Firearms discussion thread

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About 15 years ago somebody asked me to post my firearms in PostMortem.

I was unable to do this, because at the time, I did not own any firearms.

This has since changed.

I can post pics of firearms now if people are still interested.

Failing that, we can still discuss firearms here if you like.

Discussion topic the first: Simultaneously firing both barrels of a double barreled shotgun is mechanically impossible for many shotgun models. Discuss.

[Daedalus]

Good lord. You're alive!

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Good lord. You're alive!

...I live... AGAIN...!

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Browing BPS 12.png (1.85 MiB) Viewed 32 times

This is a pump shotgun. The ammunition goes into a magazine tube underneath the barrel, and the user needs to pull and push the wooden hand guard along the magazine to operate it between shots. This motion will eject any empty ammunition, and also feed a live ammunition into the top tube (the barrel). This is usually used for hunting, as the barrel is longer than usual. Because the mechanism is entirely hand-operated, it can accept a variety of shotgun ammunition loads, ranging from light pellets to hunt birds, to heavy slug ammunition to hunt big game like deer and bears.

Model is Browning Pump Shotgun, total cost was about $400 in 2020.

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Browning Cynergy 12.png (1.43 MiB) Viewed 32 times

This a double-barreled shotgun - with barrels in "over and under" configuration (some older models were "side by side", but most shooters found the O/U arrangement to be much easier to aim). It's an older and heavier design, because each barrel adds a lot of weight. This is the fastest shotgun design for firing (since you can pull the trigger twice very quickly and the shotgun will fire one barrel then the other), but reloading is cumbersome and slow: you have to open the hinged portion where the metal barrels connect to the trigger module, and then manually slide in two more live ammunition shells, one in each barrel. This model of gun also has a small mechanism that "kicks out" an empty shell and "leaves in" a shell that hasn't been fired. This does not always work reliably and sometimes I have to pluck out a shell by hand. Like the pump action shotgun above, the double barreled shotgun is an old design, mostly for hunting, and it can accept and use a wide variety of ammunitions and shotloads.

Model is Browning Cynergy 12 Over and Under Shotgun, total cost was about $1,200 in 2022.

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Browning Auto5 12.png (1.73 MiB) Viewed 32 times

This is a semi-automatic (sometimes called "auto loading") shotgun. It has one barrel, and a more complex mechanism just in front of the trigger (where the greyish metal slide can be seen). The auto loading shotgun uses the expanding gases from each ammunition shot, to push backwards into the gun, and operate a few important mechanisms: 1) it pushes the grey chamber slide open, which also pushes the empty shell casing out to the side; 2) it pushes a new live shell out of the magazine tube (below the barrel) and up into the chamber; 3) a rear spring then pushes the grey chamber slide back forwards again, sealing the chamber so the next shell is ready to fire. This is potentially much faster to fire than the Pump Action Shotgun above, but it has a drawback: the mechanism sometimes jams if the shell does not exert enough energy to push it fully back. Some lower-energy shells (especially for youth shooters or less-lethal ammunition) will not properly operate the auto-loader. Sometimes you can solve this jam by pulling the slide back and forward yourself by hand; other times you will have to take the gun apart to retrieve the jammed round. So it's not as versatile as the Pump shotgun, which can use any load that your hand is capable of cycling.

Model is Browning Auto 5 (which was incidentally the earliest design of semiauto shotgun ever to reach mainstream popularity, and which was later licensed out to many other gun manufacturers, including in Belgium and Japan). It cost me about $1,400 in total earlier this year in 2025.

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Bullpup S&W M&P12.png (2.51 MiB) Viewed 32 times

Final shotgun! This is a "bullpup" shotgun, which is a term used for guns which are intentionally made shorter. In this case, they have pushed the trigger forwards along the gun (so the loading and ejecting is behind the trigger) to save space, and they have also reduced the length of the shoulder stock. This results in a gun that is very compact: it's slightly longer than half the length of the pump shotgun. There are disadvantages, though: the stock is very short and it's also completely straight, so it's hard to aim down the gun properly (because your eye line of sight will always be "looking down" towards the muzzle, instead of "looking along" the gun at the target). Also, the gun is much lighter than the other guns, which improves its maneuverability but also means it cannot absorb much of the backwards momentum each time you fire the gun. An experienced shooter can compensate for this with proper stance and form, but first-timers will almost always find this gun "punches" their shoulder very heavily and leaves a painful bruise for a few days. This gun also has two magazine tubes (side by side) underneath the barrel tube, and each one can contain six or seven shells, which means this gun could hold 15 shells at once. The Pump and Auto5 can only carry 5 at maximum, and the O/U can only carry 2. This gun is not a very popular design, but it specifically serves people who are looking to defend their homes, where a short, maneuverable firearm is preferable because any hypothetical target would be within a very short distance.

Model is Smith & Wesson MP12, total cost was about $1,000 earlier this year in 2025.

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I have also noticed that it is quite difficult to use two shotguns properly at the same time; I don't have the proper number of available limbs.

Perhaps the Guns Akimbo boost also gives extra hands?

[Daedalus]

Well, I'm not much of a gun enthusiast, but it's a good collection. Are you planning to add anything further in future?

[panoptic blur]

At this point, no plans for any more guns.

My gun safe only has room for four long arm guns, so if I bought one, I'd have to get rid of one... and I'm very happy with my sport-shooting trio (Brownings) and my home defense S&W.

Maybe if a gun should become irreparably damaged for whatever reason. But shotguns are very resilient so this is unlikely.

[Dead Reckoner]

Has a MOTGIAT ever gotten into your gun safe?