A shotgun 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 are also available.
Tracer ammunition, or tracers, are bullets or cannon-caliber projectiles that are built with a small pyrotechnic charge in their base. When fired, the pyrotechnic composition is ignited by the burning powder and burns very brightly, making the projectile trajectory visible to the naked eye during daylight, and very bright during nighttime firing. This allows the shooter to visually trace the trajectory of the projectile and thus make necessary ballistic corrections, without having to confirm projectile impacts and without even using the sights of the weapon. Tracer fire can also be used as a marking tool to signal other shooters to concentrate their fire on a particular target during battle.
The M203 is a single-shot 40 mm under-barrel grenade launcher designed to attach to a rifle. It uses the same rounds as the older stand-alone M79 break-action grenade launcher, which utilizes the high-low propulsion system to keep recoil forces low. While compatible with many weapons, the M203 was originally designed and produced by the United States military for the M16 rifle and its carbine variant, the M4. The launcher can also be mounted onto a C7, a Canadian version of the M16 rifle; this requires the prior removal of the bottom handguard.
A combat shotgun is a shotgun issued by militaries for warfare. The earliest shotguns specifically designed for combat were the trench guns or trench shotguns issued in World War I. While limited in range, the multiple projectiles typically used in a shotgun shell provide increased hit probability unmatched by other small arms.
A breaching round or slug-shot is a shotgun shell specially made for door breaching. It is typically fired at a range of 6 inches (15 cm) or less, aimed at the hinges or the area between the doorknob and lock and doorjamb, and is designed to destroy the object it hits and then disperse into a relatively harmless powder.
A shotgun cartridge, shotshell, or shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) ammunition used specifically in shotguns. It is typically loaded with numerous small, spherical sub-projectiles called shot. Shotguns typically use a smoothbore barrel with a tapered constriction at the muzzle to regulate the extent of scattering.
The .410 bore (10.4 mm) is one of the smallest caliber of shotgun shell commonly available. A .410 bore shotgun loaded with shot shells is well suited for small game hunting and pest control. The .410 started off in the United Kingdom as a garden gun along with the .360 and the No. 3 bore (9 mm) rimfire, No. 2 bore (7 mm) rimfire, and No. 1 bore (6 mm) rimfire. .410 shells have similar base dimensions to the .45 Colt cartridge, allowing many single-shot firearms, as well as derringers and revolvers chambered in that caliber, to fire .410 shot shells without any modifications.
The KS-23 is a Soviet shotgun. Because it uses a rifled barrel, it is officially designated by the Russian military as a carbine. KS stands for Karabin Spetsialniy, "Special Carbine". It is renowned for its large caliber, firing a 23 mm shotgun shell, equating to 6.278 gauge using the British and American standards of shotgun gauges and approximately 4 gauge using the current European standards, making it the largest-bore shotgun in modern use.
In current usage, a riot gun or less-lethal launcher is a type of firearm used to fire "non-lethal" or "less-lethal" ammunition for the purpose of suppressing riots or apprehending suspects with minimal harm or risk. Less-lethal launchers may be special purpose firearms designed for riot control use, or standard firearms, usually shotguns and grenade launchers, adapted for riot control use with appropriate ammunition. The ammunition is most commonly found in 12 gauge shotguns and 37mm or 40 mm grenade launchers.
A shotgun slug is a heavy projectile made of lead, copper, or other material and fired from a shotgun. Slugs are designed for hunting large game, and other uses, particularly in areas near human population where their short range and slow speed helps increase safety margin. The first effective modern shotgun slug was introduced by Wilhelm Brenneke in 1898, and his design remains in use today. Most shotgun slugs are designed to be fired through a cylinder bore, improved cylinder choke, rifled choke tubes, or fully rifled bores. Slugs differ from round ball lead projectiles in that they are stabilized in some manner.
The 20-gauge shotgun, also known as 20 bore, is a type of smoothbore shotgun. 20-gauge shotguns have a bore diameter of .615 in (15.6 mm), while the 12-gauge has a bore diameter of .729 in (18.5 mm). 12-gauge and 20-gauge shotguns are the most popular gauges in the United States. The 20-gauge is popular among upland game hunters, target shooters, and skeet shooters.
The AA-12, originally designed and known as the Atchisson Assault Shotgun, is an automatic combat shotgun developed in 1972 by Maxwell Atchisson. However, the original development by Atchisson seems to have produced only a few guns at prototype-level, with the development that ultimately led to the gun entering the market being done later by Military Police Systems, Inc. The most prominent feature is reduced recoil. The 2005 version was developed 19 years after the patent was sold to Military Police Systems, Inc. The original design was the basis of several later weapons, including the USAS-12 combat shotgun. The shotgun fires in fully automatic mode only. However, the relatively low cyclic rate of fire of around 300 rounds per minute enables the shooter to fire individual rounds through the use of short trigger pulls. It is fed from either an 8-round box magazine, 20-round drum magazine, or a 32-round drum magazine. The charging handle is located at the top of the gun and does not reciprocate during firing.
The OTs-20 Gnom is a Russian revolver manufactured by the KBP Instrument Design Bureau. It uses a proprietary 12.5x40mm STs-110 cartridge developed from a 32 gauge shotgun cartridge. It can fire lead slug (STs-110-04), lead shot (STs-110-02), and armor-piercing steel-core slug (STs-110) cartridges, as well as three types of non-lethal ammunition. The revolver is smooth bore and so it lacks accuracy but has high muzzle velocity and stopping power.
The U-94 UDAR is a police weapon designed and developed by the KBP Instrument Design Bureau in the early 1990s and first manufactured in 1994. It is a compact double-action revolver that chambers proprietary ammunition in the form of an unusual 12.3mm shell. It has a shrouded hammer that can be manually cocked or decocked by use of a cut-out slot at the top of the shroud. It has a side-breaking cylinder that opens to the left and uses a star-ejector to eject all the spent shells at once.
The Taurus Judge is a five-shot revolver designed and produced by Taurus International, chambered for .410 bore shot shells and the .45 Colt cartridge. Taurus promotes the Judge as a self-defense tool against carjacking and for home protection.
The Manville gun was a stockless, semi-automatic, revolver type gun, introduced in 1935 by Charles J. Manville. The Manville Gun was a large weapon, with a heavy cylinder being rotated for each shot by a clockwork-type spring. The spring was wound manually during the reloading.
The M30 Luftwaffe Drilling ("triple") was a survival weapon issued to Luftwaffe pilots during World War II. It was used by airmen operating in Northern Africa. The M30 was intended to be used for hunting and self-defense against a variety of natural predators.
The Kel-Tec KSG is a bullpup 12-gauge pump-action shotgun designed by Kel-Tec. It has two tube magazines which the user of the gun can switch between manually. Each tube holds up to seven 2.75-inch (70 mm) 12-gauge shotshells or six 3-inch (76 mm) shotshells. The Kel-Tec KSG has an overall length of 633mm. Kel-Tec has also introduced a larger variant, called the KSG25, which holds 24+1 rounds to the originals 14+1 rounds.
Green bullet, green ammunition or green ammo are nicknames for a United States Department of Defense program to eliminate the use of hazardous materials from small arms ammunition and from small arms ammunition manufacturing. Initial objectives were elimination of ozone-depleting substances, volatile organic compounds, and heavy metals from primers and projectiles. These materials were perceived as causing difficulties through the entire life cycle of ammunition. The materials generated hazardous wastes and emissions at manufacturing facilities and use of ammunition caused contamination at shooting ranges. Potential health hazards made demilitarization and disposal of unused ammunition difficult and expensive.
