Monday, July 02, 2007 Rama: Space Guns 2 (second of two parts) By Karlon N. Rama Stage Five
THE gun that was destined to become the High Standard 10 (models A and B) stemmed from a design developed by an American police sergeant named Alfred Crouch in the late 50’s for his precinct’s tactical units.
Crouch removed the standard stock off a Remington semi-automatic shotgun and replaced it with one of his own manufacture via rivets.
The new stock looked like an inverted letter C and fit snugly to his shoulder.
He also sawed off the trigger guard and modified the now exposed trigger by cutting it short and attaching a link that he welded to a bar that, in turn, was attached to a new trigger assembly he’d installed underneath the shotgun’s tubular magazine—a few inches away from where the magazine began to extend from the fore stock.
He then fashioned a pistol grip and placed it behind the new trigger assembly and encased the new mechanism via iron sheeting.
Removing the stock effectively shortened the gun and transferring the trigger forward off the bolt changed the way the shotgun was held.
Instead of shooting it like a rifle, one now had to assume a pistol-stance to fire the gun because the length of the action was now shorter than the span of an ordinary person’s arm and because the grip and trigger were now located far forward of the action.
In the ’50s, Crouch’s gun was as futuristic looking as the “plastic” Armalite rifles were to soldiers at the beginning of the Vietnam conflict and the Starship Trooper blasters are to you and me.
Though it wasn’t the first bullpup gun manufactured—it was pre-dated by almost 15 years by the French Faucon-Meunier semi-automatic rifle—all other shotguns available in the market followed the traditional design of triggers being located behind the action, making Crouch’s piece one of a kind.
High Standard bought Crouch’s design sometime in the ’60s, modified it a bit and carried it out on an existing product—the Flight King—to form the HS 10.
The gun enjoyed brief popularity in the law enforcement circles.
Because it was short without sacrificing the actual barrel length, it was highly maneuverable and quite handy without dispersing the shot (pellets) to a pattern so wide as to be ineffective.
High Standard mounted a flashlight on the top of the action to give the wielder the tactical advantage during low-light situations.
Users later discovered another value to the flashlight—a sighting aid. They discovered that, until a certain distance, the shot pattern would go where the light would be at the time of firing.
However, as more and more people bought the firearm, its downsides began to get noticed.
Its main problem was malfunctions when low power ammunition is used—still a problem among semi-automatic shotguns today.
Because the HS 10 was essentially “just another semi-automatic shotgun” with a modified trigger and grip configuration, it still needed full power loads to throw the bolt back and “cycle” the action.
Its other problem was short magazine capacity at four rounds per loading.
While the problem could have easily been solved by increasing the length of the tubular magazine and, for aesthetics, the barrel length, demand for the gun had declined to an all-time low that a redesign and re-launch was cost inefficient.
The shotgun, at least in its pump-action version, is the perfect home-defense weapon.
Versatile because the manual action allows it to eat both low and high-power rounds, one can load it with non-lethal ammunition like the police beanbag (a measure of rubber pellets placed inside a bag that is then placed inside the shotgun cartridge) and the baton (a rubber slug also placed inside the shotgun cartridge).
And for serious encounters, it can eat and spit the conventional double ought buckshot and the bone-breaking rifled slug.
