ACCURACY: The measure of a bullet's precision; the term describing a firearm's ability to shoot consistently where aimed.

BALLISTICS: The science which studies the behavior of projectiles in motion. Interior Ballistics concerns itself with events inside a gun from primer ignition through the projectile's departure from the muzzle. Exterior Ballistics deals with the motion of the projectile after it leaves the gun.

BORE: The inside of a firearm's barrel. In rifled firearms the bore diameter is the original dimension of the barrel before the rifling grooves are cut or swaged.

ENERGY: The capacity for doing work (transferring force). Spoken of in ballistics as Muzzle Energy or Remaining Energy. The measure of energy in ballistics is the Foot Pound.

FOOT-POUND (ft.-lb.): A unit of energy equal to the amount of energy required to lift one pound one foot.

FORM FACTOR: A multiplier which relates the shape of a bullet to the shape of the standard projectile used to prepare a particular ballistic table.

GRAIN: The smallest unit of measurement in the British and U.S. system of weights. One pound avoirdupois equals 7,000 grains.

GROOVES: Swaged impressions or cuts spiraled through a bore to rotate projectiles.(Also see LANDS and VALLEY)

GROUP/GROUP SIZE: The distribution of bullets on a target fired with a single aiming point and sight setting. Group size is expressed as the distance between centers of the farthest holes and is most easily determined by measuring the extreme spread from outside to outside and subtracting one bullet diameter.

LANDS: Those portions of the bore not cut away by rifling grooves. (Also see GROOVES and VALLEY)

MINUTE OF ANGLE (MOA): The arc subtended by an angle of one minute (1/60th of a degree) at any range, usually 100 yards. A minute of angle at 100 yards is 1.047" .

MUZZLE ENERGY: Food pounds of energy of a projectile at the muzzle.

MUZZLE VELOCITY: The speed of a projectile at the muzzle.

NOODLE: Savage users' slang for the fiberglass ram rod that comes with the Savage 10 MLs.

OGIVE: The curve of a bullet's nose.

PRESSURE: Force per unit area, measured in interior ballistics terms of pounds per square inch.

RECOIL: The rearward motion or "kick" of a gun on firing. Recoil in shooting is the practical effect of Newton's Third Law of Motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

REMAINING ENERGY: A projectile's energy in foot pounds at a given range.

RIFLING: The spiral grooves in the bore of a rifled firearm. The rotation they impart to a projectile to stabilize it in a flight.( Savage 10ML rifling is 1:24 )

SHOCK 1: The transference of the kinetic energy of a bullet to animal tissue.

SHOCK 2: TRAJECTORY: The flight path of a projectile.

TWIST: The rate of spiral of the grooves of a rifle barrel expressed in length of barrel per revolution. ( Savage 10ML rifling is 1:24 meaning 1 complete revolution every 24 inches of bullet travel)

VALLEY:Those portions of the bore that are away to make rifling grooves (Also see LANDS and GROOVES)

VELOCITY: The speed of a projectile expressed as distance per unit time. ZERO: In shooting, the sight setting at which point of impact and given point of aim coincide at a given range.