Talk:Hawk 12G/@comment-44861729-20200129161854/@comment-25539832-20200211051513

You know over-under shotgun refers to a double barreled shotgun with its two barrels stacked vertically, right? Its counterpart is a side-by-side DB shotgun like the MP220, with barrels horizontally next to one another.

ALLOW ME TO ENLIGHTEN YOU

DB shotguns function completely different from other tubular or box-fed magazine shotguns (like every other Shotgun but the MP220 in surviv). DBs retain their cartridges and can only fire one per barrel, ejecting and reloading by hand by manually opening the back of the barrels known as the "breech".

Magazine shotguns fire multiple shots from the same barrel (like a normal gun) by mechanically ejecting a spent cartridge by opening the breech with a backwards motion, and loading a new one from the magazine with a forwards motion to close the breech. This cycle is known as the "action". It is usually accomplished in one of two ways:

The first is the physical pump-action, where the user manually cranks the handle back and forth.

The second is an automatic gas-operated function used in most semi- and full-auto rifles (including auto shotguns, for that matter). Its complicated to explain, but here's the gist of it: the weapon takes a bit of the expanding gas used to propel the bullet and uses it to push the breech backwards against a spring. Once the gas disappates, the spring returns the breech to the forward position, completing the action. All of this happens in the blink of an eye.

FOR EXAMPLE:

M870 and SPAS-12 are tubular magazine pump-action shotguns

this Hawk 12G is box magazine pump-action

M1100 and Super 90 are tubular magazine gas-operated

Saiga-12 and USAS-12 are box magazine gas-operated

*USAS with Firepower uses a 20-round drum magazine

Okay I'm done now.