How does pump action work

And because the action is all mechanical and linear, it's very simple and unlikely to fail in action. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Prev NEXT. Photo courtesy Shotgun World. Cite This! Print Citation. Try Our Sudoku Puzzles!

More Awesome Stuff. Now, close the action. Your chamber is now loaded. At this point, if you were to push the safety off and pull the trigger, the gun would fire. We have to load the mag tube.

Grab your next shell, push it up into the action and pin it there with your index finger. Use your thumb to push the shell into the mag tube. Make sure the shell goes in all the way past the shell stops. Your thumb will need to actually go into the mag tube a little bit like that. On the Remingtons, just use the knuckle of your thumb to push against the lifter and keep it out of the way.

Keep your thumb bent like this. Repeat that process until no more shells will fit in the mag tube. Now the gun is fully loaded. The forend is locked in place. Press the trigger. The gun goes bang. After the trigger has been pressed, the forend unlocks. Before we can fire again, we have to open the action. That ejects the spent shell from the chamber. The next round is now sitting on the shell lifter. Push the action closed and now that round is in the chamber and the gun is ready to be fired again.

As long as there is room in the mag tube, you can fill the gun back up. You might reach for your gun in a hurry in the dark and accidentally grab the trigger. Your cat might start pawing at the gun under your bed. The gun might fall over and discharge in your closet because unlike most handguns, shotguns are not totally drop safe.

Start by clearing the gun just like before: nothing in the mag tube. That will unlock the action. If you need the gun in an emergency, all you have to do is grab it and rack the action to chamber a round. This is really important with shotguns because they are so powerful. When you fire the gun, the pressure generated inside the shell that pushes that heavy load of pellets out of the barrel at high speed is also pushing the shotgun against you.

But with the right technique, even smaller statured people can manage a shotgun well. Good recoil control starts with a solid stance. Stand with your feet at least shoulder-width apart, maybe a little more. Your dominant side foot should be slightly back. Lean forward at the waist. You want an aggressive forward posture with your weight resting on the balls of your feet. You might be tempted to place the stock on your shoulder or just inside your shoulder at the joint and blade your body toward the target.

Instead, bring the stock inward. Get it on the outside of your pectoral muscle, or even further toward your centerline if you can. You want the stock off your shoulder and off of where your collar bone sticks out. Keep your shoulders closer to being squared with the target, not bladed.

Keep your elbows pointed down, not sticking out to the side like this. Place your thumb along the side of the stock, not wrapped around the back. Bring the gun up to your eye-line and rest your cheek against the stock.

We call that a cheek weld. You want the same points of contact with the stock every time. If you have a consistent mount and a consistent cheek weld, aiming the gun will be a piece of cake. With a good shoulder mount, go ahead and pivot the muzzle down about 45 degrees. This is the low ready position. I hate to tell people that they have to go out and buy even more stuff before they start practicing with their new gun, but in this case, it really makes a huge difference.

The standard stock that comes with most shotguns is so long that if you bring the gun inboard, off your shoulder, you will probably have trouble reaching the forend. If you can, buy a youth stock or a Magpul stock like this one and remove all of the spacers. It will make this technique a lot easier. Now, what about the safety? When should it be on, when should I disengage it? Gun up, safety off. Gun down, safety on. Unfortunately, some of our shotguns make that difficult.

On the Remingtons, the safety is here behind the trigger guard. Some people keep their finger on the safety ready to disengage it. Still not really ideal in my opinion. You can run the safety with your thumb and keep your finger away from the trigger. It works just as well for lefties. I only say this very reluctantly. This is another reason I like to store the gun in a cruiser ready condition.

If I need to put the gun down for some reason, I can flip the safety on at that point. Okay, back to shooting the gun. Besides a good stance and mount, the other key to recoil management is the push-pull technique.

Just before you press the trigger, push the gun away from you with the support hand and pull it in toward you with the firing hand.

Make sure the stock remains snug against your body. The moment before you decide to fire, you give it a quick push-pull. Watch the front of my muzzle and see how much it rises. Also pay attention to how far my upper body gets pushed back.

It makes a big difference. When you press the trigger, the gun goes bang, then you can cycle the action and fire again. A round has been picked up from the feed tube, and then is lifted into the chamber.

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