A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun,[1] or historically as a fowling piece) is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small spherical projectiles called shot, or a single solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are most commonly used as smoothbore firearms, meaning that their gun barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, but rifled barrels for shooting sabot slugs (slug barrels) are also available.
Shotguns come in a wide variety of calibers and gauges ranging from 5.5 mm (.22 inch) to up to 5 cm (2.0 in), though the 12-gauge (18.53 mm or 0.729 in) and 20-gauge (15.63 mm or 0.615 in) bores are by far the most common. Almost all are breechloading, and can be single barreled, double barreled, or in the form of a combination gun. Like rifles, shotguns also come in a range of different action types, both single-shot and repeating. For non-repeating designs, over-and-under and side-by-side break action shotguns are by far the most common variants. Although revolving shotguns do exist, most modern repeating shotguns are either pump action or semi automatic, and also fully automatic, lever-action, or bolt-action to a lesser extent.
Preceding smoothbore firearms (such as the musket) were widely used by European militaries from the 17th until the mid-19th century.[2] The muzzleloading blunderbuss, the direct ancestor of the shotgun, was also used in similar roles from self-defense to riot control. Shotguns were often favored by cavalry troops in the early to mid-19th century because of its ease of use and generally good effectiveness on the move, as well as by coachmen for its substantial power. But by the late 19th century, these weapons became largely replaced on the battlefield by breechloading rifled firearms shooting spin-stabilized cylindro-conoidal bullets, which were far more accurate with longer effective ranges. The military value of shotguns was rediscovered in the First World War, when American forces used the pump-action Winchester Model 1897 shotgun in trench fighting to great effect. Since then, shotguns have been used in a variety of close quarters combat roles in civilian, law enforcement, and military applications.
The smoothbore shotgun barrel generates less resistance and thus allows greater propellant loads for heavier projectiles without as much risk of overpressure or a squib load, and are also easier to clean. The shot pellets from a shotshell are propelled indirectly through a wadding inside the shell and scatter upon leaving the barrel, which is usually choked at the muzzle end to control the projectile scatter. This means each shotgun discharge will produce a cluster of impact points instead of a single point of impact like other firearms. Having multiple projectiles also means the muzzle energy is divided among the pellets, leaving each individual projectile with less penetrative kinetic energy. The lack of spin stabilization and the generally suboptimal aerodynamic shape of the shot pellets also make them less accurate and decelerate quite quickly in flight due to drag, giving shotguns short effective ranges. In a hunting context, this makes shotguns useful primarily for hunting fast-flying birds and other agile small/medium-sized game without risking overpenetration and stray shots to distant bystander and objects. However, in a military or law enforcement context, the high short-range blunt knockback force and large number of projectiles makes the shotgun useful as a door breaching tool, a crowd control or close-quarters defensive weapon. Militants or insurgents may use shotguns in asymmetric engagements, as shotguns are commonly owned civilian weapons in many countries. Shotguns are also used for target-shooting sports such as skeet, trap, and sporting clays, which involve flying clay disks, known as "clay pigeons", thrown in various ways by a dedicated launching device called a "trap".
For most of the history of the shotgun, the breechloading break-action shotgun was the most common type, and double-barreled variants are by far the most commonly seen in modern days. These are typically divided into two subtypes: the traditional "side-by-side" shotgun features two barrels mounted horizontally beside each other (as the name suggests), whereas the "over-and-under" shotgun has the two barrels mounted vertically one on top of the other. Side-by-side shotguns were traditionally used for hunting and other sporting pursuits (early long-barreled side-by-side shotguns were known as "fowling pieces" for their use hunting ducks and other waterbirds as well as some landfowls), whereas over-and-under shotguns are more commonly associated with recreational use (such as clay pigeon shooting). Both types of double-barrel shotgun are used for hunting and sporting use, with the individual configuration largely being a matter of personal preference.
Another, less commonly encountered type of break-action shotgun is the combination gun, which is an over-and-under design with one smoothbore barrel and one rifle barrel (more often with a rifle barrel on top, but a rifle barrel on bottom was not uncommon). There is also a class of break-action guns called drillings, which contain three barrels, usually two smoothbore barrels of the same gauge and a rifled barrel, though the only common theme is that at least one barrel be smoothbore. The most common arrangement was essentially a side-by-side shotgun with the rifled barrel below and centered. Usually a drilling containing more than one rifled barrel would have both rifled barrels in the same caliber, but examples do exist with different caliber barrels, usually a .22 long rifle and a centerfire cartridge. Although very rare, drillings with three and even four (a vierling) shotgun barrels were made.
Pump-action shotguns are common hunting, fowling and sporting shotguns. Hunting models generally have a barrel between 600 and 700 mm (24"-28"). Tube-fed models designed for hunting often come with a dowel rod or other stop that is inserted into the magazine and reduces the capacity of the gun to three shells (two in the magazine and one chambered) as is mandated by U.S. federal law when hunting migratory birds. They can also easily be used with an empty magazine as a single-shot weapon, by simply dropping the next round to be fired into the open ejection port after the spent round is ejected. For this reason, pump-actions are commonly used to teach novice shooters under supervision, as the trainer can load each round more quickly than with a break-action, while unlike a break-action the student can maintain his grip on the gun and concentrate on proper handling and firing of the weapon.
Lever shotguns have seen a return to the gun market in recent years, however, with Winchester producing the Model 9410 (chambering the .410 gauge shotgun shell and using the action of the Winchester Model 94 series lever-action rifle, hence the name), and a handful of other firearm manufacturers (primarily Norinco of China and ADI Ltd. of Australia) producing versions of the Winchester Model 1887/1901 designed for modern 12-gauge smokeless shotshells with more durable plastic casings. There has been a notable uptick in lever-action shotgun sales in Australia since 1997, when pump-actions were effectively outlawed.
Bolt-action shotguns, while uncommon, do exist. One of the best-known examples is a 12-gauge manufactured by Mossberg featuring a 3-round magazine, marketed in Australia just after changes to the gun laws in 1997 heavily restricted the ownership and use of pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns. They were not a huge success, as they were somewhat slow and awkward to operate, and the rate of fire was noticeably slower (on average) than a double-barrelled gun. The Rifle Factory Ishapore in India also manufactured a single-shot .410 bore shotgun based on the SMLE Mk III* rifle. The Russian Berdana shotgun was effectively a single-shot bolt-action rifle that became obsolete, and was subsequently modified to chamber 16-gauge shotgun shells for civilian sale. The U.S. military M26 is also a bolt-action weapon. Bolt-action shotguns have also been used in the "goose gun" application, intended to kill birds such as geese at greater range. Typically, goose guns have long barrels (up to 36 inches), and small bolt-fed magazines. Bolt-action shotguns are also used in conjunction with slug shells for the maximum possible accuracy from a shotgun.[4]
Colt briefly manufactured several revolving shotguns that were met with mixed success. The Colt Model 1839 Shotgun was manufactured between 1839 and 1841. Later, the Colt Model 1855 Shotgun, based on the Model 1855 revolving rifle, was manufactured between 1860 and 1863. Because of their low production numbers and age they are among the rarest of all Colt firearms.[5]
Recoil/inertia-driven or gas-operated actions are other popular methods of increasing the rate of fire of a shotgun; these self-loading shotguns are generally referred to as autoloaders. Instead of having the action manually operated by a pump or lever, the action automatically cycles each time the shotgun is fired, ejecting the spent shell and reloading a fresh one into the chamber. The first successful semi-automatic shotgun was John Browning's Auto-5, first produced by Fabrique Nationale beginning in 1902. Other well-known examples include the Remington 1100, Benelli M1, and Saiga-12.
The Italian firearms manufacturer Benelli Armi SpA also makes the Benelli M3, a dual-mode hybrid shotgun that allows the user the choice of semi-automatic or pump-action operation. Pump-action operation is employed when shooting less energetic shells (such as baton rounds) that do not generate enough recoil to operate the semi-automatic mechanism. Conversely, the semi-automatic mode can be employed with more powerful shells, absorbing some of the recoil. Switching between the two modes is done by manipulating the ring located at the front of the foregrip.
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