Why Were Bolt-Action Shotguns A Thing?
 

I see them fairly often, all things considered, at garage and estate sales (my grandfather bought a Sears-Roebuck model several years back). Almost without exception, they are smoothbores. And if I'm not mistaken, a good number are single-shots. While he was growing up in Nebraska, my uncle used to hunt pheasant with one in the early 1980s.

Does anyone recall how these used to be marketed back when they were still produced and prominent? What did you like about them, if anything? Is there some odd story as to why they were developed?

Were one to force modern companies to come up with a marketing strategy for such an odd product, I expect they'd probably struggle mightily.

The only real advantage over pump-actions I can imagine is for hunters using rifled slugs, since the forearm is more stable, it may help the operator to shoot more accurately.

Because they were inexpensive compared to doubles and slide actions. They made no sense because you had to take a hand off the forearm of the gun to load another round which really interferes with shooting at a moving target which is what a shotgun was made for.

Savage 220 rifled shotgun slug is a bolt action is made today and is a solid cheap rifled slug gun option.

not sure why it couldn't be a pump, but if it's a bolt and shoots much better then that's fine with me.

They were young hunter safe. They were an easy transition mentally from a bolt action .22. My gramps could always see the bolt open from where he was sitting.

I have an old Mossberg bolt action .410, runs just fine without taking my hand off of the forend.

Google is your friend, you can find the old print ads quite easily. At the time they were produced, the industry was not so entrenched into our modern paradigm of form factors, so they were advertised the same as any shotgun.

They were also marketed by Marlin as "goose guns." Long barrel, long range (for a shotgun), I think they may have even made a 10 gauge.

Yep Hubby they did.It was called the Super Goose.I,d shore luv to find one.

I used to have one of these in 12 gauge with a 36 inch full choked barrel. Used it for pass shooting geese in my native CO. Knocked a lot of birds out of the air with it shooting 3 inch mag in 2 shot or BBs. But steel shot killed guns like this off.

I used one many years ago for a short while. I think it came from sears probably in the 1960's. It was a long barreled full choke 10 ga. Was way to heavy, cumbersome to swing and the recoil was brutal. The wood sucked and there really wasn't anything nice about it. Glad I didn't own it.

Years ago when we still lived in Tn my dad and I used to go to a Turkey shoot the local police dept. used to put on for fund raising for D.A.R.E. He had an old bolt action shotgun that looked like a Howitzer. That old ugly thing won every time either of us stepped up. Dad sold it to one of the guys running the shoot after a couple of years shooting. They would have it every weekend for a couple of months in early fall. We probably brought home 20-25 hams and turkeys with that old ugly shotty. It didn't just put pellets closest to the X, it blew the X out of the target. Even using 71/2. Hands down that old gun was the tightest patterning shotgun I have ever seen.

I have a Mossberg 695 slug gun. But they also made smoothbores. It shoots as well as any slug gun out there I think. Not uncommon to have three shots touching.


I have a sears 16 gauge as well. I use it for squirrels and will try to take a turkey with it.


Some of them are neat old guns, and can be bought cheap usually.


Are they better than a pump, naw. But they are different and are fun to pull out at hunting camp occasionally.


-Jake

They were cheaper than pump/ auto guns, but were multi shot which were better than a single shot. They were primarily meant for an economy waterfowl gun. Dad bought me one for my first hunting gun: 36" bbl 12 gauge JC Higgins for 25.00 in 1977. I was awful proud of that, shot my first deer with it, but as soon as I could afford to, replaced it with a pump gun. I bought one of the Savage 12 gauge rifled slug guns about 20 years ago, and was far from satisfied with it. too darn long , feeding wasn't very good, and I wasn't impressed with the accuracy. I stuck with my Ithaca Deerslayer.

Friend had a Mossy 16ga bolt. Bought it because he used a bolt action Stevens deer rifle. Said it was easy to use and took the same motions for both. It had a mag that held extra rounds not a single shot.

:D Al

I own a Mossberg bolt action with the C-lect choke system. When it first came out it was novel, because it allowed a person to change the choke in the field, which could be useful if you hunted multiple types of game on the same trip or on the same day. You could literally carry #7 shot or 00 buckshot on a hunting trip and harvest squirrel, birds or deer (which have overlapping seasons in some areas, such as the upper Adirondacks of NYS).

I'll also argue that bolt action slug guns (such as Savage and H&R) are the most accurate slug guns on the market and also some of the most expensive shotguns made for a single purpose. Compared with a Mossberg or Remington pump (that have a choke tube system or different barrels), these slugs guns with fixed rifled barrels will cost you $400-1000...

The first bolt action shotguns were converted model 1898 Mausers. Tens of thousands were sold in the US from about 1920 to late 1930s.


http://www.texastradingpost.com/militaria/geha.html

That is fascinating, Falcon. Had the German industry not been under such pressure after the punitive Treaty of Versailles, we might have never seen these!

I wonder if the gun hunters_life was talking about was one.

Pretty Cool.

REM7600

I really don't know but that's not going to stop me from guessing.

Since the bolt action rifle was THE rifle action since the 1890's maybe some gun company figured that a shotgun with the same action would catch on. It turned out not so much.

On my somewhat personal experience. I remember my Uncle buying a bolt action 20 gauge for his oldest in the middle to late 1950's. I seem to recall it was clip fed and had a poly choke. Even though his brothers and I were envious of his possession we could see it's limitations as a repeater. And in a few years it was traded off for something better.

In the 1950s, my mom bought one from Sears for my dad to deer hunt with. They lived in a slug area and were working class. It fit the budget. Dad gave to to me a few years ago, and I actually went after a fall turkey with it.