A
double-barreled shotgun is a
shotgunA shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
or
Combination gunA combination gun is a shoulder-held sporting firearm that comprises at least two barrels, a rifle barrel and a shotgun barrel, often but not always in an over and under configuration; side-by-side variations are known as cape guns...
with two parallel barrels, allowing two shots to be fired in quick succession. It is seen as a weapon of prestige in many parts of the world, including rural parts of
North IndiaNorth India is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from Tibet and Central Asia...
, where it is seen as a weapon of authority and is known as 'a dunali', literally meaning "two pipes". It is especially common in
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. Bihar is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at 38,202 sq mi , and 3rd largest by population. Close to 85 percent of the population lives in villages...
,
PurvanchalPurvanchal is a geographic region of north-central India, which comprises the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh state. It is bounded by Nepal to the north, Bihar state to the east, Bagelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh state to the south, the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh to the west and the end of Doab ...
,
Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh , [often referred to as U.P.] is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 190 million people,...
,
HaryanaHaryana is a state in northern India. It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south. Eastern border to Uttarakhand & Uttar Pradesh is defined by river Yamuna. Haryana also surrounds Delhi on three sides, forming the northern, western and...
and
PunjabPunjab is a state in northwest India. The Indian state borders the Pakistani province of Punjab to the west, Jammu and Kashmir to the north, Himachal Pradesh to the northeast, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest. The total area of the state is 50,362 square kilometres...
.
Double-barreled shotguns, often known as
doubles, are almost universally
break openA break-action firearm is one whose barrels are hinged, and rotate perpendicular to the bore axis to expose the breech and allow loading and unloading of ammunition. A separate operation may be required for the cocking of a hammer to fire the new round...
actions, with the barrels tilting up at the rear to expose the breech ends of the barrels for unloading and reloading.
A
double-barreled shotgun is a
shotgunA shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
or
Combination gunA combination gun is a shoulder-held sporting firearm that comprises at least two barrels, a rifle barrel and a shotgun barrel, often but not always in an over and under configuration; side-by-side variations are known as cape guns...
with two parallel barrels, allowing two shots to be fired in quick succession. It is seen as a weapon of prestige in many parts of the world, including rural parts of
North IndiaNorth India is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from Tibet and Central Asia...
, where it is seen as a weapon of authority and is known as 'a dunali', literally meaning "two pipes". It is especially common in
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. Bihar is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at 38,202 sq mi , and 3rd largest by population. Close to 85 percent of the population lives in villages...
,
PurvanchalPurvanchal is a geographic region of north-central India, which comprises the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh state. It is bounded by Nepal to the north, Bihar state to the east, Bagelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh state to the south, the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh to the west and the end of Doab ...
,
Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh , [often referred to as U.P.] is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 190 million people,...
,
HaryanaHaryana is a state in northern India. It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south. Eastern border to Uttarakhand & Uttar Pradesh is defined by river Yamuna. Haryana also surrounds Delhi on three sides, forming the northern, western and...
and
PunjabPunjab is a state in northwest India. The Indian state borders the Pakistani province of Punjab to the west, Jammu and Kashmir to the north, Himachal Pradesh to the northeast, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest. The total area of the state is 50,362 square kilometres...
.
Construction
Double-barreled shotguns, often known as
doubles, are almost universally
break openA break-action firearm is one whose barrels are hinged, and rotate perpendicular to the bore axis to expose the breech and allow loading and unloading of ammunition. A separate operation may be required for the cocking of a hammer to fire the new round...
actions, with the barrels tilting up at the rear to expose the breech ends of the barrels for unloading and reloading. Since there is no reciprocating action needed to eject and reload the
shellsA shotgun shell is a self-contained cartridge loaded with shot or a slug designed to be fired from a shotgun. Most shotgun shells are designed to be fired from a smoothbore barrel, but with the recent gain in popularity of dedicated shotguns with rifled barrels for firing slugs, there are many...
, doubles are more compact than repeating designs such as
pump actionPump-action shotguns, also called 'slide action repeating shotguns' or 'slide action shotguns,' are a class of shotguns that are distinguished in the way in which spent shells are extracted and fresh ones are chambered. The weapon has a single barrel above a tube magazine into which shells are...
or
semi-automaticA semi-automatic shotgun is a form of shotgun that is able to fire a cartridge after every trigger squeeze, without any manual chambering of another round being required...
shotguns.
Barrel configuration
Doubles come in two basic configurations, the
side by side or
SxS and the
over/under or
O/U, indicating the arrangement of barrels. The original double barreled guns were nearly all SxS designs, which was a more practical design in the days of muzzle-loading
firearmA firearm is a device which projects either single or multiple projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion. The firing is achieved by the gases produced through rapid, confined burning of a propellant. This process of rapid burning is technically known as deflagration...
s. Early
cartridgeA cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim ....
shotguns also used the SxS action, because they kept the exposed hammers of the earlier muzzle-loading shotguns they evolved from. When
hammerlessA hammerless firearm is a firearm that lacks an exposed hammer or hammer spur.In rifles, using a firing-pin rather than a hammer is a substantial improvement because the time from trigger pull to firing can be less...
designs started to become common, the O/U design was introduced, and most modern sporting doubles are O/U designs.
One significant advantage that doubles have over single barrel repeating shotguns is the ability to use more than one choke at a time. Some shotgun sports, such as
skeetSkeet shooting is one of the three major types of competitive shotgun shooting at targets . There are several types of Skeet, including one with Olympic status , and many with only national recognition.-History and the general principles of skeet shooting:Skeet was invented by Charles...
, use crossing targets presented in a narrow range of distance, and only require one level of choke. Others, like
sporting claysSporting Clays is a form of clay pigeon shooting. Described as "golf with a shotgun", the sport differs from trap and skeet shooting in that:# It is considered by many to be more difficult than trap or skeet....
, give the shooter targets at differing ranges, and targets that might approach or recede from the shooter, and so must be engaged at differing ranges. Having two barrels lets the shooter use a more open choke for near targets, and a tighter choke for distant targets, providing the optimal shot pattern for each distance.
Trigger mechanism
The early doubles used two triggers, one for each barrel. These were located front to back inside the trigger guard, the index finger being used to pull either trigger, as having two fingers inside the trigger guard can cause a recoil induced double-discharge. In double trigger designs, it is often possible to pull both triggers at once, firing both barrels simultaneously, though this is generally not recommended as it doubles the recoil, battering both shooter and shotgun.
Later models used a single trigger that would alternately fire both barrels, called a
single selective trigger or
SST. The SST does not allow firing of both barrels at once, since it must be pulled twice in order to fire both barrels. The change from one barrel to the other may be done by a
clockworkA clockwork is the inner workings of either a mechanical clock or a device that operates in a similar fashion. Specifically, the term refers to a mechanical device utilizing a complex series of gears.- Overview :...
type system, where a cam alternates between barrels, or by an
inertiaInertia is the resistance of any physical object, to a change in its state of motion. It is represented numerically by an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by...
l system where the recoil of firing the first barrel selects the next barrel. Generally there is a method of selecting the order in which the barrels of an SST shotgun fire; commonly this is done through manipulation of the
safetyIn firearms, a safety or safety catch is a mechanism used to help prevent the accidental discharge of a firearm, helping to ensure safer handling....
, pushing to one side to select top barrel first and the other side to select bottom barrel first.
One of the advantages of the double, with double triggers or SST, is that a second shot can be taken almost immediately after the first. Pump-action and semiautomatic guns require that the fired round be ejected and a new one be loaded, which takes time. Even the few
fully automaticAn automatic shotgun is a form of shotgun that is able to fire cartridges continuously while the trigger is squeezed, without needing to release and re-squeeze the trigger or any manual chambering of another round being required...
shotguns which have been built, such as the
USAS-12The USAS-12 is an automatic shotgun designed as a combat shotgun made and developed in South Korea by Daewoo Precision Industries during the 1980s.-Description:...
have cyclic rates that can be exceeded by a quick shooter with a double.
Regulation
Regulation is a term used for multi-barreled firearms that indicates how close to the same point of aim the barrels will shoot. Regulation is very important, because a poorly regulated gun may hit consistently with one barrel, but miss consistently with the other, making the gun nearly useless for anything requiring two shots. Fortunately, the short ranges and spread of shot provide a significant overlap, so a small error in regulation in a double will often be too small to be noticed. Generally the shotguns are regulated to hit the point of aim at a given distance, usually the maximum expected range since that is the range at which a full choke would be used, and where precise regulation matters most.
See also
- Gun safety
For discussions on politics concerning firearms and gun safety, see Gun politics. For the part of a gun that is called a "safety" or 'safety catch', see Safety ....
- Anson & Deeley boxlock action
- Combination guns and drillings
A combination gun is a shoulder-held sporting firearm that comprises at least two barrels, a rifle barrel and a shotgun barrel, often but not always in an over and under configuration; side-by-side variations are known as cape guns...
- Double barrelled name
In English-speaking and some other Western countries, a double-barrelled name is a family name with two parts, which may or may not be joined with a hyphen and is also known as a hyphenated name. An example of a hyphenated double-barrel surname is Bowes-Lyon; an example of an unhyphenated...
- Double-barreled cannon
The double-barreled cannon is a unique American Civil War-era experimental weapon and is now a modern landmark located in Athens, Georgia. While originally built for warfare, the cannon never saw battle.-Concept:...
- Double rifle
A double-barreled rifle is a type of sporting rifle with two barrels instead of one, available in eitherside-by-side or over-and-under barrel configurations. Double rifles are one of the family of combination guns...
- Lupara
Lupara is an Italian word used to refer to a sawn-off shotgun of the break-open type. It is traditionally associated with Cosa Nostra, the Italian organized crime group dominant in Sicily for their use of it in vendettas, defense — such as its use against Mussolini's army when he decided to break...