Tag Archives: bullpup shotgun

SHOT Show hits and misses

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Made it back alive (though the flight back from Vegas was full of walking wounded) so you neither have to avenge me nor get the opportunity to split up my gear.

Here are some of the more interesting developments, though I will circle back around later in the week with a couple of tales of interesting people I met on the way.

Franklin Armory’s BFS III-equipped Revelation “firearm” seems like it would be an SBR, but it only seems that way. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

So I got to check out the Reformation by Franklin Armory, and like I called it, it uses a non-rifled barrel (straight lands and grooves) with rifle ammo (.300BLK/5.56mm) to give you a non-NFA short barreled rifle (because, duh, it’s not legally a rifle!). I made contact on the range with it at close distances and it shot well but is billed with an accuracy of just 4 MOA at 100 yards, which is better than the old Brown Bess– or your typical SKS for that matter– but sill is generating a lot of hate as something as a Stormtrooper rifle. More on that in my column at Guns.com here.

Would you like to know more? (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Then there was the new Tavor TS12 shotgun, which looks like low-effort Starship Troopers cosplay but brings 15 shells of 12 to the party in a bullpup design that is just 29-inches overall (and 10 high!). Recoil impulse was…different. Meh, bullpups. More here.

Mossberg points out that their new 590M series, shown with a 20-round mag inserted above, allows for quick reloading in a smaller package than the other guys’ single-stacks. A pair of 10-round mags, standard to the shotgun, is seen to the left (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The surprise of the party was Mossberg’s HUGE double stack 12 gauge mags for a dedicated series of 590 shotguns. Sure they are expensive ($100) and giant (like a loaf of french bread for the 20-rounder big) but they are still smaller than comparable single stacks from Remington and Black Aces while being similar in price to Saiga mags. More on that here.

So I’m in Las Vegas for SHOT Show

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Found this on the range and, despite it’s odd recoil impulse and sometimes confusing weapon manipulation, is very interesting in a 1960s High Standard HS10 kinda way. I give you the IWI Tavor TS12, a bullpup semi-auto shotgun with a 15-shot capacity.

The Israeli shotgun uses a trio of 5-shot (using 2.75-inch shells) tubular magazines that automatically loads the next round in the 3-inch chamber when the mag is rotated into place. When using 3-inch shells, the capacity drops by one shell in each mag. The 18.5-inch barrel is threaded for Benelli or Beretta chokes and one is included. Weight empty is advertised as being 8 pounds. The shotgun includes a one-piece Picatinny top rail and M-Lok slots on the forward handguard. The ambi design allows the user to swap out for left or right controls and ejection.

And there is also this thing, which shoots very well, but they still aren’t letting on how it is done. I am still on record that it uses a form of rifling that isn’t considered such by BATFE. We shall see.

Franklin Armory promises 11.5-inch barreled non-NFA firearm, with a stock

Also, no Warship Wednesday tomorrow. Sorry gang. Will rejoin WW already in progress next week. The past two weeks have been swamped. If I don’t make it back alive, you know the drill: avenge my death.

The GSG-41: Kel Tec shotgun that never was

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Back in the old days George Kellgren, the man behind Kel Tec and its precursor, Grendel Arms, had an idea for a bullpup-stocked shotgun that was just 26-inches long overall and had an innovative high-capacity magazine arrangement that held a dozen rounds. Think you know this gun as the KSG today? Well, about that…

While you may know the KSG, there was a Kellgren-designed scattergun that predated it by no less than 17 years. Although Kel Tec was around in 1993, the gun was set up to be distributed by Kellgren’s other company, the now-defunct Grendel Arms.

This bullpup design pushed most of the action behind the trigger of the firearm, producing an overall shorter gun at just some 26-inches in length. Amazingly, this allowed the gun to keep a very adequate 24-inch long barrel length. A pump-action, the slide of the shotgun ended just short of the muzzle crown while the firearm’s trigger well was nearly centered in the frame of the weapon. Weight was just a very handy 5-pounds…

gsg41
Read the rest in my column at the KTOG

The DP-12: Another entry into the bullpup scattergun market

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One of the most popular and innovative shotguns on the market right now, the Kel Tec KSG, helped usher in a modern resurgence in the interest in bullpup 12-gauge designs. Soon after the KSG came out, various importers started bringing in a Turkish competitor, the UTS-15. Now it seems, there is a third suitor on the bullpup block: the DP-12.

What is it?

dp12-153-full

Like the KSG and the UTS-15, the DP-12 is a compact stocked shotgun that has the action centered deep in the stock itself, thus shortening the overall length of the gun while keeping a full length (for a tactical shotgun) barrel and not having to resort to a pistol grip only configuration or a tax stamp. Unlike the KSG and the UTS-15, it has two barrels.

What?

Yup, and for the rest of the scoop…read the rest in my column at the KTOG.org

Kel Tec KSG Shotguns

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Kel-tec, the company who is best known for their inexpensive line of CCW carry handguns and utility carbines, has now entered the shotgun market in a big way. Instead of rehashing a 100-year old pump design, or making a break action, they went with something a little different, the Kel-Tec KSG. Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com