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- p ...

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 ...

with eight

single-shot Single-shot firearms are firearms that hold only a single round of ammunition, and must be reloaded manually after every shot. The history of firearms began with single-shot designs, then multi-barreled designs appeared, and eventually many cen ...

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 The 20-Gauge (bore diameter), gauge shotgun, also known as "20-bore", is a type of smooth-bore shotgun that fires a shell that is smaller in caliber () than a 12-gauge shotgun (). It is often used by beginning shooters for target practice and for ...

3-inch magnum

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

— 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-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 attach ...

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 pi ...

with a double-action trigger, and had a separate

foregrip A vertical forward grip or foregrip is a vertical pistol grip mounted on the fore-end of a long-barrel firearm, designed for grasping by the frontal support hand (or "off hand"). Use Forward grips aid in the maneuverability of the firearm, ...

up front for instinctive shooting. The shotgun was extremely simple to operate and very robust. The designer,

Robert Hillberg Robert Hillberg (August 27, 1917 – August 12, 2012) was a firearm designer and the head of Research & Development at the High Standard Manufacturing Company. His designs included the folding shotgun stock, the Whitney Wolverine lightweight pist ...

, 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 Non-lethal weapons, also called nonlethal weapons, less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than conventional ...

option. The fourth and final variant had both the barrel selector and the tear gas canister.

References

External links

Hillberg Insurgency Weapons

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

See also

References

External links