Colt Defender Mark I was an American multi-barreled

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small pellet-like spherical sub- pr ...

intended for law enforcement or military use, completed in 1967. The shotgun was essentially a

volley gun A volley gun is a gun with multiple single-shot barrels that shoot projectiles in volley fire, either simultaneously or in succession. Although capable of unleashing intense firepower, volley guns differ from modern machine guns in that the ...

with eight single-shot

barrel A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, ...

s — each chambered for the 20-gauge 3-inch magnum shell — arranged in a octagonal fashion around the central axis, and could fire eight individual times like a semi-automatic action without the complexity of actually being a semi-automatic firearm. The action ran on a

revolver A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating firearm, repeating handgun that has at least one gun barrel, barrel and uses a revolving cylinder (firearms), cylinder containing multiple chamber (firearms), chambers (each holding a single ...

-like rotating striker mechanism. The gun had a detachable

buttstock A gunstock or often simply stock, the back portion of which is also known as a shoulder stock, a buttstock or simply a butt, is a part of a long gun that provides structural support, to which the barrel, action, and firing mechanism are attache ...

and a

pistol grip On a firearm or other tools, a pistol grip is a distinctly protruded handle underneath the main mechanism, to be held by the user's hand at a more vertical (and thus more ergonomic) angle, similar to the how one would hold a conventional pis ...

with a double-action trigger, and had a separate foregrip up front for instinctive shooting. The shotgun was extremely simple to operate and very robust. The designer, Robert Hillberg, thoroughly tested the weapon before seeking out a manufacturer. The design proved to be so correct, that only a couple of minor changes were made for manufacturing. When Colt Industries was contacted, they showed considerable interest in producing the weapon, but before committing to full production they insisted on a market survey to see if there was an adequate market for the gun. Colt demonstrated the weapon to a number of departments, and all who saw it were impressed with its compactness, volume of fire and reliability. However, the national recession at that time did not allow any adoption of the weapon and by 1971 the project was over. The weapon was composed of an aluminum alloy receiver with steel inserts and was covered in an epoxy paint finish. The final version of the weapon was available in 4 variants. The first variant was a simplified one, with no special features. The second variant incorporated a barrel selector on the rotating striker on the hammer that allowed the shooter to select any one of the eight barrels, meaning that the weapon could be loaded with a variety of ammunition and the shooter could choose the most appropriate round for the given situation. The third variant contained a receptacle for a

tear gas Tear gas, also known as a lachrymator agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the early commercial aerosol, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the eye to produce tears. In ...

canister among the barrels, and pressing the trigger on the foregrip allowed the shooter to spray the target with tear gas, giving him a non-lethal option. The fourth and final variant had both the barrel selector and the tear gas canister.

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Hillberg Insurgency Weapons

{{Multiple Barrel Firearms Colt firearms Multiple-barrel firearms Insurgency weapons Shotguns of the United States

See also

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External links