Help With Shotguns

My main character is a gunslinger who specializes in shotguns. His primary weapons of choice are two break-action vertical double-barreled sawed-off shotguns which he fires one in each hand (yes I know this would do horrible things to any normal human; thankfully he doesn't have to deal with that problem). After that, he carries a recoil-operated slug-barrel shotgun for greater accuracy and as the requisite piece of overkill, a small punt gun.

I won't pretend to be an expert on firearms, so I need recommendations as to specific models he could use. They have to be relatively common, as the story is set in a Scavenger World After the End. Any recommendations as to ammunition would also be helpful.

edited 7th Jun '11 10:23:16 AM by KSPAM

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

If by "recoil operated" you mean "semi-automatic" then I recommend any number of police riot shotguns.The Benelli M4 is used by the LAPD and the military, so it'll be a bit more rare but also more distinct. The Ithaca Mag-10 and Mossberg 930 are both civilian semi-auto shotguns.

I don't know as much about break-action guns, except that they're a dime-a-dozen and you could get away without naming them. I also recommend visiting www.imfdb.org; it's a database of guns ysed in movies and has categories for all your needs.

I've got two guns pointed west and a broken compass.

Thanks!

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

Requisite terminology:

The "recoil-operated" one definitely sounds like a semi-automatic.

The "vertical double barrelled" ones are commonly called "Over-under" or "O/U" (compared with "side-by-side" or "S/S").

Make sure you do research on spread patterns - many authors and pretty much all movies get them completely wrong and seem to think that you just point a shotgun in the general direction of something, pull the trigger and obliterate it.

Shotguns have tighter groups at further ranges than most people are led to believe by the media and misses are very easy. At longer ranges the spread is wider - with a corresponding increase in space between impacts on the target.

12 gauge is by far the most common and therefore easier to find ammo After The End.

Ideals would be 00 buck and possibly slug rounds (with a chokeless bore) but beggars can't be choosers and he may have to feed it with whatever he can get/find.

From what I've heard (and more knowledgeable tropers feel free to correct me), pellets fired from a shotgun disperse radially 1 inch per three feet of linear travel after leaving the barrel. This is not heavily affected by shot size (00 or "double aught" buck being the primary choice for people-killing) but it is affected by a shotgun's choke. Basically, choke affects how easily the pellets fly apart. Most shotguns designed for man-killing are "open-choked" i.e. unmodified. The more restrictive chokes are used for bird hunting.

If your character is using an over-under shotgun, chances are it's designed for hunting; the choke may not be ideal. Hell, even mentioning the character having to modify the choke will earn you props from gun monkeys...most Hollywood directors and novel writers don't know it exists.

Note: this dispersal pattern means that at room distance (10 feet or less), there's no way in hell a shooter could engage multiple targets with the same shotgun blast; the pellet cloud's about four inches in diameter at that range.

Earlier posts were right; there's a nearly infinite variety of double-barreled (either side-by-side or over under) shotgun manufacturers, so naming them shouldn't be an issue. Also, props for giving your character over-under scatterguns rather than the more common (in the movies) side-by-sides: O/U shotguns are more common in Real Life, due to their being easier to aim.

edited 7th Jun '11 9:27:44 PM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

DS, your spread pattern's about right, an inch per yard, unchoked. Even shortening the barrel does little to change that (despite the myth of the cut-down shotgun having insane spread patterns).

Cutting down a gun makes it more concealable and faster to bring on target (alters its arc). A fully cut-down gun (barrel and stock cut down to form a pistol) can be called a "Lupara".

And shortening the barrel by enough effectively removes the choke - which would be another good reason to cut a hunting shotty down - make it suitable for use with slug rounds.

At point-blank, a clump of pretty much any shot makes a roughly bore-sized hole in the target - pretty much like a slug but the individual pellets may do weird things once inside and go anywhere.

edited 7th Jun '11 9:37:22 PM by Wolf1066

Also, make use of a shot load table, like this one to keep the approximately correct number of pellets in each load. Far too many writers massively overload the shells, usually by putting dozens of pellets in a shell of double-ought buck shot. (For what it's worth, each 00 pellet is 1/3 of an inch in diameter; it only takes 8 of them to weigh an ounce.)

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

All my 00 12ga rounds have 9 pellets - three layers of 3 which seem to fit pretty much perfectly in interlinking triangles inside the shell.

At any range where the spread becomes noticeable, you're dealing with 1 to 9 separate 1/3" wounds on a target at whatever velocities and energies are relevant at that range.

Right, it's not always a strict 1-ounce load, (although more than 2 ounces is unusual, unless you're talking about a huge gauge gun) but a shotgun loaded with 00 isn't going to spray dozens of pellets around.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

For the purposes of a story, with 00 over a decent distance, get a 10-sided die and roll - ignore any tens and the number you get is the number of pellets that actually land on target. The rest miss.

Feel free to tweak depending on the shooter's accuracy and the range involved.

00 will penetrate better over longer ranges than bird shot but bird shot will cause more wounds and make an uglier mess.

There are pictures on the web if you're feeling brave and haven't eaten lately...

@maddie: and you know guns too?? <3

Anyhow, thought I'd throw this out there; SEA Ls in Vietnam sometimes loaded their shotguns with #4(more pellets, smaller size; the higher the number the smaller the pellet) rather than #00...I believe this was for more power at close range, since a good many of their encounters took place at damn near knife-fighting distance. So, if your character's getting into scrapes at close-quarters, might be something he'd look at. I hear its a preference thing, so even mentioning it in your work might give you some reality cred.

And for shits and giggles; This◊ was one of the first attempts at giving the point-man in a patrol the ability to fist-fuck via hot lead anything he came across...the Remington 7188, an 8-shot fully automatic shotgun. Sure, it was nigh-impossible to control and prone to jamming, but imagine the devastation of 12 gauge shells at 1100r.p.m.

edited 7th Jun '11 11:18:29 PM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Question that might be better answered here than the random questions thread...

If people learned from their mistakes, there wouldn't be this thing called bad habits.

Shotguns are very intimidating weapons due in part to reality - they pack a hell of a wallop and can seriously screw you up - and in part due to the myths surrounding them - "impossible to miss", "take out a roomful with one shot" etc.

You could have a lot of fun playing with those myths vs reality. e.g. the antagonists back down because they think the hero can wipe them all out with one shot - much to the relief of the hero as he's well aware that he could only take out a couple of them before the others get him.

@Edmania:

How do you define "firepower"? Kinetic energy delivered to target, muzzle energy, number of rounds available, speed at which they can be delivered, size of the crater left in the chest cavity, damage done to target (i.e. trauma/"stopping power")?

The size of the crater left on a normal human being with a bulletproof vest on (the shotgun doesn't have to be used at a far range) and muzzle energy I suppose.

If people learned from their mistakes, there wouldn't be this thing called bad habits.

For that, I'd imagine you want an AA-12. I'm considering having my protagonist wield them simply for the matter of their durability. Never needing to be cleaned or lubricated sounds like the perfect weapon for a Scavenger World.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

A character in my After the End world wields a sawed-off shotgun: the model she uses is a fairly common Mossberg 500.

Little bit of trivia: the Italian name, (and still a common expression,) for a sawed-off shotgun is "lupara" which literally means 'for the wolf.' The idea was that when you go out hunting or traveling, you may carry a rifle to shoot game, but you're going to want a short-barrel shotgun for self defense. Of course, with the rise of the Italian mafia this term became a euphemism for a gun that packs a punch and isn't going to be aimed at any deer, if you know what I mean.

edited 8th Jun '11 6:07:10 AM by Takwin

I've returned from the depths to continue politely irritating the good people of TV Tropes.(◕‿◕✿)

I always thought lupara was an awesome name for a gun.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

That's because it is an awesome name.

I've returned from the depths to continue politely irritating the good people of TV Tropes.(◕‿◕✿)

@Takwin: Trouble with "cut down" or "sawed-off" shotgun is I never know which end (or both) the person's talking about.

Your character wields a 5-shot model with the barrel shortened? Or is it cut down at the stock just to make it shorter and more concealable? Trying to get a picture in my head.

I've got an 8-shot Mossberg 500 and the tube mag goes all the way up the barrel. You could shorten the over-all length by cutting the stock down (or just buying the pistol grip accessory that's available). The 5-shot model could lose some length off the barrel readily enough - both ends, actually.

@KSPAM: Don't forget, if your character has cut down shotties of any description, they're going to recoil much more than they did before which - even with a strong, bad-ass character - is going to require extra training to keep them under control.

You lose mass from the gun when you cut it down. A heavy weapon recoils less than a lighter one firing the same load.

Also bear in mind that different standard shot loads give different recoil due to the conditions for which they are typically loaded.

One time when I was out shooting with a friend, Chris, he loaned me his "coach gun" - shortened barrel but still legal - with a couple of rounds of #7 shot. It was nice to shoot. Then he reloaded it and handed it back and the recoil bloody-near loosened my teeth and gave me a hell of a kick to the shoulder, much to Chris's delight (he'd be the first to admit that he's a cunt).

What he'd done was loaded it up with a couple of #4 shot cartridges.

The reason for the sudden shift in recoil is, as he explained later in a thread where we were discussing the incident:

So, standard loads will vary depending on what the manufacturer is making them for.

If your character loads his own rather than just scavenging, he can customise the velocity of his loads for consistency.

Chris also had this useful information in the same post:

@Edmania: If you're looking for a nasty crater in the target, a 10-gauge Magnum fired within 3 yards would make a pretty big mess. If you wanted to make an even bigger crater, go for an old black powder shotgun with a lower gauge number (= larger bore diameter).

But as you can see from Chris' quote up there, "3 inch Magnum 12 gauge shell firing 1 7/8 ounces of shot at a MV of 1210 fps" is pretty much an "elephant gun" and would be devastating to both shooter and target.

edited 8th Jun '11 3:10:17 PM by Wolf1066

My experience has been that in general, if someone refers to a sawed-off (or "sawn-off", both terms are used) shotgun, they mean the barrel was shortened, not the stock. "Cut-down" is more likely to mean that it's been shortened at the stock end. That's anecdata, though.

edited 8th Jun '11 3:30:08 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

KSPAM:

Your character, as a shotgun aficionado, would probably carry different loads for different tasks - low velocity rounds for room clearing, higher velocity rounds to still hit hard at a distance. He could do this by choosing readily available standard rounds - like the #4 cf the #7 as I mentioned above - or by loading his own to different velocities so, as maddie said, hit those loading tables.

Another idea:

Back before the higher availability of rifled slug loads, my great grandfather used to cast 12ga ball which he'd load into a shell and fire in his double-barrel (this was back when you weren't allowed a shotgun capable of more than two shots here as it was "unsporting") - which I presume must have been cut down enough to remove the choke but not enough to make it illegal (30" over-all length minimum or it's a "pistol").

He'd carry it when pig hunting as an emergency firearm if a pig managed to best the dogs - he had a couple of rounds of solid 12ga ball to deal to any enraged, rampaging pig coming his way.

As lead can be melted on a stove top or over a camp fire in an old bean can, it's very easy to do, given a shot mould. You could open the crimp of a shell by hand, remove the lead but leave the powder and wad in place, cast the shot and put the ball back in the shell and crimp it back down - by hand if need be. It wouldn't be pretty, but it'd work.

Also consider "exotic" loads if reloading:

Rock salt (ouch!) Broken glass or shards of scrap metal Nails (cut the heads off and bundle 'em like matches) Lengths of light chain

And there are military rounds such as Dragon's Breath, R.I.P and Flechette that he may be able to scavenge - would be rare.

@Maddie: we generally say "sawn-off" rather than "sawed-off". The latter sounds more "American".

I've heard the terms used interchangeably - Chris described his coach guns as "cut down" even though it was just the barrel that had been shortened and the infamous "lupara" has been called a "sawn-off shotgun" despite both ends being shortened.

Around here many people will say "cut-down" as it sounds "better" (more responsible and legal" than "sawn-off" (which sounds more like it was done hastily by someone to render the gun concealable for nefarious purposes).

Anecdata only, as well.

@Wolf: Chain shot. Yee-ouch.

Anyhow, since this seems to be a thread about scatterguns...I've got a character in a Steampunk novel wielding an Expy of a Le Mat revolver. *

The character loads the shot barrel with crushed glass, rock salt and light shot, and cut a "duck's bill" *

^{another Vietnam-era innovation...basically its a notch cut in both sides of the barrel end so as to spread the shot in a fan rather than have it exit as a cloud}

into the barrel. He uses it to blind and wound opponents when they're nice enough to stand close together.

How effective would this actually be? I'm willing to Hand Wave a bit for the sake of Rule of Cool (this IS Steampunk we're talking about), but I'd like to at least ground the thing in reality.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~