I appreciate two things in the gun world: weird guns and shotguns. Combining the two is, to me, the Reese’s Cups of firearms. While many people doomscroll social media, I doomscroll various Wikis, examining guns I’ve never heard of. As a weird shotgun enthusiast, I’ve noticed South Africa is a hot spot for unusual shotgun designs.
Why? I can’t really say. Most of the weird designs date to the 1990s. I’m not sure if there was a shotgun resurgence in South Africa in the 1990s, or if it was just one of those strange coincidences. Either way, I’ve found four fairly bizarre shotguns from South Africa. I aimed to find five, but unfortunately, you’re stuck with just four.
Weird Shotguns of South Africa
I’m not going in any specific order, but the first model is likely the oddest and, honestly, my favorite. Sadly, none of these are widely produced or available these days; if they were, I’d have a pile of them.
Techno Arms MAG-7
Techno Arms is such a great name for a 1990s gun company. They produced the MAG-7. The MAG-7 is what happens when you want your Uzi to fire shotgun rounds, and I love it, especially the original short-barreled shotgun models. The gun uses a magazine that fits in the grip, and as you’d imagine, it uses a proprietary 12-gauge cartridge.
The shells were 60mm long, or approximately 2.36 inches overall. These short shells allowed for a reasonable grip, but they’re still way bigger than most people prefer. A five-round magazine in the grip makes the MAG-7 quite small in its original configuration. A top-folding stock kept the gun compact when necessary, and the 12.6-inch barrel kept things maneuverable.
The MAG-7 is a pump-action design, and it directly encouraged “poor” trigger discipline. If you racked the gun with your finger flat on the receiver and off the trigger, it would be impacted by the pump moving rearward. Some of the ergonomics were odd, especially the safety, the trigger was known to be quite heavy, and ultimately, the gun was never highly successful.
These weird shotguns were imported to the United States in civilian-legal designs with 18-inch barrels, but they are exceedingly rare.
Armsel Striker
South Africa’s most famous weird shotguns are the Armsel Striker series. The Armsel Striker was designed by a Rhodesian named Hilton Walker. Hilton Walker emigrated to South Africa and produced the Striker. The Striker is essentially a massive double-action revolver that fires 12-gauge rounds.
The gun held 12 rounds, which was a ton of ammo for that era. The Striker had a short 12-inch barrel and a top-folding stock. This provided a compact package.
The Striker was a bit cumbersome. The trigger was heavy even with the manually wound cylinder clockwork spring. Empty shells had to be punched out by an ejection rod one at a time. Various models of the Striker would be produced to correct these flaws. The Protecta added an auto-cartridge ejection design. The Protecta Bulldog was a super small, stockless variant of the gun.
The gun made it to America and was produced by Sentinel Arms as the Striker-12, and Cobray produced the famed Street Sweeper model. These guns were banned by the Treasury Secretary and regulated as destructive devices.
NeoStead 2000
The NeoStead 2000 was designed in the 1990s but didn’t enter production until the 2000s, thus the name. The NeoStead 2000 did KelTec before KelTec made it cool. These weird shotguns used dual tube magazines that each held six rounds of ammo. The NeoStead 2000 also used a bullpup format.
Beyond that, the tubes were top-mounted. The gun opened like a double barrel to access the tubes and chamber. This made it easy to load the gun in its unusual configuration. It keeps getting weirder: instead of going back and forth like a normal pump shotgun, the pump goes forward and rearward.
That’s quite nice for a bullpup shotgun since your hand isn’t going to slide forward in front of the barrel when working the action. There seems to be a degree of thought put behind the gun.
The NeoStead 2000 looks like it came from the future and operates like it came from the future. It’s a weird shotgun that’s super quirky. I would love to get hands-on to see if the unusual configuration makes any sense and could challenge conventional shotgun operation. A few of these guns have made it to the States, but they are very rare.
The Jumbo
The Jumbo is our final entry into the weird shotguns of South Africa. This isn’t an original design. It’s clearly a clone of the High Standard Model 10B. It’s a bullpup, semi-auto shotgun that feeds from a tube magazine. The High Standard model premiered in the 1960s, but it’s tough to tell when the Jumbo came about.
Only 36 were ever produced, and I can only find one reference book that promises information but seems to be out of production. The Jumbo effectively cloned the High Standard to a near “T.” This includes the rotating stock for firing it, braced against your bicep. The front sight folds, and there are dual charging handles as well.
Much like the High Standard, I doubt it was all that reliable. Since there are only 36 of them, it’s easier to find a High Standard than a Jumbo.
Weird Shotguns Rule
I really want a MAG-7, a NeoStead, and a Striker. I have a High Standard, so the Jumbo can get “Dumbo’ed.” These weird shotguns all tried something a little different, and the Striker was even a successful gun by all accounts. Sadly, unless I hit the lottery and some collections come to auction, I don’t see it happening.
