bandoleer

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Mexican Revolutionary General Pancho Villa wearing two bandoliers.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bandolier.

A bandolier or a bandoleer is a pocketed belt for holding ammunition. It was usually slung over the chest. In its original form, it was common issue to soldiers from the 16th to 18th centuries. This was very useful for quickly reloading a musket.

A somewhat different form of the bandolier came into use in the 20th century when it accompanied modern cartridges and hand grenades. Bandoliers are now rare due to the prohibitive size of modern magazines. They are, however, still commonly used with shotguns, as individual 12 gauge shells can easily be stored in traditionally-designed bandoliers. In fact, some aftermarket shotgun slings are designed in a similar fashion to bandoliers, albeit with a far more limited capacity than true bandoliers.

The bandolier was used to keep ammunition off a soldier's hips, as carrying too much weight on the hips can constrain movement and cause difficulty in retrieving the ammunition.

In World War I and World War II, bandoliers were issued primarily to riflemen. Today bandoliers are worn by soldiers operating light machine guns and squad automatic weapons. In civilian use, bandoliers are often worn by hunters and recreational shooters using shotguns.

Bandoliers made from spent or dummy rounds are often used in fashion, sometimes in heavy metal and punk subcultures.

See also

• Baldric

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