New Russian Shotgun - A Five Shot Revolver !!!

[Kernel]

From the Guns & Ammo web site.....

- Nurnberg Germany’s International Trade Fair for Hunting and Shooting Arms -

"Guns & Ammo’s Skip Johnson holds a unique Russian-made 12 gauge revolving shotgun. Looking like a giant revolver, the compact gun holds five 2-inch shells. Its maker, the Tula Armory, also offers traditional rifles and shotguns as well."

Different ... I wonder what the trigger pull is like? And how long before speed-loaders are available? -- Kernel

[Oleg Volk]

...and how bad is the cylinder gap flash? That's what made early revolving rifles unpopular (that and possibility of chainfires).

[Apeach]

Yeah, interesting thought, but worthless in the long run. If it's an inexpensive gun, a much more functional pump shotgun would work so much better. And that little chain fires problem that the good man spoke of. Sounds like a gun that's worthless for practical purposes, but if you were a collector of shotguns, it might be interesting to have.

[Oleg Volk]

Chain fire is unlikely outside of non-cartridge revolvers but cylinder gap flash remains.

[Cthulhu]

It might cam the cylinder forwards to seal the flash gap in a fashion similar to the 1895 Nagant revolver. There appears to be a protrusion around the barrel which supports this. Only speculation on my part, though.

[Mort]

How is it cycled? I hope the trigger pull doesn't have anything to do with it.

Might be interesting as a shorty. But we can't have shorties.

[Hal]

And how pray tell is this design an inprovement over a pump? It's a novelty AFAI can tell. More moving parts = more chance for something to go wrong. Double width shell storage makes for a wider body. My 870 appears to have more metal around the working parts than this design. On the surface, that would mean a stronger design for the pump. Stronger=longer life.

Note: I don't fault em for doing it, I'm just saying anyone in the world is welcome to cut in line in front of me to actually buy one. It IS nice to see someone, he11, anyone doing something different for a change instead of this weeks flavor of polymer or (ugh!)Tactical.

[Kernel]

Reminds me of that POS "Thunder Five" handgun. The major advantage I can see is the short action length. Compaired to a pump or a semiauto you could have a repeater that is a full 3 1/2 inches shorter. Put a pistol grip on it and a 18" barrel and you'd have a 5 shot 12ga not much longer than 2 feet.

So you have the short lenght of a single or double, and the capacity of a standard pump. Plus it's easy (and safer) to load and unload... just like a revolver. And like a revolver it wouldn't spray empty casings everywhere, which is nice if you reload or don't want to litter (or advertise you favorite hunting spots). The downside is what I imagine is a god-awful double-action trigger pull. -- Kernel

[Nightcrawler]

The trigger pull would be long, but smooth. Of course, for a crisp trigger pull, hopefully you could thumb-cock the hammer.

[Correia]

Hey, I give them points for trying! Personally I think guns that are just "different" are good. I put this in the same class as the Mateba auto-revolver. Sure something else might work better, but there is something kind of cool about having something that nobody else at the range has ever seen.

[Romulus]

But I'd jump on this, provided the technical kinks mentioned have been resolved...I think it's a brilliant concept

[Daniel Watters]

Just wait until HKS makes a speedloader for it...

[Dave McC]

Has anyone besides me noted that it's for 2" shells only?
These are still sold in Europe, but scarce here.

An interesting piece, but my 870s have no reason to get nervous, or jealous...

[C.R.Sam]

Aguila mini shells are 1.5 inches. I have used their slugs and they work just fine....less wad and enough powder for tacticle loads. No problem gettin them.

Cylinder walls don't look very thick, but I wanna know more bout it.

Sam

[Nightcrawler]

I'm sure they'll make one that can take standard 2.75" shells eventually, if they thing such a thing would sell in the US.

Now, to all you pump shotgun lovers, who claim that this will never replace this or isn't an improvement over that:

That's not the point.

You don't necessarily own a gun because it's the very best, the most advanced, or even the most effective. You own it because you like it. I doubt that Bakail is going to market this as a replacement for anybody's pump guns. It's just different. If American gun makers actually made something original and unique once in awhile they'd probably do better. Instead they just keep rehashing the tried and true over and over and over again. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a proven design, but a innovation is a good thing.

Now, the concept of a revolving long gun is SOUND, so long as you can conquer the cylinder gap problem. Out side of that, there's NO REASON it won't work. It works in revolvers, it'll work in a revolver with a long barrel and a stock.

That same company is also marketing a polymer framed, top-break revovler. How many TFLers said you couldn't make a top-break revolver with modern high pressure cartridges? How does anybody know? Did anybody actually try? And I've never heard of a polymer framed revolver before. I do, however, understand that when polymer framed pistols were first introduced, many scoffed, saying it'd never work.

So, let's no knock the Russians and their kooky revolver shotgun until we actually get to try it.

[Spectre]

I'd be willing to look at it, especially if the price is less than the Saiga-12, which I also want.

I would like to see a 16" Bled .454 Casull carbine, while they're being inventive...would be ideal for bear defense, says me.

Aren't shotguns with "revolving chambers", like the Streetsweeper and Striker-12 classified by BATF as destructive devices? Granted, this gun doesn't LOOK like those, but will BATF pass up a chance to extend its reach?

[Fezwig]

I would like to see it in as a 7? or 8? shot .410. That would be sweet! I bet it could even handle 3" shells.

Fezwig

[bullfrog99]

slap on a pistol grip and a 8 inch barrel and you might have something!

[Romulus]

And the guy in the pic with the bad suit looks like a young Boris Yeltsin...that can't be Skip Johnson, not that I've ever seen mr. Johnson...

[Quartus]

You don't necessarily own a gun because it's the very best, the most advanced, or even the most effective. You own it because you like it.

You know, Night, fer a young pup you sure hit the mark a lot.

I'd love to have one of these, jes' fer the fun of it. Like a .22 Gatling gun. No serious purpose - just fun.


That cylinder release sure has a S&W flavor to it, doesn't it?

[dZ]

http://home.tula.net/tularms/hunt_sgen.htm

these guys make some impressive guns

check out the dual auto load drilling

I'd buy one if it was affordable. Personally, I am a fan of the old "Cattleman's Carbine". I wish they would make a comeback. They would be especially nice if made for modern metallic cartridge ammo.

[Jorah Lavin]

I ran a search for "guns ammo skip johnson" on the new images.google.com image search engine, and found this link:

http://www.gunsandammomag.com/images/0319FA1C.jpg

AFAICT, that really is Mr. Johnson...

[dZ]

it would be kinda cool as a 45/70