Editing Shotgun (section)

==Notable shotguns==
[[image:SPAS 12.JPG|thumb|300px|right|A pair of SPAS-12 Shotguns. The lower has a fixed stock and a shorter magazine tube, while the upper has its signature folding stock unfolded.]]
*'''Double Barrel:''' One of the most common shotguns available, the double-barrel is a very basic, no-frills firearm that, instead of having any sort of magazine or ammunition tube, simply has two barrels with one shot each. The vast majority of these are breech-loaded/break-action, where the gun's barrels and stock are attached by a hinge; they lock closed when it's time to fire and can be unlocked to reload. This hinge and the trigger mechanism itself are the only moving parts, making the gun very easy to maintain. This simplicity and the generally low price tag makes it popular with farmers and hunters. The double-barrel is typically used for hunting and can come in side-by-side or over-and-under configurations, the latter being popular in sports shooting. Rare triple-barrel shotguns exist, but at this point you're getting a heavy hunk of metal. Double-barreled shotguns can have a part of the barrels shortened (hence the colloquial term "sawed-off shotgun" on account of this usually being done with a saw) to create a nice personal defense weapon, though this modification is oftentimes illegal. Note that sawing off the shotgun's choke also drops the gun's accuracy down from "respectable grouping up to 40 meters that can knock a bear on its ass" to "abysmal 45-degree spread more at home in a video game that may scare a deer". Low market demand, doubling the most expensive part, and the difficulty of aligning the two barrels means these are now actually ''more'' expensive than pump shotguns are.
*'''Winchester 1887:''' The shotgun made famous by Terminator 2, this is a 10-gauge lever-action shotgun, giving it a strong Old West vibe to it. Firing it one handed is not recommended unless you really are [[Deathmark|a terrifying robot assassin]]. A trick associated with this weapon is spinning it around to chamber a new shell, but unless you have an extra-wide lever that is at least as wide as two fingers you're only going to break your fingers trying to do this, which almost happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger while filming Terminator 2 (and his was a modified prop no less). Not to mention that this is very dangerous.
*'''Winchester M97''': An oldie but one hell of a goodie, as the Germans in WWI could have attested if they'd survived. Nicknamed the 'trench sweeper', because it did exactly that: clear a trench of assailants/defenders nice and fast as you please so hard the German High Command actually officially protested its use, threatening to execute any captured enemy soldier caught using one. Allied forces simply responded that if they did that they'd start executing all prisoners, so the Germans backed down. Production stopped back in the fifties, but the M97 is still in regular use a half century later.
*'''Remington 870:''' Was pretty much ''the'' pump-action shotgun. Used by everyone from hunters and sports shooters to police and elite special forces units. Tough, durable and simple to use; there's a good reason the Remington is as popular as it is. Because of this there are oodles of aftermarket parts available so that you can make your shotgun as tacticool as you want. Unfortunately Remington was bought by Cerberus in 2007, and they proceeded to gut quality so bad guns literally shipped from the factory with rust on them. If you really want one now you have to get it used (one that does not say "New York" on the barrel) or a Chinese clone.
**'''KAC Masterkey:''' Developed by Knight's Armament Company, the Masterkey is an underbarrel attachment for the M16/M4 assault rifle. It is essentially the business end of a Remington 870 shotgun intended for breaching doors that can be slapped to the underside of a rifle so that soldiers do not need to carry around an entire separate weapon. To fire it the user has to shift their hands so that they hold the shotgun as normal, using the magazine of their rifle as a makeshift stock. Because of its lack of grip or stock firing a Masterkey as a stand-alone weapon is [[fail|a very bad idea]]. For that reason, and the ease of reloading, the M26 MASS was chosen over the Masterkey.
*'''Mossberg 500:''' The Pepsi to the Remington's Coke. The two are very similar and arguments between fans of the two were sources of major [[skub]] amongst firearm enthusiasts. In practice they are pretty much the same, with the Mossberg being lighter and cheaper than the Remington, but it does not come in as many different variants. With Remington's destruction and Mossberg improving variety of offerings, it has become the definitive American made shotgun.
**'''Mossberg 590''' An improved but slightly more expensive version of the 500. Uses a different style of tube which holds an extra shell in the same space and comes in more tacticool variants. The 590A1 is a variant of that with a thicker barrel (useless unless you're closing bulkhead doors on it) and more metal parts.
**'''Maverick 88''' A cheap variant that's only "assembled" in the US with some or all parts made in Mexico. Feels cheap and less features.
**'''Mossberg 900''' A semi-automatic shotgun by Mossberg.
*'''Benelli M4:''' Made by the Italian Benelli corporation, the M4 is famous for its wedge-shaped stock and [[video games|being the spray-and-pray stick in Counter-Strike]]. While used by civilians it is more commonly used by special forces units and police.
*'''Saiga 12:''' A Russian-made shotgun derived from the popular AK layout. It is a semi-automatic shotgun loaded via a detachable box magazine unlike the two above. Used by Russian security forces it is also popular amongst hunters because the required licence is far easier to obtain than that for a rifle. Factory-made box magazines go up to 8 and the aftermarket makes magazines for 12, 20 and even 30 shells, but the latter is very heavy, expensive and bulky.
*'''USAS-12:''' Built by a subsidiary of the Korean Daewoo (the car manufacturer) based on the AA-12, the USAS-12 is an automatic combat shotgun exclusively used by militaries. A semiautomatic version was put on the American market in the early 90's, but it was declared as to "having no sporting purpose" and was branded a "destructive device", immensely limiting its potential buyers. It has a nice 400+rpm rate of fire, allowing it to empty a 20-round drum in 3 seconds or less.
*'''AA-12:''' The Atchisson Assault Shotgun is a fully automatic shotgun most famous for its low recoil: through some clever engineering the user gets only 10% of the recoil they'd normally feel from a 12-gauge shell. This makes the AA-12 highly controllable even with its 300rpm rate of fire. It has also been associated with the FRAG-12 round, [[Bolter|a miniature grenade the size of a 12-gauge shell]]. While the FRAG-12 fits in any 12-gauge shotgun, there is something [[awesome|alluring]] about being able to hold your shotgun on target while shooting 20 grenades at it in 4 seconds flat.
*'''SPAS-12:''' A shotgun with a capital SHOTGUN. It is a big honkin' piece of metal capable of double-action: it is both a gas-operated semi-automatic and a pump-action shotgun at the same time. This allows it to both acts like a semi-automatic weapon with lethal shells and a pump-action weapon capable of firing bean bags, tear gas, and other less-lethal shells that do not generate enough pressure to cycle the action. This is also how they are used in movies because blanks are too light as well. Movies and games almost always show the shotgun with its bulky folding stock folded in on top of the weapon, likely due to its distinctive silhouette. While no longer in production the SPAS-12 retains its reputation as a big, menacing son of a shotgun and fetches quite a bit on the second-hand market, even with its failure-prone safety.
*'''Punt Gun:''' What if you wanted to shoot an entire ''flock'' of birds with a single shot? You could use a punt gun! (Or, you could, back in the day, but you probably wouldn't do it now because it's really, really illegal). Punt guns are shotguns the size of a small boat and usually mounted to one, hence their name since a punt is a small flat-bottom boat. Usually custom-made beasts, they would shoot shells equivalent to a 1 or 2 gauge. Double-barreled punt guns were also known to exist, being roughly equivalent to two 8 gauges. They are used for hunting, and only hunting on a commercial scale, because they are both too stupidly large to be used in combat as personal weapons, but are also too small to use in combat as artillery, and were so good at the job [[Not as planned|they nearly depleted the waterfowl populations they were used on, necessitating their regulation]].
*'''KS-23:''' The spiritual successor to the Punt Gun in man-portable form. You see, the Russian, they have the [[ZSU 23-4 Shilka]] self-propelled AA gun firing high-velocity 23mm cannon shells. But when one of their production runs for barrels proved subpar, some absolutely insane Gopnik decided "Eh, fuck this, they're good enough for lower power ammunition like shotgun slugs!" Enters the 4-gauge(!!!) pump-action KS-23 shotgun built from said cast-off barrels (albeit it really straddles the line between shotgun and grenade launcher, and since it has a rifled barrel it's ''technically'' a carbine) and intended to put down prison riots. Only four shots, but with such a massive bore you probably won't need more! The TOZ-123 is a slightly modified version for civilian use, presented as a hunting weapon!
*'''Ithaca Model 37:''' Want a shotgun that'll go anywhere with you? The Ithaca's combination of the ejection port and loading port underneath the gun gave it a long life as a shotgun that could fight in all but the most extreme conditions. Its most famous variant is the "Stakeout", with a 13 inch barrel and a pistol grip, it's a highly portable piece of high firepower.