Pump action

A pump-action or slide-action firearm is one in which a forend can be moved forward and backward in order to eject a spent round of ammunition and to chamber a fresh one. It is much faster than a bolt-action and somewhat faster than a lever-action, as it does not require the trigger hand to be removed from the trigger while reloading. Once fired, the forend is slid rearward by hand and the expended cartridge ejected. It is then reloaded by manually moving the forend to the front.

A Mossberg 500 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with a pistol grip.
A Remington Model 760 .30-06 Springfield pump-action rifle.

History

The first slide action patent was issued to Alexander Bain of Britain in 1854.[1]

Older pump-action shotguns are often faster than modern semi-automatic shotguns, as they often did not have a trigger disconnector, and were capable of firing a new round as fast as the pump action was cycled, with the trigger held down continuously. This technique is called a slamfire, and was often used in conjunction with the M1897 in the First World War's trench warfare.[2]

Modern pump-action designs are a little slower than a semi-automatic shotgun, but the pump-action offers greater flexibility in selection of shotshells, allowing the shooter to mix different types of loads and for using low-power or specialty loads. Semi-automatic shotguns must use some of the energy of each round fired to cycle their actions, meaning that they must be loaded with shells powerful enough to reliably cycle. The pump-action avoids this limitation. In addition, like all manual action guns, pump-action guns are inherently more reliable than semi-automatic guns under adverse conditions, such as exposure to dirt, sand, or climatic extremes. Thus, until recently, military combat shotguns were almost exclusively pump-action designs.[3]

Advantages

The cycling time of a pump-action is quite short. The manual operation gives a pump-action the ability to cycle rounds of widely varying power that a gas or recoil operated firearm would fail to cycle, such as most less-than-lethal rounds. The simplicity of the pump-action relative to a semi-automatic design also leads to improved durability and lower cost. It has also been noticed that the time taken to work the action allows the operator to identify and aim on a new target, avoiding a "spray and pray" usage.

An advantage of the pump-action over the bolt-action is its ease of use by both left- and right-handed users: like lever-actions, pump-actions are frequently recommended as ambidextrous in sporting guidebooks. However, most are not truly ambidextrous, as the spent casing is ejected out the side in most designs.

Disadvantages

Like most lever-action rifles, most pump-action shotguns and rifles use a fixed tubular magazine. This makes for slow reloading, as the cartridges have to be inserted individually into the firearm. However, some pump action shotguns and rifles, such as the Russian Zlatoust RB-12, Italian Valtro PM5 and the American Remington 7600 series use detachable box magazines.

Layout

A pump-action firearm is typically fed from a tubular magazine underneath the barrel, which also serves as a guide to the movable forend. The rounds are fed in one by one through a port in the receiver, where they are pushed forward. A latch at the rear of the magazine holds the rounds in place in the magazine until they are needed. If it is desired to load the gun fully, a round may be loaded through the ejection port directly into the chamber, or cycled from the magazine, which is then topped off with another round. Pump shotguns with detachable box magazines or even drums exist, and may or may not allow the magazine to be inserted without stripping the top round.

Operating cycle

Nearly all pump-actions use a back-and-forward motion of the forend to cycle the action. The forend is connected to the bolt by one or two bars; two bars are considered more reliable because it provides symmetric forces on the bolt and pump and reduces the chances of binding. The motion of the bolt back and forth in a tubular magazine model will also operate the elevator, which lifts the shells from the level of the magazine to the level of the barrel.

After firing a round, the bolt is unlocked and the forend is free to move. The shooter pulls back on the forend to begin the operating cycle. The bolt unlocks and begins to move to the rear, which extracts and ejects the empty shell from the chamber, cocks the hammer, and begins to load the new shell. In a tubular magazine design, as the bolt moves rearwards, a single shell is released from the magazine, and is pushed backwards to come to rest on the elevator.

As the forend reaches the rear and begins to move forward, the elevator lifts up the shell, lining it up with the barrel. As the bolt moves forward, the round slides into the chamber, and the final portion of the forend's travel locks the bolt into position. A pull of the trigger will fire the next round, where the cycle begins again.

Most pump-action firearms do not have any positive indication that they are out of ammunition, so it is possible to complete a cycle and have an empty chamber. The risk of running out of ammunition unexpectedly can be minimized in a tubular magazine firearm by topping off the magazine by loading new rounds to replace the rounds that have just been fired. This is especially important when hunting, as many locations have legal limits on the magazine capacity: for example, three rounds for shotguns and five rounds for rifles.

The BSA Machine Carbine used a unique pump-action that also required twisting the handguard.

Another variant was the Burgess Folding Shotgun from the late 19th century where instead of manipulating the forend to cycle the action, it had a sleeve around the grip area of the stock which the shooter would slide back and forward to cycle the gun. This was done because the forend based pump action was under patent at the time.[4]

Shotguns
The RMB-93 pump action shotgun which has the barrel below the magazine tube
The Mossberg 590 pump action shotgun with the barrel over the tubular magazine.

Pump-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 inserted. New shells are chambered by pulling a pump handle (often called the forend) attached to the tube magazine toward the user, then pushing it back into place to chamber the cartridge (in a few cases this action is reversed). Fore-ends are replaceable, and modern ones may include a pistol grip for a more secure hold, picatinny rails, or a tactical light.

Trigger disconnectors

Modern pump shotgun designs, such as the Remington 870 and Mossberg 500, have a safety feature called a trigger disconnector, which disconnects the trigger from the sear as the bolt moves back, so that the trigger must be released and pulled again to fire the shotgun after it closes. Many early pump shotguns, such as the Winchester 1897, did not have trigger disconnectors, and would, if the trigger were held back, fire immediately upon closing.[2] Due to the higher rate of fire that this allows, some shooters prefer models without this feature, such as the Ithaca 37,[5] Stevens Model 520/620,[6] and Winchester Model 12.[2]

Rifles

When used in rifles, this action is also commonly called a slide action or more commonly referred to in the 19th century as a trombone action.[7]

The Colt Lightning pump action rifle.

Colt manufactured the Colt Lightning Carbine from 1884 to 1904 chambered in .44-40 caliber.[8][9] Later pump action rifles were manufactured by Marlin, Browning and Remington.[10] A 21st century variant is the Krieghoff Semprio in-line repeating rifle.[11][12] The Semprio is an in-line action system that functions like a pump-action rifle but designed differently. The Krieghoff Semprio 7 locking lugs display a locking surface of 65 mm2 (0.101 in2) compared to 56 mm2 (0.087 in2) for the Mauser M98 bolt action.[13]

Airguns

The term pump-action can also be applied to various airsoft guns and air guns, which use a similar mechanism to both load a pellet and compress a spring piston for power, or pneumatic guns where a pump is used to compress the air used for power. See the airgun article for information on how spring piston and pneumatic airguns work.

Grenade launchers
The GM-94 Pump action 43mm Russian grenade launcher.

The 43mm GM-94 is a pump action grenade launcher developed by the KBP design bureau for use by Russian special forces. It carries three rounds in an above the barrel tubular magazine.

Another pump action grenade launcher is the China Lake grenade launcher, which saw usage by the U.S. Navy SEALS in the Vietnam War in limited numbers.

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See also

Other long gun actions

References
  1. Simpson, Layne (15 December 2003). Shotguns & Shotgunning. Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications. pp. 23–24. ISBN 0-87349-567-5.
  2. Adler, Dennis (10 November 2015). Winchester Shotguns. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-1-5107-0924-9.
  3. Steier, David (13 December 2013). Guns 101: A Beginner's Guide to Buying and Owning Firearms. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-1-62636-971-9.
  4. "Forgotten Weapons - Burgess Folding Shotgun".
  5. Kirchner, Paul (1 April 2008). Jim Cirillo's Tales of the Stakeout Squad. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-1-61004-693-0.
  6. Thompson, Leroy (20 August 2013). US Combat Shotguns. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 18–19. ISBN 978-1-78096-016-6.
  7. Brophy, William S. (1989). Marlin Firearms: A History of the Guns and the Company That Made Them. Stackpole Books. pp. 435–436. ISBN 978-0-8117-0877-7.
  8. Flayderman, Norm (2001). Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms... and their values. Iola, WI: Krause Publications. p. 669. ISBN 0-87349-313-3.
  9. Boorman, Dean (2004). Guns of the Old West: An Illustrated History. Lyons Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-1-59228-638-6.
  10. Spomer, Ron (1 July 2012). Predator Hunting: Proven Strategies That Work from East to West. Skyhorse Publishing Inc. p. 75. ISBN 978-1-61608-709-8.
  11. "Test: KRIEGHOFF Semprio. An innovative first-class repeating rifle". all4shooters. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  12. Krieghoff Semprio—One Rifle, Many Possibilities
  13. "Krieghoff Semprio In-Line Action -". The Firearm Blog. 2016-05-10. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
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