Piper we actualy agre on something!! nialmac ,please dont critisise "cockney cuisene". They dont know any better so we let them think they have a culture. As to food you Americans are not innocent .
But back to the track ,jargon is a verbal short hand used bypeople in a trade to speed communication . It can and is used to exclude outsiders. As in America you never had a center of gunmaking as Birmingham or Liege and it would appear that your gunmaking tradions are morer Eurpoean derived than British.As a concequence your terminologey will differ from that we in the UK use. Added to this writers have frequently used incorrect terms that have passed into accepted usage. I will never call flats a water table , but as long as we both understand what the other is saying ,we must agree to differ.
Whilst on the subject ,when did cartridge cases become "hulls" ?