Guns Guns Guns

FUNasela

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semiauto.jpg

Semi-autos use part of the energy produced by burning cartridge powder to remove the used cartridge from the chamber, cock the hammer (or striker) and load a new cartridge in the chamber, so the pistol will be ready for the next shot. Cartridges are usually fed from a box magazine, located in the pistol's handle. Box magazines may contain up to 15 cartridges (or more) in single or double columns, depending on the pistol model, and are easy (and very quick) to reload.



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FUNasela

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revolver.jpg

Revolvers got their name from the rotating (or Revolving) cylinder, which contains cartridges. Usually the cylinder holds from 5 to 7 loads, although some .22 caliber revolvers may contain up to 8-10 cartridges. Loads in the cylinder may be reloaded in 2 ways (depending on revolver design) - one by one, as, for example, the Colt PeaceKeeper does (and almost all old-timers), or all simulateounosly - when the cylinder is switched to the side or when the is frame "broke open."


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FUNasela

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Single Action means, that the Revolver must be manually cocked (and, thus, the cylinder is rotated to the next cartridge) for each shot. This mode was the only one available in all old-time revolvers (such as the Peacekeeper), and is still available in most double-action revolvers. This mode improves accuracy but slows the fire rate. For Semi-autos, Single Action means that the pistol must be manually cocked for the first shot (usually, this is done by pulling the slide - this action cocks the hammer and feeds a cartridge into the chamber). For the second, and all consecutive shots, cocking is done automatically, when recoil force pulls back the slide.

Double Action for the Revolver means that the hammer for each (including the f irst) shot is cocked by trigger pull (this action also rotates the cylinder to the next position). This mode speeds up the firing rate and simplifies shooting actions, but greatly increases trigger pull (from 2.2-4.4 lbs usually found in single-actions, to 8.8-12.2 lbs in double-actions). For the Semi-autos, the hammer is usually cocked by trigger pull for the first shot only; the second and the rest are done in single-action mode. However, first load must be fed in the chamber by the slide pull. Some (most of them - compact) semi-autos and revolvers employ Double-action-only mode, which cocks the trigger for each shot, thus excluding single-action.
 

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Submachine guns


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Estonian Special Forces personnel with HK MP5-SD silenced submachine guns


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Villar-Perosa submachine gun in museum exposition

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German police officer fires Schmeisser MP.18,I submachine gun (circa 1920)


The submachine gun is an automatic or selective-fired shoulder weapon that fires pistol-caliber ammunition. The concept of submachine gun dates back to World War One; the trench warfare of this war required effective and compact weapons for short-range fighting in trenches; additionally, a lightweight and maneuverable fully automatic weapon was desirable to complement light machine guns in both defensive and offensive scenarios, to cover last 200 meters of assault on enemy positions. The first weapon which can be considered to some extent as the world's first submachine gun was the Italian Villar-Perosa, which was a twin-barreled automatic weapon that fired 9mm Glisenti pistol ammunition from top-mounted box magazines. It was compact, but its primary tactical role was of short-range machine gun; therefore it was usually fired from some sort of mount, and fitted with machine-gun type spade grips instead of more conventional rifle-type stock.

German police officer fires Schmeisser MP.18,I submachine gun (circa 1920) The first true submachine gun was the Bergmann / Schmeisser MP.18,I, which saw some action during closing days of the Great war. This was a shoulder-fired weapon, that set the basic pattern for all following weapons of its class. The inter-war decades produced a significant number of submachine guns, but the tactical niche for these weapons was still unclear for many military experts. It was the Grand Chako war, the Spanish Civil war and Russo-Finnish Winter war of 1940 that proved the viability of submachine guns as general-issue weapons for fighting troops. Nevertheless, regardless of the large number of available models, by the start of World War Two in most armies submachine guns were relegated to secondary role. For example, the very technically advanced Wehrmacht (Hitler's army) issued MP-38 and MP-40 submachine guns to infantry troops in proportion of about one SMG per ten bolt action rifles. It was the Red (Soviet) army which issued PPSh-41 submachine guns as primary infantry weapons to entire companies and battalions. Despite the success of several new submachine guns, developed during the WW2, this war marked the start of decline of submachine guns as primary infantry weapons. The appearance of assault rifle, which, while being only slightly heavier than most SMGs, had much longer effective range, put an abrupt end to infantry use of submachine guns in Soviet army. On the other hand, the NATO countries still issued 9mm submachine guns to many non-infantry units and certain soldiers in infantry (i.e. scouts, machine gun and mortar crews etc) to complement relatively large and heavy semi-automatic or fully-automatic rifles firing powerful 7,62x51 NATO ammunition. The appearance (and wide distribution) of small-caliber assault rifles marked the final phase of history of submachine gun as general-issue infantry weapon.




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Despite of all said above, it must be noted that submachine guns still posses several qualities that are very useful in certain military scenarios. For example, submachine guns can be easily silenced, making them very useful for various special operations forces.
The police and security use of submachine guns, on the other hand, has been greatly increased during last 30 or 40 years. Proliferation of international terrorism, drugs trafficking, gang crime and other violent crimes forced many police forces to adopt a variety of submachine guns for special police teams. Compact submachine guns, which appeared during 1960's and 1970's, such as Micro-Uzi or HK MP5k, were quickly adopted by various VIP protection teams that favored compact size combined with massive short-range firepower of such guns. Of cause, the other side of the law also saw benefits of submachine guns; for example, more than few gangsters, outlaws and terrorists used various submachine guns, starting with "Chicago typewriter" (Thompson submachine gun) and up to Czechoslovak Scorpion or Croatian Agram 2000.



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FUNasela

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Military rifles


Bolt action rifles
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Bolt action rifle is a weapon, which requires a manual operation to reload a weapon prior to each shot. Term "bolt action" comes from the "bolt" - a part of the weapon that is used to feed cartridges into the chamber and to lock the barrel upon the fire. This part also is more generally known as "breech block", but the term "bolt" is usually referred to the longitudinally movable breech block. So, to fire each shot from bolt action rifle, one must manually unlock the bolt, open it to extract and eject spent case, close the bolt, feeding a fresh round into the chamber simultaneously, and then lock the bolt. When trigger is pulled, rifle goes off and another set of manipulations described above is required prior to the next shot can be fired. Bolt action rifles could be further divided in numerous sub-categories, such as single-shot or magazine-fed rifles, rotating bolt or straight pull bolt action rifles etc, but this will not be discussed here, at least for now.

First bolt action rifles appeared somewhere in the mid-XIX century, and first magazine fed bolt actions were adopted by the Swiss army in the 1870s in the form of the Vetterly-Vitaly rifle. Since then and until the end of the World War 2, bolt action rifles and carbines were the main individual infantry long arms.

It should be noted also, that the term "carbine" refers to shortened and lightened rifle, does not matter if it is bolt action or semi-auto.



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Semi-automatic (self-loading) rifles​

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Semi-automatic rifles differ from the manual repeaters in fact that semi-automatics used some amount of the energy, generated by the each shot fired, to commence the reloading cycle (extract and eject the spent case, feed a live round and lock the action, cock the hammer or striker). Due to this, semi-automatic rifles are often referred as a self-loading rifles, too. So, as long as a cartridge supply to the action remains uninterrupted (magazine is not empty), gun will fire each time the trigger is pressed, without any other manual operations. However, when gun is loaded for the first shot, it usually requires at first manual loading cycle to be commenced. The key difference between automatic and assault rifles and semi-automatic rifles is that the semi-automatic rifle will fire exactly one shot per each trigger pull, while automatic (assault) rifle will continue to fire continuously as long as the trigger is pulled and cartridge supply to action is not interrupted. First semi-automatic rifles appeared at the end of the XIX century, but it was not until the 1930s when semi-automatics began to proliferate into the military service. The World Wars 1 and 2 gave a birth to the numerous design that were designed and issued to troops in 1930s - 1950s, but fast proliferation of the selective fire assault rifles made the day for semi-automatics in general military service.
 

FUNasela

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Assault rifles

Assault rifles are primary offensive weapons of modern troops. Today's AR (Assault Rifles) usually have calibers ranging from 5.45mm to 7.62mm, magazine capacity of 20-30 or more rounds, selective full auto and single shot modes of fire, plus, in some models, 2 or 3 round burst mode. Effective range of fire is some 600 meters or so; effective rate of fire - up to 400-500 rounds per minute in full auto mode. Many assault rifles shown here are, in fact, parts of whole families of assault firearms (from short carbines to light machineguns - Steyr AUG is a good example). Almost all AR's may be equipped with bayonet, optical or Night Vision scope/sight and, some of them, with underbarrel grenade launcher or rifle grenade launcher (rifle grenades usually are put on the barrel and fired with a blank cartridge). Todays trends in AR design are wide usage of hardened plastics and lightweight alloys and built-in holographic (collimator) or optical scopes with magnitfication of 1X to 4-6X (usually 1X or 1.5-3X).

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Most of the worlds' recent assault rifles are designed in bull-pup configuration. This means that buttplate is attached directly to the receiver and handle with the trigger placed ahead of the magazine veil. The only major countries that still stick to conventional AR design are Germany (their latest G36 looks a little bit more 'conservative', comparing to Austrian AUG or latest Israeli Tavor), and Russia, where latest ARs are developed in both 'classic' (AN-94, AK-10x) and 'bull-pup' (Groza OC-14) styles.

The history of the concept of the assault rifle started in the early 1910's, when the famous Russian armorer, col. Fedorov designed a small-bore selective-fire rifle with detachable box magazine. Initially, Fedorow designed a brand new small-caliber 6.5mm cartridge for his rifle, but, due to WW1, switched to the Japanese 6.5mm Arisaka load, which was less powerful than the Russian 7.62x54R and available in quantity. This rifle was aquired by the Russian army in small numbers in 1916 and served (in very limited quantities though) with the Russian and Soviet (Red) Army up to 1925. While the design of the selective-fire rifle was not unique for that time, the concept of the "lightened" cartridge, more suitable for full-auto fire, was new. Also, col.Fedorov invented the idea of infantry weapons families (assault rifle, light machinegun, medium machinegun, vehicle and/or aircraft mounted MGs) based on the same actions and receivers.


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The next step in this history was made by Germany - in the 1930's, theybegan research to develop a medium-power cartridge, which would be much lighter than 7.92mm German and easier to fire accurately in full-auto mode. This development led to the 7.92x33mm cartridge (Pistolenpatrone 7.92mm). The Germans developed some weapons designs for this load, including the MP43 and Stg.44, but this was too late for Germany... Further development of such designs was made by German engineers in Spain, and later in West Germany, and led to the HK G3/G41 family of battle&assault rifles.

The United States also put in some effort to this idea, and before WW2 developed a special less-than-medium powered cartridge .30Carbine and a rifle for this cartridge - a so-called "baby-Garand" in semi-auto M1 and selective-fire M2.


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But the largest stride forward was made by the USSR, when, in 1943, the Soviet Army adopted a new cartridge - the 7.62x39mm medium-power load. In 1945 , the Soviet Army adopted the semi-auto SKS rifle in this chambering, and, in 1947 - the AK (known for the West as AK-47). The AK was Worlds' first sucessful assault rifle, and one of the most widely used. The Last major step on this road was made by US again - in the late 1950's, the US Army adopted a new (for the US) concept of military selective-fire rifle using a small-caliber cartridge. The first of such weapons adopted was the Armalite AR15/Colt M16, designed by Eugene Stoner. This adoption lately set the new world trend for small-caliber (5.45-5.56mm / .22in.) high-velocity cartridges.


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FUNasela

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Modern sniper rifles


The main purpose of the sniper rifle is to destroy valuable targets at extended ranges with aimed fire, and with as few ammunition as possible. In most cases, "the target" means the human being (enemy soldier, armed criminal, terrorist, president etc.), and the "as few ammunition as possible" often means "one shot". The range for sniper fire may vary from 100 meters or even less in police/counter-terror scenarios, or up to 1 kilometer or more - in military or special operations scenarios.
Some sniper rifles, mostly - large caliber ones, used also as anti-material weapons, to destroy, or, more often, render unusable or unoperable, targets such as radar cabins, jeeps, parked aircrafts etc.

History of sharp-shooting traces its ancestry well back into XIX or even into XVIII centuries. Early sniper rifles were standart issue army rifles, selected for accuracy, or privately purchased commercial target or hunting rifles. During WW I and WW II both sides used a lot of general issue bolt action rifles (such a Russian/Soviet Mosin M1991/30, US M1903A4, British SMLE No.4(t), German G98k etc.) fitted with some kind of telescopic sight. Some of general issued semi-auto rifles also were used in sniper role, such as Soviet SVT-40 and US M1 Garand.

The practice of developing the military sniper rifles from standart issue firearms is still used in many countries. Ususally, manufacturer or special military unit select some rifles for their better-than-average accuracy, then adopt these rifles for sniper role (i.e. convert them from select-fire into semi-autos, add ajustable stocks, bipods, scope mounts etc.). Many of military sniper rifles, discontinued in service or currently in use, such as US M21, German G3-ZF and G3-SG/1, were made that way.

Some sniper weapons were made for marksmen use from the scratch, because the clients wanted some special characteristics, that were unavailable in any service or commercial weapons. One such example - Soviet SVD Dragunov rifle. It was designed on Soviet Army request as a lightweight, powerful and reliable semi-auto rifle, and remains in service for almost 40 years.

But wast majority of sniper rifles, especially - police ones, were designed on existing commercially available hunting or sporting rifles. The best examples - the US military sniper rifles M24 and M40, along with many custom police rifles, were (and still are) built on Remington 700 actions, available for general public in many hunting and target rifles. Famous SIG-Sauer sniper ifles also buil on their (SIG or Sauer) hunting rifles. Some sniper rifles, mostly also police ones, designed on target/sporting rifles. To name few: Blaser R93 Tactical (Germany), Sv-98 and MC-116 (Russia).

In general, all sniper rifles may be rougly separated into 3 major categories: Miltary sniper rifles, Police/Law Enforcement tactical/sniper rifles, and Special purpose sniper rifles.

Military sniper rifles used by different military units. Along with main requirements for accuracy and sufficient effective range, military use commands some other: military sniper rifle must not be too heavy, because sniper usually must carry it for the long hours, with ammunition and other stuff. Also, military sniper rifle must be extremely reliable in any weather and climatic conditions and could withstand hundreds of rounds fired without cleaning and maintenance and without any loss of accuracy. Third, military sniper rifle must be easy to fieldstrip and easy to repair in field conditions. Also, military sniper rifle often must have backup iron sights, in case of telescope breackage.
Another requrement is that military sniper rifle must use military ammunition, conforming to international war threaties and generally available to the troops. In most cases, military sniper rifle use variants of the standart caliber army cartridges (such as 7.62mm NATO or 7.62x54mm R), specially developed for sniping.
Effective range for the standart-caliber sniper rifles against the single human-sized target may be estimated as 700-800 meters for first-shot kills. To extend effective range beyond 1000 meters, often used sniper rifles, designed to fire more powerful ammunition, such as .300 Winchester magnum (7.62x67mm) or .338 Lapua magnum (8.6x70mm).
Military sniper rifles may be further separated in two tactically diffrent categories: the sniper rifles itself, designed to achieve aimed hits at long distances, and the Designated Marksman Rifles (DMR), designed to provide accurate fire support for line troops. While the "true" sniper rifles usually are bolt action ones, to achieve maximum accuracy, the DMRs usually are semi-autos, such as Russian SVD or German G3ZF or MSG-90, to gain higher rate of fire. But the difference lays more in tactical applianses, than in the rifles itself.

Police / Law Enforcement (LE) sniper rifles are somewhat another kind of tools. If in most military/war scenarios wounded enemy is equivalent to killed enemy, or even better, in LE and counter-terror (CT) scenarios wounded criminal or terrorist may lead to many innocent wictims. Sometimes, the LE or CT sniper must not only kill the terrorist, but hit the particular part of the body - head, or hand, holding the gun, etc. So, in general, LE and CT sniper rifles require more accuracy, but at shorter distances. The majority of LE or CT scenarios require precision shooting at the distances lesser that 300, or even 100 meters. These scenarios also require really few shots per scenario - sometimes one and the only one shot. This also require extreme accuracy and stability of results in any weather conditions. LE and CT snipers also has no limitations on caliber and ammunition selection, so they could select almost any caliber/cartridge they department want, or can afford.
Usually, LE/CT sniper rifles had completely ajustable stocks to suit snipers of different statute, sometimes they got half-of-dozen ajustable screws. This is absolutely unsuitable for military sniper rifles, but for LE sniper rifles, which are usually carried to the point of action in special cases, this is OK.
Many USA made LE sniper rifles are built on the hunting "varmint" rifles. Varmint rifles are small or medium caliber hunting rifles, designed to kill small pests, such as squirrels, rabbits etc., at extended distances. Some LE sniper rifles, such as Remington 700 Police, are simply Remington 700VS varmint hunting rifle barreled actions, bedded into sniper-style stocks.
In Europe, some sniper rifles built on sniper rifles (such as Mauser 66, SIG-Sauer SSG2000, Blaser R93 Tactical), and some built on hunting rifles (such as Steyr Scout Tactical). LE/CT sniper rifles use many kinds of ammunition, from .22LR for training and short-range sniping, to .308 Win, 6.5x55mm, .300 Win magnum etc.

Special Purpose sniper rifles may be, in turn, splitted into 2 sub-categories:
Large-caliber rifles for ulra-long range sniping and ani-material use, and silenced rifles for covert operations.
Large caiber sniper rifles usually built to use heavy machineguns ammunition, such as .50BMG (12.7x99mm) or 12.7x108mm. Effective range of such rifles is up to 1500 meters and above, depending on size of target and quality of the ammunition. General purpose machinegun ammo usually produced not-too-good accuracy, but recently some special "sniper" rounds developed in .50BMG caliber.
Silenced sniper rifles usually are used with special sub-sonic ammunition and removable or integral silencers to produce lower sound report. Sub-sonic ammo decreases effective range down to 300-400 meters, but it's worth. With the correct ammo and silencer, the sound of the gunshot could be easily mised completely at the distances of 100-200 meters at night, or even at 30-50 meters - in daily urban noize.

Sniper rifle Accuracy
The most common way of describing the accuracy of the sniper rifle is to measure average diameter of the circle, that may be drawn arount the group of bullet holes in the target. Usually, the rifle is fired from the rest with groups of the 5 (or 3) rounds, and then every group is measured. Average group diameter is the most common criteria of rifle accuracy.
Today, the thin line between "good" and "poor" accuracy is usually laid in 1MOA group. 1 MOA (Minute Of Angle) is measure of the angle, that formed with the triangle with muzzle as the top and the group as the base. 1 MOA is roughly equivalent to 1 inch group diameter at 100 yards (91 meter), or to 2 inches at 200 yards etc. So, if you read that rifle XXXX shooths 1MOA groups, it means that at 300 yards this rifle could place 5 or so bullets in circle of no more than 3 inches in diameter. Many modern sniper rifles, when loaded with right ammunition, could shoot 0.5MOA, or even 0.3MOA, which mean 1 inch groups at 300 yards, or 2 inch (50 millimeters!) groups at 600 yards (550 meters).




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FUNasela

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Combat shotguns​


The shotgun is probably the oldest type of all shoulder-fire firearms. Many earliest guns were smoothbore and loaded with multiple projectiles simultaneously. The shotguns were and still are used for hunting, since multiple projectiles increase the chances to hit the target with one shot, but shotguns also were used in combat in almost all wars since their introduction. The devastating short-range firepower and flexibility in loads are the key advantages of shotguns as the fighting weapons. During the XX century shotguns seen lot of combat, both as a police riot weapons and as a military trench, and later - jungle and urban close quarters battle weapons. Police used shotguns for riot and crowd control, and as a general purpose short and medium range weapons for about 150 years. First well known military use of shotguns is dated back to the Great War (1st World War), when Allied forces used various pump-action and self-loading shotguns in the trench warfare. During the 2nd World War shotguns were used as a security weapons (for guarding and anti-riot purposes), for close combat in jungle environments of SE Asia, where the self-loading shotguns (like the Remington 11 and Auto-5 - both of Browning design) proved to be very valuable for their devastating short-range firepower. The shotguns were also used for aerial gunnery training. Vietnam war also seen many shotguns used by US troops in the jungles, but these were mostly pump-action shotguns. At the present time shotguns formed a valuable part of equipment of both police and military forces around the world, and its development continued. There were several programs intended to increase shotguns effectiveness and combat range, but these proved mostly to be less than successful. Most combat shotguns were and still are the adaptations of commercial, hunting firearms for the new role, but during the last three decades of the XX century some specialized combat shotguns were developed. Some of these remained only in prototype or pre-production status, others flourished and found its way into the police and military stocks.

Combat shotguns usually designed with two basic action styles - repeating "pump-action" or semi-auto. Double-barreled shotguns were also used in early periods, but these are too slow to reload for combat purposes. However, a sawed-off versions of the double shotguns, with the most of the barrel and the butt removed, seen some use on both sides of law as a very-short range, hide-away weapons of devastating power.​


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General features of shotgun


Main advantages of shotguns are their versatility and short-range firepower. Shotguns can fire multiple projectiles of various sizes, creating a lethal pattern, which will increase chances of hitting target, or single large projectile, powerful enough to drop down a large brown bear, or incapacitate a human being protected in all but the heaviest body armour. Shotguns also can fire special purpose ammunition, such as door buster slugs, and even a high explosive and incendiary rounds, as well as the less lethal ammunition, useful for riot control and other police operations. Most, if not all modern combat shotguns are magazine fed repeaters, with the underbarrel tubular magazines being the most common type. Those magazines offer a sleek, slim profile of the gun, but are slow to reload. Some recently developed combat shotguns featured a detachable, box-type magazines, which can be replaced very quickly. Few combat shotguns were developed with rotary, revolver-like magazines or drum-type magazines of relatively large capacity (10-12, and up to 28 rounds), but those magazines are extremely bulky, heavy, expensive and sometimes slow to reload.

The disadvantages of the combat shotguns are the limited effective range of fire (about 50-70 meters with standard buckshot, up to 100-150 meters with specially designed subcaliber or fleschette loadings). Shotguns also are sometimes relatively large (especially when compared to modern submachine guns), and can have a heavy recoil with the most powerful loadings. The size and weight of the shotgun ammunition effectively limits both the magazine capacity and the amount of ammunition a soldier can carry in the mission.




Pump action shotguns


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Pump action means, that for each shot shooter cycles the handguard back and forward (in some guns, such as Russian RMB-93 or S. African Neostead - forward then back). This movement removes the used shell, cocks the action and chambers the new shell. This design is little slower than semi-auto, but offers greater flexibility in shotshells selection, allowing mixing of the different types of loads and usage of low-power or unreliable loads. This feature especially useful for police and home defense usage, since the pump-action shotguns can fire low-powered less-lethal ammunition (with tear gas or rubber buckshot).


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Semi-automatic shotguns


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Semi-automatic shotguns can use several different actions - inertia recoil (Benelli), gas (Russian AK-47-derived Saiga-12 and Italian Franchi SPAS-15), barrel recoil (Browning designed Auto-5 and Remington 11). Semi-autos usually have less recoil (especially gas-operated ones), and higher rate of fire, but somewhat more sensitive to the loads selection. The greater firepower, offered by semi-automatic shotguns, is especially useful for military applications, where short-range encounters are usually very rapid, and the amount of firepower used in a short period of time is essential to win the scenario and save one's life.

To use advantages of both pump and semi-auto designs, some manufacturers designed select-action shotguns, where user may select the action style with just turn of the lever or so. Such shotguns are Franchi SPAS15, or Benelli M3S90, for example. The disadvantages of those selective systems are somewhat increased weight and greater unit price