glom onto that and we don’t have much real life experience to dispel that belief.  

Rifles that used clips used to be much more prevalent and we fought both world wars with that technology, so as Americans passed on gun culture from generation to generation, those left over terms and hand-me-down guns followed suit.  Plenty of people who have been shooting for decades still use older firearms, and may very well be using the term correctly, or they could have picked it up as their default term and it just became the slang they used.  

These days most people only interact with a magazine, but it doesn’t make the information irrelevant, if you run into a gun that uses a clip it is good to be able to identify it and if you have the skills to be using that gun.  

Clips aren’t obsolete though.  In fact, just this year at Shot Show 2025 KelTec introduced the new PR-5.7 pistol that uses 10 round stripper clips to load.

Are clips or mags more common today?

As previously stated, most people are going to deal with magazines in their modern pistols and sporting rifles.  A shooter could go their whole life without ever using a clip, it just depends on what your interests and use cases are.

Many shooters own a few firearms and go to the range not only to train or practice but sometimes for fun or competition.  A rifle that uses a clip can make for a great range gun, forcing you to expand your understanding and skills and giving you first hand experience at a technology that is often avoided.  Despite being an older style, the clip fed M1 Garand is iconic and a classic still used today in the Civilian Marksmanship Program High Power competitions. They are even producing new CMP M1 Garands to continue fueling the program for generations to come.

Whichever you decide to use, the important thing is knowing how it works.  Make sure you can operate it without having to read the instructions or watch a guided video, that’s homework.  If you choose to use one for home and/or personal defense take some time to test your reload skills and timing.  Testing what works for you is best done as a rehearsal, not during the encounter.  Can you load those two KelTec stripper clips faster than throwing a single mag into the well?  That’s for you to determine, put it on the shot timer or grab a MantisX unit to record detailed insights and timing.