Weird Guns (part 4) Neostead Dual tube shotgun

Here is another strange one that you might not have ever seen.
It is the Neostead 12 gauge shotgun from South Africa. It is unique due to its dual top mounted magazine tubes. It been available since 2001 and is manufactured by Truvelo Armory.

The Neostead pump action shotgun with fixed breech face and movable barrel. The Neostead was designed with a forward then back-style pump action like on the Russian RMB-93. It has a bullpup style layout which results in a shorter overall weapon with a longer barrel. The frame is made from high impact polymer and features a top carrying handle with sights built in. The Neostead has a safety selector inside the trigger guard, directly in front of the trigger. The dual, selective magazine gives the Neostead a 12 round capacity and tactical flexibility. You could have one tube loaded with less lethal rounds and the other with buckshot for example. Mounted on the rear of the magazines there is a magazine selector which can be set to enable the feeding from one or another magazine, or from both, alternately. The magazine tubes are loaded and then slid into the frame of the weapon as you can see below.



Lets say that the gun has just been fired and the breech has an empty case in it. The operator would then pump forward and then backward. This causes the barrel to move forward, and the empty case will be held against the breech face by the extractor, then ejected down through an opening in the frame. When the pump slide is pulled forward, the new cartridge is released from the magazine tube above the barrel, and then a feed ramp lowers it so that it is aligned with the barrel and the breech face simultaneously. When the pump is returned to the starting position, it takes the barrel back, so the barrel will enclose the cartridge and be in battery with the fixed breech face. The weapon can now be fired.


The Neostead has so far failed to set the world on fire and I am not aware of any police or military that has adopted it. It is a good idea although I would think there could be many opportunities for problems with the dual tubes. It would be very easier under stress to forget you had one type of load in the chamber or which tube was which and think you were firing a beanbag and fire a 1 ounce slug instead.