Pump-action shotgun

A pump-action shotgun is a kind of repeating shotgun. Extra shells are stored, one by one, in a tubular magazine.

A shotgun is a two-handed weapon. The hand not on the trigger grips the weapon in front of the trigger. In a pump-action shotgun the forward hand grips a pump, the user can push first forward and then back, which chambers the next shell into in the firing chamber.

The USA issued pump-action shotguns, to front line troops, during World-War One. If Americans arrived at German trenchs they used the shotguns for "trench clearing". They were fired at point blank range, so the weapon's accuracy was unimportant. The weapon's ability to quickly fire additional rounds made them useful. These WW1 weapons were modified, so that if the soldier kept the trigger depressed, additional rounds would fire, right away, as soon as they were chambered. German military lawyers formally complained the use of these weapons was a war crime.

Some commentators say the weapon is so feared that robbers will flee merely upon hearing the distinctive sound of a new shell being chambered into a pump action shotgun.

In the film Terminator 2, the Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarznegger, wields an alternate kind of repeating shotgun, where a lever is used to chamber shells into the firing chamber.