Parts of a Shotgun: A Complete Guide

From forcing cones to action bars, here's a complete guide to the parts of a shotgun

By Phil Bourjaily | Published Apr 25, 2023 6:00 PM EDT

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A shotgun has to shoot where you look, reload quickly, and operate intuitively. The parts of a shotgun, the lock, stock, and barrel, all have their roles to play in the gun's ease of use and handling qualities. Understanding the parts that make up a shotgun and what their functions are can help you make the very individual decision of which gun will work best for you.

Shotguns come in three main types: break-action, pump or slide-action, and semiautomatic. All of them share several parts in common so we’ll cover those first.

The stock of a shotgun has to fit the shooter such that their dominant eye looks directly down the rib or just above it when the gun is mounted. It's also the gun's rear handle, of course, and the shape and style of the buttstock matters in terms of shooter comfort. The stock is made up of several named parts:

Break action guns open in the middle, allowing you to drop a shell directly into the chamber. Break actions are usually two-barreled guns, either Over/Under or side-by-side. There are both inexpensive utlity single-shot break actions and specialized single shot models made for trap shooting.

Pump, or slide-action, shotguns, have a sliding forend. Pulling back on the slide opens the action and ejects the shell from the chamber.

Semiautomatic shotguns fire and cycle with each pull of the trigger. They rely on a few different operating systems. The two most popular now are gas-operation and inertia-operation. Expanding gases bled from the barrel through ports drive a piston in a gas gun that is connected to the bolt, pushing it open to eject the fired shell. Inertia guns make use of the gun's recoil and a special rotary bolt design to function. Both systems have an action or return spring, usually in the stock, to push the bolt forward, chambering the fresh shell. Semiautos share many parts of a shotgun—bolt, magazine tube, carrier, ejection, and loading ports—with pump guns. They do have several unique parts:

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