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Shotgun: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Shotgun
The first recorded use of the term shotgun appeared in 1776 in Kentucky, marking the weapon as a distinct entity within the frontier language of the West. Before this designation, the device was known as a fowling piece, a firearm intended for wing shooting of birds that shared the large diameter, smoothbore barrels of early muskets and arquebuses. The Brown Bess musket, which served the British army from 1722 to 1838, possessed a 19 mm smoothbore barrel roughly equivalent to a 10-gauge shotgun, yet records from the Plymouth Colony show fowling pieces were often shorter, measuring just 137 cm or 4 feet. This shorter length made the weapon more manageable for mounted cavalry and citizen militias who required a tool that could be fired effectively while moving. During the American Civil War, both Union and Confederate forces utilized shotguns, with mounted units favoring the weapon for its devastating close-range firepower and ease of use on the move. The shotgun became a symbol of the American Old West, where lawmen like Cody Lyons and Doc Holliday relied on short-barreled versions to defend against bandits. These private strongbox guards, known as express messengers, rode with the weapon loaded with buckshot, a practice that survives today in the slang term riding shotgun for the passenger in the front seat of a vehicle.
The Hammerless Revolution
The origins of the hammerless shotgun lie in early 19th-century France and Belgium, where inventors began experimenting with breechloading mechanisms that did not require external hammers. By the 1850s, Joseph Needham produced a hinged-chamber fixed-barrel breech-loader in Britain, while the 1870s saw the rise of T. Murcott mousetrap action, a patent that earned its nickname from the loud snap of its mechanism. The most significant innovation of the decade was Anson and Deeley boxlock patent of 1875, a design that utilized only four moving parts to create a cheaper and more reliable firearm. Daniel Myron LeFever, working for Barber & LeFever in Syracuse, New York, introduced the first American hammerless shotgun in 1878, which was cocked with external levers before he patented the first truly automatic hammerless shotgun in 1883. This automatic mechanism cocked itself when the breech closed and later ejected shells automatically when opened. John Moses Browning would later revolutionize the industry with the Model 1887 Lever Action Repeating Shotgun in 1887, which loaded fresh cartridges from an internal magazine. Browning followed this with the Model 1893 Pump Action Shotgun in 1893, introducing the familiar pump action to the market, and the Browning Auto-5 in 1900, which became America's first semi-automatic shotgun and remained in production until 1998.
When did the term shotgun first appear in recorded history?
The first recorded use of the term shotgun appeared in 1776 in Kentucky. This designation marked the weapon as a distinct entity within the frontier language of the West before it was known as a fowling piece.
Who invented the first American hammerless shotgun and when?
Daniel Myron LeFever introduced the first American hammerless shotgun in 1878 while working for Barber & LeFever in Syracuse, New York. He later patented the first truly automatic hammerless shotgun in 1883 which cocked itself when the breech closed.
Why did Germany protest the use of shotguns during World War I?
Germany filed an official diplomatic protest alleging that the use of shotguns violated the laws of warfare during World War I. The judge advocate general rejected the protest because the Germans had protested the use of lead shot which was illegal but military shot was plated.
How is the gauge number of a shotgun determined by weight?
The gauge number of a shotgun is determined by the weight in fractions of a pound of a solid sphere of lead with a diameter equal to the inside diameter of the barrel. A 10-gauge shotgun nominally has an inside diameter equal to that of a sphere made from one-tenth of a pound of lead.
What are the specific diameters of 12-gauge and 20-gauge shotguns?
The 12-gauge shotgun has a diameter of 18.53 mm and is common for hunting geese and military applications. The 20-gauge shotgun has a diameter of 15.63 mm and is often used for gamebirds such as doves and smaller ducks.
When was the Browning Auto-5 shotgun introduced to the market?
John Moses Browning introduced the Browning Auto-5 in 1900 which became America's first semi-automatic shotgun. This model remained in production until 1998 and followed the Model 1893 Pump Action Shotgun.
The military value of the shotgun was largely lost by the late 19th century, replaced by breechloading rifled firearms that offered greater accuracy and range, but the weapon was rediscovered during World War I. American forces under General Pershing deployed 12-gauge pump-action shotguns to the Western Front in 1917, where they were fitted with bayonets and heat shields to allow the barrel to be gripped during deployment. These modified weapons became known as trench guns, while unmodified versions were called riot guns. The cramped conditions of trench warfare made the American shotguns extremely effective, to the point that Germany filed an official diplomatic protest alleging they violated the laws of warfare. The judge advocate general rejected the protest because the Germans had protested the use of lead shot, which was illegal, but military shot was plated. During World War II, the shotgun was a favorite weapon of Allied-supported partisans like the French Resistance and United States Marines in the Pacific theater. Marines preferred pump shotguns because the action was less likely to jam in the humid and dirty conditions of the Pacific campaign. The United States Navy used pump shotguns to guard ships in Chinese harbors, while the Army Air Forces used them to guard bombers against saboteurs. The most common pump shotguns used for these duties were the 12-gauge Winchester Model 97 and Model 12, which became standard issue for specialized tasks where the weapon's strengths were put to particularly good use.
The Mechanics of Spread
Shotguns are smoothbore firearms, meaning their barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, which allows the shot pellets to scatter upon leaving the barrel. This scatter creates a cluster of impact points rather than a single point of impact, dividing the muzzle energy among the pellets and leaving each with less penetrative kinetic energy. The lack of spin stabilization and the suboptimal aerodynamic shape of the shot pellets cause them to decelerate quickly due to drag, giving shotguns short effective ranges. A constriction in the end of the barrel known as the choke is used to tailor the pattern for different purposes, ranging from cylinder barrels with no constriction to extra full chokes that can go as high as 1500 micrometres. The ideal pattern would be a circle with an even distribution of shot, but in reality, the pattern is closer to a Gaussian distribution with higher density in the center. Interchangeable choke tubes allow users to tune the performance of a given combination of shotgun and shotshell, with skeet shooters using 127 micrometres of constriction to produce a pattern at 18 meters, while trap shooters might use 762 micrometres to produce a pattern at 40 meters. Special chokes for turkey hunting can go as high as 1500 micrometres to ensure enough pellets intersect the target to achieve a kill.
The Gauge and The Pellet
The gauge number of a shotgun is determined by the weight, in fractions of a pound, of a solid sphere of lead with a diameter equal to the inside diameter of the barrel. A 10-gauge shotgun nominally has an inside diameter equal to that of a sphere made from one-tenth of a pound of lead, while the most common gauges are 12 and 20. The 12-gauge, with a diameter of 18.53 mm, is common for hunting geese, large ducks, professional skeet and trap shooting, military applications, and home defense. The 20-gauge, with a diameter of 15.63 mm, is often used for gamebirds such as doves, smaller ducks, and quail. The .410 bore is unusual, being measured in inches rather than gauge, and is approximately 67 real gauge, though its short hull versions are nominally called 36-gauge in Europe. Birdshot pellets have a diameter smaller than 4.57 mm, while buckshot pellets are larger than that, with sizes ranging from 4 to 0000. Non-toxic loads made of bismuth, steel, tungsten-iron, or tungsten-nickel-iron are required by federal law for waterfowl hunting in the United States to prevent health problems due to lead exposure. The diameter in hundredths of an inch of bird shot sizes from No. 9 to No. 1 can be obtained by subtracting the shot size from 17, meaning No. 4 bird shot is 13 hundredths of an inch in diameter.
Less Lethal And Specialty Rounds
The unique properties of the shotgun have led to the development of a large variety of specialty shells, ranging from novelties to high-tech military rounds. Flexible baton rounds, commonly called bean bags, fire a fabric bag filled with birdshot or a similar loose, dense substance to knock down targets, though use at extremely short ranges can result in broken bones or other serious injuries. Gas shells spray a cone of gas for several meters, primarily used by riot police, while rock salt shells were used by rural civilians to defend property and by British gamekeepers to deter poachers. Taser International introduced the 12-gauge eXtended Range Electronic Projectile or XREP in 2007, which contains a small electroshock weapon unit that travels at an initial velocity of 100 m/s. Breaching rounds, often called frangible or Disintegrator rounds, are designed to destroy door locking mechanisms without risking lives by fragmenting into much smaller pieces or dust. Bird bombs fire a firecracker that explodes a short time after firing to scare animals, while screechers fire a pyrotechnic whistle that emits a loud whistling sound. Dragon's breath refers to a zirconium-based pyrotechnic shotgun round that erupts a gout of flame from the barrel, and bolo rounds are made of two or more slugs molded onto steel wire that separate to create a flying blade. Blank shells contain only a small amount of powder and no actual load, providing the sound and flash of a real load without a projectile.
The Modern Tactical Role
Since the end of World War II, the shotgun has remained a specialty weapon for modern armies, deployed for specialized tasks where its strengths were put to particularly good use. It was used to defend machine gun emplacements during the Korean War, and American and French jungle patrols used shotguns during the Vietnam War. Shotguns saw extensive use as door breaching and close-quarter weapons in the early stages of the Iraq War, and saw limited use in tank crews. Many modern navies make extensive use of shotguns by personnel engaged in boarding hostile ships, as any shots fired will almost certainly be over a short range. In law enforcement, the shotgun has become a standard firearm, with a variety of specialty less-lethal or non-lethal ammunitions produced specifically for the market. These include tear gas shells, bean bags, flares, explosive sonic stun rounds, and rubber projectiles, all packaged into 12-gauge shotgun shells. The shotgun remains a standard firearm for hunting throughout the world for all sorts of game from birds and small game to large game such as deer. The versatility of the shotgun as a hunting weapon has steadily increased as slug rounds and more advanced rifled barrels have given shotguns longer range and higher killing power. Recently, shotguns have proven to be one of the few effective means of repelling incoming drones in military conflicts.