Guns, Guns, GUNS!

[MSG. Frank Rook]

Let's face it. Being quick on your feet isnt enough. You gotta get a gun, and learn how to use it.

It's become a sudden realization that more than a few of you are from the UK. And judging by anyone I've ever met or spoken to from that area of the world, gun control is quite tight.

And here in America, we have more guns than we know what to do with. I personally spend too much time at the range or at home reading further into the subject. And it seems the polite thing to do to pass on any knowledge I posess.

With all that said... Any questions? Wanna know what a certain gun is? Wanna know what it can do? Wanna know the differences? Blah blah blah. I can even include pictures, I have a lot of sources.

[lana]

This sounds very helpful. :]

Anyways, I've got some questions regarding shotguns. Is buckshot when the gun shoots out a "spray"? And a slug is when it shoots out a bullet? Oh, and what's the difference between double-barrel and pump-action? Does one take longer to load than the other? And if so, is there some sort of "power" compensation for the loss of time?

Also, what's the significance of a sawed-off shotgun? It is greater range? Power?

[MSG. Frank Rook]

Good to see I can help someone so soon.

1. Your quite right about the ammo. A shotgun shell is a small hollow tube that can be loaded with different shot. A solid slug or bullet, many different small globes of varying size and quantity, even everyday objects. The inside of a shotgun's barrel is smooth. These factors mean you can put a lot of different things inside a shotgun shell. Buckshot is most common, the small lead balls inside them are pretty big, and can each hit with some good force. Less of them means less spread. More, more spread. It could be ten feet or a hundred feet, depending on how many balls are inside the shell.

This picture shows the varying sizes of the shot that can be loaded into a shell.

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This picture shows one of the types of slugs that can be put into a shell.

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Simply put, buckshot and loads like it are fired from the barrel loose. They may hold together at first, but as they travel further, they will spread apart from one another. A slug cannot do this because it is a single hunk of lead.

2. This is a double barrel shotgun, also known as a break action shotgun.

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This is a picture of a pump action shotgun.

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The difference? A break action opens where the barrels meet the body of the weapon and shells are slipped directly into the barrels. When you fire them, you take them out manually and insert new ones.

A pump action has you feed a shell into the hole on the bottom of the weapon. When you pull the pump back, you take a shell from the tube under the barrel into the chamber. You pull the trigger to fire, and when you pull the pump back the second time, the weapon ejects the empty shell and puts another from the tube that hold the shells into the chamber.

There is no power difference between the weapons themselves. The power comes from the shells. The difference is that the break action is much simpler than the others, sturdier as well. It's very simple, and much less likely to break an internal part.

3. Sawing off a shotgun is usually done for one purpose. To make it smaller and easier to hide. Contrary to popular belief, it is not stronger than a normal shotgun. What it does do is start to spread the shot inside the shell sooner, meaning you can get a spread that makes a shotgun effective sooner. By the same token, the range is much worse, the shot spreading so much over a moderate distance that you can either miss someone entirely or only hit them with very few balls.

Hope this answered your questions. If not, I can elaborate on any points I may not have covered.

[lana]

Wow. Awesome! Thanks for educating my lame brain. I get it a lot better now.