Handloading, or reloading, is the practice of making firearm cartridges by assembling the individual components, rather than purchasing mass-assembled, factory-loaded ammunition.
A shotgun is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, or sometimes a single solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are most commonly smoothbore firearms, meaning that their gun barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, but rifled barrels for shooting slugs are also available.
Skeet shooting is a recreational and competitive activity where participants use shotguns to attempt to break clay targets which two fixed stations mechanically fling into the air at high speed and at a variety of angles.
The General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger is a 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-style autocannon that is primarily mounted in the United States Air Force's Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. Designed to destroy a wide variety of ground targets, the Avenger delivers very powerful rounds at a high rate of fire. The GAU-8/A is also used in the Goalkeeper CIWS ship weapon system, which provides defense against short-range threats such as highly maneuverable missiles, aircraft, and fast maneuvering surface vessels. The GAU-8/A is currently produced by General Dynamics.
An automatic firearm is an autoloading firearm that continuously chambers and fires rounds when the trigger mechanism is actuated. The action of an automatic firearm is capable of harvesting the excess energy released from a previous discharge to feed a new ammunition round into the chamber, and then igniting the propellant and discharging the projectile by delivering a hammer or striker impact on the primer.
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 shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, fired through a smoothbore barrel with a tapered constriction at the muzzle to regulate the extent of scattering. A shell can sometimes also contain only a single large solid projectile known as a slug. The hull usually consists of a paper or plastic tube often covered at the base by a metallic head cover which retains a primer, and the shot charge is typically contained by a wadding/sabot inside the case. The caliber of the shotshell is known as its gauge.
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 riot shotgun is a shotgun designed or modified for use as a primarily defensive weapon, by the use of a short barrel and sometimes a larger magazine capacity than shotguns marketed for hunting. The riot shotgun is used by military personnel for guard duty and was at one time used for riot control, and is commonly used as a door breaching and patrol weapon by law enforcement personnel, as well as a home defense weapon by civilians. Guns of this type are often labeled as breaching shotguns, tactical shotguns or special-purpose shotguns to denote the larger scope of their use; however, these are largely marketing terms.
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 M982 Excalibur is a 155 mm extended-range guided artillery shell developed in a collaborative effort between the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the United States Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC). The Excalibur was developed and/or manufactured by prime contractor Raytheon Missiles & Defense, BAE Systems AB and other subs and primes in multiple capacities such as Camber Corporation and Huntington Ingalls Industries. It is a GPS and inertial-guided munition capable of being used in close support situations within 75–150 meters (250–490 ft) of friendly troops or in situations where targets might be prohibitively close to civilians to attack with conventional unguided artillery fire. In 2015 the United States planned to procure 7,474 rounds with a FY2015 total program cost of US$1.9341 billion at an average cost of US$258,777 per unit. By 2016, unit costs were reduced to US$68,000 per round. Versions that add laser-guidance capability and are designed to be fired from naval guns began testing in 2015. By October 2018, over 1,400 rounds had been fired in combat.
The 20 gauge shotgun, also known as "20 bore", is a type of smooth-bore shotgun that fires a shell that is smaller in caliber than a 12 gauge shotgun. It is often used by beginning shooters for target practice and for hunting small game.
The AA-12, originally designed and known as the Atchisson Assault Shotgun, is an automatic combat shotgun developed in 1972 by Maxwell Atchisson. The most prominent feature is reduced recoil. The current 2005 version has been developed over 18 years since 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 semi-automatically de facto with brief trigger pulls. It is fed from either an 8-shell box magazine or a 20-shell drum magazine.
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 M30 Luftwaffe Drilling ("triple") was a survival weapon issued to Luftwaffe pilots during World War II. It was used by airmen operating in North Africa. The M30 was intended to be used for hunting and self-defense against natural predators.
The 203 mm/53 Ansaldo was the main battery gun of Italy's most modern Washington Naval Treaty heavy cruisers. This treaty allowed ships of not more than 10,000 tons standard displacement, and with guns no larger than 8 inches (203 mm), to be excluded from total tonnage limitations on a nation's capital ships.
The 7.62×51mm NATO is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries.
