Smith & Wesson has been a mainstay of the American firearms industry for generations. While they now make AR-type rifles and even tried their hand at subguns in the past, pistols make up the vast majority of their original engineering inventory. So it came somewhat as a surprise when in mid 2021 they announced a new foray into the shotgun market — the M&P12. Straight from a SYFY channel show, the Smith & Wesson M&P12 is a pump shotgun, but nowhere near the old Remington 870 in your safe. With dual magazine tubes running parallel below the barrel, along with a bullpup configuration, the M&P12 represents a distinct shift in the Smith & Wesson lineup.
HISTORY
S&W has actually done shotguns before. In the early 1970s, they produced a pump gun, the Model 916, that was rife with issues and subject to recall due to barrels bursting. This was followed shortly by the Model 1000, a series of semi-auto sporting clay shooters they made from 1973 to 1985. Available in 12- and 20-gauge, the Model 1000 had a trap version (M1000T) and skeet version (M1000S); needless to say, if you couldn’t tell by the model names, they definitely weren’t duty guns. After this run, Mossberg took up the Model 1000 mantle.
In the weirdness of Cold War weapons development in the ’80s, S&W presented several shotgun prototypes for the DoD’s doomed CAWS (Close Assault Weapon System) program. With the “AS” (Assault Shotgun) moniker, these were select-fire, eating from box magazines, with
