Clip vs. Magazine

This wiki page will explain the difference between a clip and a magazine. It will involve some pictures and is designed to help the reader distinguish between these two in the future.

Distinctions
A clip is a device used to load ammunition into a magazine (most commonly an internal magazine). Such devices include the 8-round "en bloc" clip used by the M1 Garand, and the stripper clips used by the SKS carbine (the 'sister' to the more common AK-47). However, many people confuse this with a magazine, which is a device that feeds ammunition -and- encloses it. These are, for example, the curved magazine of the AK-47, which many people mistakenly call a "banana clip", or the magazine of the M16 rifle. A shortened term for magazine, "mag", is also available. It would be immensely incorrect to refer to anything that does not use clips or magazines as having a "clip size".

Improper use
This error can be easily seen in the G.E.C.K. where you can enter the magazine capacity of a weapon as "Clip rounds". The correct term would be "Magazine capacity" or "Mag capacity". Most likely, the developers just wanted to make it clearer as to what they are talking about as most people are more familiar with the "clip" usage.

In Fallout 3, for example, the Chinese Pistol is loaded from the top by a stripper clip. It has an internal magazine that holds 10 cartridges. The Chinese Assault Rifle uses a 24-round (or 36, in the case of the Xuanlong Assault Rifle) box magazine, the so-called "banana clip" in slang, which is an incorrect term to use.

Energy weapons can be referred to as using cells rather than magazines, as they are a battery of sorts rather than dedicated storing and feeding devices.