Hunting Experience Just 4 You

Introduction:

A shotgun is a firearm that in most cases is designed to be fired from the shoulder, and uses the energy of a shell to either fire a solid projectile called a slug, or number of small spherical pellets called shot.

There are different operating mechanisms for shotguns, such as semi-automatic, fully-automatic, pump action, lever action, double, and breech loading, and in a variety of sizes, from 5.5mm (0.22inches) bore up to 5cm (2 inches) bore.

In general, a shotgun does not have the inside of a barrel rifled, which makes it a smoothbore type of firearm due to the use of shells. In addition, the shot pellets from shells spread once leaving the barrel, and the burning charge creates energy that is divided among the pellets, causing each individual pellet to have fairly low energy in comparison to a single projectile. With that in mind, use of shot in shotguns is more practical for hunting birds and fairly small game.

There are also a few different type of shotguns, and these would be:

Riot Gun: usually a short-barrel shotgun, used to disperse rioters, and with the introduction of rubber bullets and bean bags, this type of shotgun is still very popular.

Sawed-off Shotgun: a more maneuverable shotgun due to its barrel shortened. In most countries there is a legal minimum barrel lenght.

Coach Guns: These types are very similar to sawn-off shotguns due to their lenght. They are sometimes used for hunting in bush, marshlands, and scrub due to the impractical or unwieldy use of a long barrel.

Backpacker Shotgun: The overal lenght of these is frequently under 90cm (36inches) and in some cases less than 63cm (25 inches), and are typically break-action, 0.410" "gauge", single barrel and with no magazine. These shotguns are very popular for "home defense" and are in fact legal in some markets.

A Little History:

Shotguns pretty much originated from the original firearm called "Blunderbore", which was an early forn of a shotgun, a muzzle-loading gun, with a short, large calibre barrel, which was flared at the muzzle, and used with shot. The term "Blunderbore" is of Dutch origin, meaning "Thunder" "Pipe".

A firearm also known as "Fowling piece" which was intended for bird shooting, was already defined in the 1728 "Cyclopeadia". And the first recorded term shotgun was used in 1875 in Kentucky, USA.

Shotguns came into full use in the early 16th centure, while the two barrel shotgun appeared around 1873, but the first modern, hamerless, pump-action shotgun was developed not until 1904.

The Modern Day:

The shotgun remains to be a very popular firearm for hunting throughout the world, from game birds and small game, to larger game such as Dear.

Illustration of a shotshell at short interval

Series of Individual 1/1,000,000 second exposures showing shotgun firing shot @ sabot seperation.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia.com

Design Variants:

The operating mechanism of the shotgun or any other firearm is termed by its "action".

Design Factors of Shotguns

1) Break Action Shotgun The double barrel breech loading break action shotgun was the most common one used for most of the history, hence the introduction through "fowling pieces" (double barrel side by side).
2) Pump Action shotgun With this variant, there is a sliding forearm handle, also known the pump that works the action, where it extracts the spent shell and reloads a new one while cocking the srtiker or hammer while this is done. The shells in a pump action shotgun are typically fed from a tabular magazine which is underneath the barrel, and it also serves as a guide for the sliding forearm handle. Pump action shotguns are very common hunting weapon choice, and models generally have a barrel between 60 and 70 cm (24" to 28").
3)Lever Action Shotgun The lever action shotguns were very popular and widely used in the 18th century, but their popularity lowered after the introduction of pump action shotguns, and in fact the production of these types was discontinued in the mid 1920s. In the recent years, manufacturers have resurfaced these guns, such as the original Winchester, the Norinco and a few others due to their growing demand. One major issue with lever action shotguns (as well ass pump action but to much lesser extent) was the fact that early shotgun shells casings were made from paper or similar weak material, and as a result the loading of shells, or working the action of the gun itslef easily damaged them by crushing them and becoming useless or damaging the gone itself.
4) Bolt Action Shotgun These types are quite uncommon, but do exist. Bolt action shotguns were also used for applications such as goose gun, where the intension was to kill geese at a greater range, and typically having barrels up to 36 inches with small-fed magazines. In fact, these guns are used in conjunction with slug shells for supposedly maximum possible accuracy capable with a shotgun1. 1 "April, 97 Browning". Gun-tests.com. http://www.gun-tests.com/performance/apr97browning.html.
5) Semi Automatic Shotgun Autoloaders or otherwise known as semi-automatic shotguns, use gas, inertia or recoil operated actions. Basically, rather than the action done manualy by a pump or lever, the action automaticaly cycles every time a shotgun is fired, ejecting the spent shell, and reloading a new one. The first semi-automatic shotgun was developed by John Browning around 1905. Keep in mind that in many jurisdictions, semi automatic firearm is forbidden, especially for hunting.

Some other Facts

Gauge (Bore Diameter):

A shotgun’s calibre is measured in terms of gauge, and the gauge number is determined by the weight (fractions of lb) of a solid sphere of lead or other projectile with the diameter equal to the inside of a specified barrel. For example a 10 gauge shotgun’s inned diameter should be nominally equal to that of a sphere made from 1/10 of a pound of lead. The most common in usage are 12 gauge and 20 gauge, but other have also been manufactured such as 67, 32, 28, 24, 16 and 10, in fact as small as 9mm and 5.5mm rimfire calbres.

Shot:

As mentioned above, shot is a predetermined amount of pellets, which most shotguns use, in addition to slugs and sabots. Although often made from lead, more Federal regulations require use of other material due to lead’s possible affect on wildlife (such as waterfowl). Shot is grouped into two types, either a birdshot or a buckshot depending on the shot size. Birdshot pellets most commonly have smaller diameter than 5mmm while buckshot are larger than that.

Pellet size is indicated by a number, the difference between birdshot and buckshot is that birdshot pellets are so small that they can be measured into a cardridge and poured in, while buckshot are are usually so large that they need to be stacked inside the cartridge one by one in a specific geometry, otherwise they will not all fit. Please refer to the following two tables for American Standard shot size.

 A Few Quick Legal Points:

Globally, shotguns are not regulated as heavily as rifles and most importantly handguns, most likely due to their range limit and no possibility of concealement with the exemption of the sewed-off shotgun,. 

Canada:

In canada we have three classifications of firearms, which are non-restricted, restricted and prohibited:

Please visit this site for more info:  http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/

U.S.A. :

In the U.S., the federal law prohibits shotguns from being capable of holding more than 3 shells which includes the round in the chamber, if the use of the shotgun is for hunting migratory waterfowl such as ducks and geese. For any other hunting uses, the number of shells is generally permitted to any capacity. Please refer to my usefull links page for links to  specific U.S. regulations per state.