Design
Automatic shotguns generally employ mechanisms very similar to other kinds of automatic weapons. There are several methods of operation, with the most common being gas, recoil, and blowback operated:
- Gas operation uses the pressure of the gas (created by the burning propellant) behind the projectile to unlock the bolt assembly and then move it rearward.
- Recoil operation uses the backward force applied by the projectile (due to Newton's Third Law of Motion) to retract the bolt assembly.
- Blowback operation uses the backward force to retract the entire barrel and bolt assembly, which unlock at the rear of the barrel's path.
Each of these methods use springs to return the retracted parts to their forward positions and restart the cycle.
Many automatic shotguns are capable of selective fire, meaning they can fire in multiple modes (semi-automatic, three-round burst, and sometimes fully automatic).
Read more about this topic: Selective-fire Shotguns
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