Hi guys, thanks for tuning back in to ForgottenWeapons.com.
Today we're looking at one that
I'd say is a thankfully forgotten weapon.
This is a Streetsweeper 12 gauge.
These were originally actually designed
by a fellow in Rhodesia in 1980.
He eventually then moved to South Africa, kept developing these.
And the good ones, or as good as these get,
were actually sold under the name "Protecta", and then "Striker".
And then the "Streetsweeper" brand name was
kind of the cut-rate one that was produced here in the US.
Now ... really the only reason these are particularly notable today
is that in 1994, actually after some lobbying by the Brady Campaign,
these, along with a couple of other shotguns, the USAS-12 in particular,
these were declared destructive devices.
Now the way that the NFA is written,
any firearm that's over a half inch bore diameter,
and is determined not to have a sporting use,
is in fact, by definition, a destructive device.
So all 12 and 20-gauge shotguns are destructive devices,
except if they're determined to have sporting value.
Now there have only been a couple, like this one, that were ever
taken out of "shotgun" classification and made destructive devices.
... And in '94 that happened on this.
The ... ATF did actually a pretty serious job tracking down everyone who'd bought one of these,
and sending them a nice little letter
that told them that they had to either register or surrender these guns.
And they were allowed to register them without paying a transfer tax.
But today, if you want to get one, you have to go through the NFA process,
and there's a $200 tax on their transfer, so.
And in fact this is a terrible, terrible gun.
Originally it had some real desirability
because it does have this drum magazine that holds 12 cartridges,
which was a very high capacity at the time.
Now today of course you can get yourself a 12-gauge Saiga
that has 10-round stick mags and 20-round drums. And those are detachable.
Where this, ... it's not permanently affixed, but it only comes off for disassembly.
You can't carry a spare drum for this and reload it that way.
It is a fully mechanical gun, so it functions basically like a double action revolver.
You can see we have a winding key here on the front.
And in fact down these holes you can see some of the cylinders.
The drum itself is actually made of aluminium.
And basically we have this loading port.
You open that up, you drop a shell in, rotate it, drop a shell in, rotate it.
Like so, until it's fully loaded.
Now the drum will take just over two full revolutions to go to full tension.
And then what happens is ... it's a fairly long trigger,
and it does have a double action system like a revolver.
But the first half of the trigger pull actually pulls back a stud
and allows the drum to rotate one position. ...
And it does that even on safe, which we'll get to in a moment.
So when I pull the trigger,
you can hear that clunk, and when I release it the cylinder moves one.
Now this is currently on safe.
That's pretty much how it works, even when it's loaded.
Go ahead and unwind this, then we can load it up.
The safety is right here behind the trigger.
There is also up here on the front an ejector rod.
This works just like a Colt Single Action Army.
And that's how you eject cartridges after you fired them.
You presumably fire the whole cylinder, and then you go back through and manually eject each one.
We'll go through the unloading procedure in a minute.
A lot of polymer on here, pretty cheap.
One of the interesting things, this has the original 18 inch barrel.
Because that's what was required to prevent it from being a short-barrelled shotgun.
Well, once these became classified as destructive devices
the barrel length no longer is legally relevant.
So pretty much all of the ones out there that were registered
have had the barrels chopped off to 12 inches, because - why not?
You don't have to pay a tax or inform anybody if you do - once it's a destructive device.
It does also have a folding stock, it's a terrible stock.
There's a little detent here that we push in, flips the stock over.
Kind of like an MP40 stock, but worse.
Nice sharp metal edge that your face rides on, not cool.
Anyway let's go ahead and load this up.
So if you want to watch in here,
kind of a mishmash of ammo today, but mostly birdshot.
Drop one in, and rotate it.
Put a shell in, rotate.
We'll put in about half a dozen.
One nice thing about this system, I do have to admit, is that
you can fire a complete mix of ammunition.
Light loads, heavy slugs, less lethal munitions you could shoot without any trouble
because the gun is all mechanical.
There's no gas or recoil operating system that you have
to worry about being capable of cycling the shells, so.
That's all the ammo I have in my pocket,
so I'm going to go ahead and wind this the rest of the way.
There we go. Close the loading gate.
And now I'm ready to shoot.
So, a couple of things to keep in mind.
Like a revolver, this has cylinder gap.
So there's a gap between the chamber and the barrel up here.
And there is also a gap kind of at the back.
And what we found when shooting this is it kind of has particulate and gas going everywhere.
So you'll feel it on your face, and you'll feel it on your forearm when you're shooting.
Which is frankly rather unpleasant, but I'll do it for you guys.
So here we go, take the safety off.
Now since I didn't load it full, I don't know
exactly how many empty chambers I have before I get to the first round.
But of course, each pull of the trigger cycles it one, so here we go.
You can hear that double-click.
That first click is the cylinder rotating, and the second click is the hammer dropping.
I really don't want to put my face up against this stock, it's kind of brutal.
Really, it's a terrible shotgun.
Alright, now I'm empty, so let's take a look at the unloading procedure.
I'm going to open up the loading port there.
Now I put the gun on safe,
and each time I pull the trigger it rotates the cylinder.
There is my first fired round, run the ejector rod.
Pull the trigger, ejector rod.
And
continue doing that. Oh! OK, so I ... ran out of spring capacity.
So we'll wind it back up to get the last couple.
Oh, there's a hidden one.
And now it's all the way unwound.
If I wanted to really abuse myself here I could go ahead and reload it at this point,
but I'm not going to, because this is a pretty miserable shotgun.
There are people out there who really like these.
Obviously they have some Hollywood appeal, and they certainly look impressive, but,
not something I'm going to go spend my own money on.
So I appreciate the chance to get this one out at the range to do some test firing.
I hope you guys enjoyed it,
and tune back in to ForgottenWeapons.com for more oversized shotguns.