The Firearm Blog

Recently I questioned the effectiveness of suppressed shotguns. This is what a reader sent me ...

I read the article about the suppressed shotgun and your question about the effectiveness of the sound reduction. Then I remembered a brochure I picked up at the IWA guntrade-fair in Neurenberg-Germany some years ago about the Laporte Swing Trap shotgun with the integrated suppressor, which reduces 15 % noise with standard ammo and up to 75 % with subsonics. I can not validate this claim because I have only held the gun at the IWA and never fired it, but maybe it is of interest to the readers of the blog.

The company does not appear to manufacture them anymore.

UPDATE: Mark sent me the patent for the Laporte shotgun suppressor. It is an interesting design. Also of note is that the shotgun has a very short barrel (relative to the normal length of these trap guns). The PDF can be viewed after the jump.

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... when holding two bad ass scatter guns

He is holding a Mossberg Rolling Thunder and a Mossberg Roadblocker.

The actual gun used in the movies.

I have seen a couple of suppressed shotguns up close. They were pretty bulky and I wondered how effective the suppression would be with such a big caliber. For comparison: the area of the cross section of a 12 gauge bore is almost twice as large as .50 caliber bore!

This pump action shotgun is a BEAST. I was scared just looking at it! Its large magnum receiver is made even larger with the so called Armorlokt plastic coating which covers the entire gun.

Model 887 Nitro Mag Tactical (Top) makes the Model 870 (bottom) look tiny.

It features an 18.5" barrel with a Rem Tactical Choke (and integrated muzzle brake). A magazine extension increases capacity to 6+1 rounds.¹ The gun has two side picatinny rails hear the muzzle to attach lights, lasers or bayonets ² .

The business end.

I asked my friendly booth guide if the gun could rust under the plastic Armorlokt coating. He assured me it would not.

My friendly Freedom Group guide.

The MSRP on this shotgun is $498. I think it is a bargain!

The new Model 870 Tactical Express with the A-TACS camo finish is a nice looking shotgun. It features a 18 1/2" barrel, tactical choke, extended magazine (bringing capacity up to 7+1) and picatinny rail.

Remington Model 870 Tactical Express A-TACS (bottom)

It chambers 2 3/4" or 3" 12-gauge rounds. MSRP is $665.

The outdoor sporting counterpart to the Savage / Stevens 350 Pump Security is the 350 Pump Field.

It is also available in a combo package that includes a 18.25" Pump Security barrel.

New from Savage, under the Stevens brand name, is the Stevens 350 budget home defense pump action shotgun.

Stevens 350 Pump Security (top, bottom)

Stevens 350 Pump Security with sights

Over at EveryDayNoDayOff there is a discussion about this gigantic 12 gauge revolver confiscated from a Taiwanese man.

Picatinny rail on top ... nice touch!

"Made in USA" ... yea right!

[ Many thanks to Justin for emailing me the link (I missed it on EveryDayNoDayOff, which I regularly read) ]

Dott. Franco Gussalli Beretta, whose family owns Beretta, presented GWB with a high-end Beretta SO10 EELL Shotgun.

The shotgun was made exclusively by master craftsman at the Beretta firearms factory in Gardone Val Trompia, Italy. It is inlaid with 24 carat gold and features traditional quail hunting scenes on both side plates. The top lever is adorned with the number "43" and the bottom of the receiver shows the Presidential Seal. President Bush's initials and an image of his dog are also engraved on the gun. More than five hundred hours have gone into the engraving of the shotgun. The stock and fore-end are carved from the finest walnut.

The SO10 EELL Shotgun was presented to President George W. Bush by Dott. Beretta. A custom Italian leather gun case with handmade gun accessories, as well as a Damascus steel knife with engraving and wood matching the gun, were presented to President Bush by Mr. Peter Horn, Vice President of Beretta's U.S. retail sales corporation.

Later this year American Tactical Imports will be importing a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun patterened after the AR-15. Note I said patterned I am not sure if it contains any AR-15 compatible parts.

UPDATE: Julio pointed out that it looks to Turkish ADAL Arms MKA 1919 shotgun.

In other news, ATI have ceased importing their AR-15 .410 shotgun. They were having problems with the manufacturer (I am not sure exactly what kind of problems). They hope to be importing them again at a later date.

The Taser XREP is a 12 gauge less-lethal round that delivers an electric shock to the target it hits. It's certainty the most complex shotgun bullet ever made and also the most expensive.

I was able to handle, and photograph, a deactivated Taser XREP round. I have never before seen any photos published, other than the official Taser marketing photos, so this is a first.

The cartridge on the right is the unfired round. It can only be fired in a Mossberg X12 shotgun (and regular 12 gauge rounds can't be fired in the X12) It can be fired from any 12 gauge shotgun although Taser recommend the Mossberg X12 which cannot fire regular legal rounds (preventing tragic accidents). The X12 is a modified version of the pump action Mossberg 500.

The bullet as it looks when it leaves the muzzle is second from the right in the above photo. At the base you can see the fins which help stabilize the bullet. The spikes in front are electrodes.

Once the spikes make contact with the target, the body breaks away and very (very!) sharp needles are deployed. The Taser system requires two points of contact to adequacy shock a human being. The frontal spikes provide one point of contact and the needles provide another.

Taser XREP training round (right)

The XREP is a very complex device and expected it would be expensive, although I had not idea how expensive it would be!

The training round, a plastic projectile weighted the same as the live XREP costs $100 per five rounds! The live version of the XREP costs $800 per 5 rounds! That is $160 per round! I would hate to miss the target at a price that that!

Mossberg / Taser X12 shotgun.

The November issue of Shooting Illustrated published a letter from a reader who suggested Taurus make a carbine version of their Judge revolver and name it the "Supreme Court Judge". Gary from Oklahoma has had his wish come true. The new Taurus Circuit Judge is a revolver carbine that can chamber .410 shotshells (2.5" and 3") and .45 Long Colt.

The design is very similar to the Russian KBP MTs 225 revolver shotgun. The Circuit has a very attractive Monte Carlo stock (I guess a synthetic stock will be introduced at a later date). A cylinder guard on the left side of the gun prevents gas and flames from scorching your arm.

The Circut Judge will be avalible with either a rifled barrel or a smoothbore barrel. The smoothbore version will only be able to fire .410 rounds.

I really look forward to shooting the new Judge. It looks nice, feels nice and I am sure is a lot of fun to shoot.

[ Y-Man, our resident Nigerian shotgunner, continues his series of guest articles about his quest to build the perfect shotgun. Being one of the lucky few in Africa to legally own a gun, he has to fabricate many parts and ammunition himself because supplies of gun parts are so limited. For the first time, we have videos of Y-Man in person! ]

He listened to the advice and made the following modifications to his shotgun. You can read the previous article in The Saga of the Nigerian Shotgun series here. This is a guest post was written by Y-Man. ]

Guys, thanks for all your advice and encouragement, I went shooting again 20 DEC 2009, and I seem to have got my accuracy "mojo" back! It was obviously the sights or lack of causing this accuracy problem. I cannot discount also that different guns might respond to the same ammunition in different ways: especially smooth-bore 12-ga shotguns firing "smaller than bore-size home-made slugs. If you guys remember from previous posts: after my Turkish semi-auto shotgun "died" an unnatural death, I got me a sweet, solid Mossberg 500A, 18.5"Bbl, No choke, No vent rib, tactical heat-shield, 6+1, bead sight, PGO. It was almost new, had never been fired, but had been cleaned and oiled. As usual with me: I wasn’t satisfied with just the bead sight or the PGO, so I have been doing quite a lot of fabrication to get me some GOOD stuff done!

Sights

First, I did some shooting with the factory bead: POOR results even at 30 meters with my slugs. Then I removed the factory bead, and tested using an old Tri-Viz Turkey sight I had: accuracy was still POOR. Then I did something crazy (Temporary, but crazy!) I fastened a simple aluminum tube (From an old, discarded Flashlight) to the barrel: using two clips (The type used for rubber hoses.). I aligned it to the barrel by eye, and off to the range I went! I began getting hit after hit on 1' x 1' steel plate at 40 meters! A few NEAR misses, but if it had been a man-sized target: that would have been DRT!

Of course: the aluminum tube was just a field-expedient "poor man's scope": no reticules (Just center your target within the circle of the tube!) No magnification... But it gave me my confidence back! I also fired a few rounds from 100metres: of course: no hits! I just did it for the fun of it. The slugs going downrange had a lovely "wheeee!" sound to them...

I later improved further on my sights fabrication just today: I got a washer welded onto a hose-clip and welded a bit of steel bolt into the circle to create/ fabricate a "Y-Man Peep sight!" It’s getting better! I will test soon and let you guys know...

See photos of Y-Man peep sights: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44877118@N04/sets/72157623050200929/ A friend and colleague who just went back to Louisiana on Christmas vacation popped into the Bass Pro shop in Baton Rouge, and he has picked up a Bushnell Shotgun scope and a B-Square saddle mount for me...

I fixed the B-Square Shotgun rail mount/ saddle, and the Bushnell Banner Shotgun scope to my shotgun. Everything went on my Mossberg 500A Pump Action Shotgun fine.

But anyone with a sharp eye can see that the scope points UP, and is NOT aligned with the angle of the barrel. I thought nothing of it until I went testing.

I fired 20 slugs, some from as close as 20 feet: NOT A SINGLE HIT! All this on a 1 foot square target!

All the rounds were going below point of aim.

You can see the reason why here:

In addition to this: after a few shots: the B-Square mounting rings got loose. One of the clamps had thrown the thread before: and I had used a simple nut and bolt to hold it tight to the rail. That one held through all the firing. But the one that was factory: broke after 5 shots!

I went home disappointed!

I even gave up completely about the scope, and started doing my usual"out of the box" thinking to set up a "proper" ghost ring sight system for my shotgun.

Then I got some "crazy" ideas. (As usual!): I got rid of the mounting rings, drilled holes in the B-square mount, and used hose clips to hold the scope securely to the mount! I used a little bit of aluminum to raise the back part of the scope to align it properly by putting it between the scope and the rail before tightening.

The fitting is tight and strong. It looks and feels like it could take quite a pounding and not shift nor shake.

To be sure, before going to do any testing (Using up ammo) I did a "poor man’s bore-sighting" first... No laser available: so I used a strong flashlight that has a diameter of 18mm. I switched that on, slotted it into the muzzle: and sighted in with the scope. At different distances: the reticules of the scope centered perfectly on the projected circle of light!

I went testing and accuracy is GOOD! I got a wonderful cheek-weld, and was getting hit after hit on a target (about 11"x 8") placed about 70 yards distant: 70 YARDS! Video Number 3...

Stock

I have finally fabricated a good stock that works. Made originally out of Chrome-Vanadium quality steel rod, it is more of a skeleton stock: fastened at both the top of the pistol grip, and at the bottom of the grip. It works very well. I first padded the steel rod all along the length of it with thick felt, then covered it professionally with strong but soft goat-skin leather (A professional leather-worker did some tight, quality stitching of the leather all round. I also fixed a felt "recoil pad" and worked out a sling... It all works quite well...

Photos of Stock before and after padding

(See stock AFTER padding in the video above)

I have made some videos showing shooting tests that I did with these modifications for which I would appreciate your comments and opinions: both here and on Youtube. Also: there’s a video of my process of converting Birdshot into slugs, using basic tools. (The new key thing is that I have now created a mold out of a piece of barrel from an old shotgun. Since it is from a piece of shotgun barrel without chokes: it turns out a perfect 0.729" slug.)

Check photos here.

Cheers, and happy New Year; y’all!

By now you have probably heard about the news that the IRS is buying Remington 870 shotguns. Why? Who knows. I have never heard of a government tax collection agency arming themselves. Regardless of the social issues associated with arming tax collectors, you must give those accountants some credit: they know how to choose a decent gun. The IRS Shotgun (as it shall know be known on TFB) is pimped-out 14" short barreled Remington 870. It is similar to the Remington MCS Tactical Entry/CQB Shotgun (pictured below).

Remington 870 Modular Combat Shotgun in the Tactical Entry/CQB Weapon configuration (14" barrel)

When cutting down the barrel length of a shotgun, or tube magazine fed rifle, you lose magazine capacity as you shorten it. The 14" length is a good compromise length and in an 870 can accommodate 5+1 capacity.

The IRS Shotty specifications also calls for a Wilson Combat Ghost Ring rear sight, XS4 Contour Bead front sight, Knoxx Reduced Recoil Adjustable Stock and and Speedfeed ribbed black forend.

The Knoxx stock features a spring system which slows down recoil

[ Many thanks to all the readers who for emailed me the link. ]