Think shotguns will ever be "cool" again?

[Choctaw]

My favorite firearm is the one my dad gave to me when I was eight years old. It's just a little Savage .410 single shot but even after 51 years that gun gets a work out from time to time. It's stock is scratched and marred from countless days in the field and it is still a dove killing machine. Pretty sure it doesn't qualify as "cool" though. lol

 

[Rudolph31]

I don’t understand the question. Shotguns were always cool. Especially Auto-5’s.

 

[Omaha-BeenGlockin]

I keep a Mossberg 12ga close to the bed along with a 9mm pistol ---- never really even thought about using an AR for the same role.

 

[Beck]

Shotguns were still cool last time I looked, which was yesterday (Thursday 5/11/23). It depends on what part of the country you're in as to what you're local observations are, I'm sure.

 

[entropy]

I've used shotguns for home defense, bird hunting, deer hunting and clays games. They've always been cool to me.

 

[TTv2]

My favorite firearm is the one my dad gave to me when I was eight years old. It's just a little Savage .410 single shot but even after 51 years that gun gets a work out from time to time. It's stock is scratched and marred from countless days in the field and it is still a dove killing machine. Pretty sure it doesn't qualify as "cool" though. lol

I'm a fan of the .410, I think it's an overlooked and underappreciated shotgun that everyone seems to have shot at some point in their life. Even thru the early to mid 20th Century when 12, 16, and 20 gauge were all available, the .410 was a commonly found gauge in many homes. Why would so many people buy a shotgun with the smallest bore? Obviously because it was small, light, cheap, and had little recoil but it got the job it was asked to do done.

Can't ask for much more than that, yet the .410 seems to turn noses up in the shotgun sections of forums than even .32 does for handguns.

 

[Mosin77]

I think there are shotgun guys, and everyone else. Shotgun guys really love their sports (clays, bird hunting) sometimes to the extent of not caring to own a rifle or handgun. They’ll often drop serious coin on seriously nice guns. There are a lot of shotgun guys. That being said, I think the demographic trends older.

Then you have “everyone else,” some of whom own a shotgun either for tactical/home defense purposes, hunting, or because they inherited it or heard that everyone ought to have one. This demographic is larger and trends younger, and is buying more guns.

Shotguns aren’t “cool” because they’re almost the very definition of fudd-guns and don’t have a strong military pedigree. And the ones that sell, do so almost by rejecting “cool.” The ad copy tends to emphasize leather chairs, wood paneling, and the finer things in life, rather than matte black, tactical operators, and weapon lights shining through rainy nights.

Shotguns are a tough sell in my experience because those who want one already have one, and the nice ones will sell but for far less than you’d expect, given their original price tag.

 

[entropy]

Outside of Skeet, most .410s were bought as either a kid's ( or women's) first shotgun, or as 'backdoor' varmint guns for on the farm.
They have since found a niche in self defense, both in .45/.410 handguns, and Mossberg's self defense shotguns, particularly the Shockwave.
Now if the shell manufacturers would get off their duffs and make enough to keep them on the shelves, I'd consider a .410 O/U or a Model 42.

I think there are shotgun guys, and everyone else. Shotgun guys really love their sports (clays, bird hunting) sometimes to the extent of not caring to own a rifle or handgun. They’ll often drop serious coin on seriously nice guns. There are a lot of shotgun guys. That being said, I think the demographic trends older.

Then you have “everyone else,” some of whom own a shotgun either for tactical/home defense purposes, hunting, or because they inherited it or heard that everyone ought to have one. This demographic is larger and trends younger, and is buying more guns.

Shotguns aren’t “cool” because they’re almost the very definition of fudd-guns and don’t have a strong military pedigree. And the ones that sell, do so almost by rejecting “cool.” The ad copy tends to emphasize leather chairs, wood paneling, and the finer things in life, rather than matte black, tactical operators, and weapon lights shining through rainy nights.

Shotguns are a tough sell in my experience because those who want one already have one, and the nice ones will sell but for far less than you’d expect, given their original price tag.

Sad, but also somewhat true. There are some shotgunners, particularly in the clays games, who would throw ARs under the bus, but there are a good amount of us who own and shoot both.

 

[WestKentucky]

Shotguns certainly don’t get the same fanfare as the newest wondernines or black rifles. They are cheap and plentiful so they must be inferior products. If they weren’t inferior they would be more expensive and demand would be high. Yes that’s in jest, but that may be the way that they are perceived by the writers of the gun rags. Whatever pays the best gets touted highly. What barely pays the bills gets barely mentioned. I doubt that the importers for all the new bullpup 12s and whatnot put up much money to advertise their products. The last domestic push I saw on anything was when the “firearm” guns came out which are awfully close to being SBS but they are legally not a “shotgun”. Those got some serious attention for a while.

 

[lemaymiami]

When I was a young'un... all those years ago... I might have cared about "cool" or "un-cool" -but I'm long past that. Shotguns are no longer the primary long gun for issue to most police departments - but that doesn't mean they aren't very effective for serious close quarters work.... I was involved in hiring and training new officers in the early nineties and it was very clear that the number of potential new recruits who had shotgun experience before being eligible to consider police work was a shrinking number... and getting smaller each year. Add to that the rise in good quality candidates of small stature (females) and the writing was on the wall as far as police shotguns went.

Still - it's hard to beat a one shot fight ender at close quarters (under 15 meters) - whether they're popular or not...

 

[Coyote3855]

Mossberg 590 lives by my bed. I don't know if it's cool. I don't care.

 

[Thomasss]

ANSWER: Wood and Cost. I can pick up a nice Rambo AR, all plastic and metal still for under a $1000 and customize it by myself for only a few bucks more. Shotguns have gone up in price substantially and good, pretty wood is hard to come by. Hard to find a good new shotgun for under a grand. Any modifying it can get costly. Now most trap shooters would disagree, but there are also a lot of high school kids shooting trap after school. But then again shot shells are going up in price compared to some AR ammo.

 

[entropy]

And yet Trap is the fastest growing high school sport. But, generally what happens is the kids shoot until they graduate, then don't do it after. My league team just added a kid (19) I'd been coaching since he was 12. But he is the exception rather than the rule.
As for the fancier guns, good wood has always cost more; the kids usually have TriStar, SKB or CZ O/Us or Beretta A300 series autos, a few have Dad or Grandpa's 1100 or 870. Good serviceable walnut, but nothing fancy.
Plenty of good used shotguns around under $1000, but you have to know what you are looking at, and what to look for .

 

[huntersdog]

Shotguns are very effective tools with the right ammo.

 

[Skeptic13]

I didn't get the memo yet that shotguns weren't cool but I am always the last to know. If I could only have one gun it would be a shotgun. It is the most versatile type of firearm in existence.

 

[HarryB]

Never knew they stopped? I do think my Beretta 1301s are pretty cool

 

[KarateHottie93]

I didn’t realize my question would be so questioned lol.

I’m 30 and live in TN. Most people I know just don’t care about shotguns. I doubt anyone that likes guns would turn down a free shotgun, but I don’t know anyone buying them over rifles, pistols, and even revolvers besides myself.

The couple of friends/coworkers I have that did end up picking up a shotgun in the last couple of years had no interest until I finally convinced them how great they were and let them shoot my TS12.

Maybe it’s different elsewhere but it’s almost like people see them as useless (compared to any other type of firearm) where I live. If I post any of my rifles, pistols, or revolvers (especially revolvers for some reason) on Facebook, people always comment asking what I want for one or two of them. If it’s obviously a shotgun, nobody says a word. If it’s a tactical shotgun people ask about it. As soon as they find out it’s a shotgun, no interest. That’s not an exaggeration or anything. I just don’t see any interest in shotguns anymore. When I was a kid, shotguns were all you saw in people’s homes around here. It doesn’t help that all the video games has people that are just getting into guns thinking all shotgun ammo just disappears in thin air after 6ft.

 

[Mosin77]

I think shotguns were always favored by a more rural populace where a versatile shotgun could put food on the table and, in better times, could serve for recreational hunting too. We don’t have as many people now (if any) who have had a shotgun in hand since they were a kid. Rifles and pistols have the distinction of being more useful for things like target shooting or self-defense, while the shotgun is more of a stopgap for that. Riot/tactical shotguns are kind of popular but I think it’s harder to take them to the range and see what they can do. So for many gun enthusiasts a shotgun might be gun #4 or even #8, rather than the first. Unless they come from a family of hunters in a shotgun zone.

 

[entropy]

Or a family of duck, pheasant, grouse, dove, woodcock, etc. hunters, or farmers who keep them for all those plus ridding the farm of varmints.
Or a family that doesn't hunt, but enjoys, Trap, Skeet, Sporting Clays, 5 stand, Bunker FITASC, or Helicé.

 

[Mosin77]

Or a family of duck, pheasant, grouse, dove, woodcock, etc. hunters, or farmers who keep them for all those plus ridding the farm of varmints.
Or a family that doesn't hunt, but enjoys, Trap, Skeet, Sporting Clays, 5 stand, Bunker FITASC, or Helicé.

Absolutely all the above too. I’m just speculating on why there doesn’t seem to be as much popular enthusiasm for the shotgun as in days gone by.

I also have friends to whom the shotgun is the only type of gun worth spending money on. But they do seem to be a minority these days.

 

[Skribs]

There are places where shotguns do very well, which is anything shooting in the air, such as clay pigeons or pigeons.

I think a big part of it is that our knowledge and understanding of light caliber rifles has grown quite a bit, and that the prices of shotguns have rose quite a bit. When your options were a $300 pump shotgun or a $1000 rifle (in order to get some semblance of reliability) it was a big deal. When your options are a $600 pump shotgun or a $600 AR-15...it skews much more heavily in favor of the AR.

That's not to say shotguns are bad or anything. There are pros and cons. It's just that in the last decade or so, ARs have shifted more into the pros column and shotguns more into the cons.

 

[Ethan Verity]

I have over a dozen guns, but not a single shotgun... I just never had much interest in them, though I've fired some rentals in 20 guage and 12 guage, and have even tried skeet shooting as well. I enjoyed it, but not enough to add a shotgun to my collection.

First off, I don't hunt birds, so I don't need one for that.
Second, my local range only allows slugs, because they are worried about shot spread tearing up the target support, so I would be very limited on practice.
For hunting deer I much prefer my 30-30 lever action rifle, and for home defense I prefer my AR-15 with a good soft point bullet.
I just have no use for a shotgun, and due to the limitations at my range it would be inconvenient anyway. Add onto that more recoil, and less capacity; it becomes an even less attractive option compared to what I already have.

 

[Boattale]

I'm a shotgun lover. For sports, varmint control and repelling invaders should the need ever arise. I got my fill of M 16 a long time ago and never warmed up to centerfire semi-auto handguns. Do have a couple of S&W revolvers - .38 snubby and a 3" 686. They are available too.

 

[C.R.]

My first long gun was a Mossberg 500 12 Gauge (I still have it) I got it because I could use it for everything . Ducks , pheasant , rabbit , squirrel ,and deer . It'll also work for home defense . You are telling me that's not cool ?

 

[The Happy Kaboomer]

I'm out to impress nobody but me. I don't care about being "cool"..........I use what I like and works for me.