shooting iron

plural shooting irons · alternative shooting-iron

1. UScolloquialdatedA firearm, especially a handgun.

   Look like a fool walking about with an empty shooting-iron in my hand.

   1899 September – 1900 July, Joseph Conrad, chapter XXV, in Lord Jim: A Tale, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1900, →OCLC, page 267

   3 more examples

   "It ain't the rifle, Harry," Sam said good-temperedly; "it is the eye that is wrong, not the shooting-iron."

   1895, G. A. Henty, chapter 15, in In the Heart Of The Rockies

   "Look like a damn fool walking about with an empty shooting-iron in my hand."

   1900, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, page xxv. 183

   The U.S. Army's newest war tool, the M-3 submachine gun, unveiled last week. [...] a stark, crude, unlovely shooting iron.

   1943 June 14, Cheap Firepower