plinker
n.— «The Storm is also available in larger calibres, up to a .45 pistol round, but the rifle is clearly not designed for taking down moose. Some target shooters refer to it as a “plinker.”» —“Where the guns are” by Glen McGregor Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) Feb. 9, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
To joner means to “bring bad luck to” or “jinx.” This term is a corruption of the name Jonah, the biblical figure who initially resisted a divine command. His presence on board a ship supposedly caused a great storm at sea...
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This shows how the word is used but doesn’t define it.
To a shooter a “plinker” is a fun gun, usually a .22 rimfire. It can be either a handgun or a rifle and is used for informal shooting at, well, almost anything from rats to tin cans to cardboard boxes. Over ripe fruit is biodegradeable and can expand dramatically when hit.
I learned to shoot by firing both target rifles in prescribed courses of fire and by using an inexpensive rifle and cheap ammo to hunt rats.
As an adult my friends and I would travel to uninhabited areas that provided safe shooting areas. Our best place was an old sand quarry; we would set up our targets and have casual competition. Hitting an orange at 50 ft isn’t too hard; try doing it a 50 yds. How about when it is rolling? Put the rifle aside and try to do it with a handgun… Now switch to the duty handgun.
We would also use shotguns and try to hit flying golf balls.
Thanks! It’s just a citation, so it doesn’t have a role of defining. It’s only the collection of multiple uses of a word that we can begin to come up with an accurate definition. Your information is great and helps us toward that end.