A takedown gun (typically a takedown
rifle
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...
or takedown
shotgun
A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...
) is a
long gun
A long gun is a category of firearms with long barrels. In small arms, a ''long gun'' or longarm is generally designed to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun, which can be fired being held with a single ...
designed to be taken apart significantly reducing its length, making it easier to store, pack, transport and conceal. A variety of
barrel
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, ...
,
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
, and
receiver designs have been invented to facilitate takedown. For example, the hinged design of many
break-action firearms allows takedown. Some regular firearms can be modified to allow takedown after custom
gunsmith
A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very h ...
ing.
Rifles
American gun manufacturers including
Marlin
Marlins are fish from the family Istiophoridae, which includes about 10 species. A marlin has an elongated body, a spear-like snout or bill, and a long, rigid dorsal fin which extends forward to form a crest. Its common name is thought to deri ...
,
Ruger
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., better known by the shortened name Ruger, is an American firearm manufacturing company based in Southport, Connecticut, with production facilities also in Newport, New Hampshire; Mayodan, North Carolina; and Presco ...
,
Savage
Savage may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Savage Glacier, Ellsworth Land
* Savage Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land
* Savage Ridge, Victoria Land
United States
* Savage, Maryland, an unincorporated community
* Savage, Minnesota, a city
* Savage, Mi ...
, and
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
have made takedown rifles since the late 1800s. Some early examples include the
Browning 22 Semi-Auto rifle
The Browning 22 Semi-Auto rifle, also known as the Semi Automatic 22 or SA-22, is a takedown rifle produced by FN Herstal based on a John Browning patent. The rifle is currently produced by Browning as the Semi-Auto 22. Production began in 19 ...
,
Remington Model 24 and
Remington Model 8
The Remington Model 8 is a semi-automatic rifle designed by John Browning and produced by Remington Arms, introduced as the ''Remington Autoloading Rifle'' in 1905, though the name was changed to the ''Remington Model 8'' in 1911.
History
On Oct ...
made by
Fabrique Nationale
Fabrique Nationale Herstal (), trading as FN Herstal and often referred to as Fabrique Nationale or simply FN, is a leading firearms manufacturer based in Herstal, Belgium. It is currently the largest exporter of military small arms in Europe.
...
and
Remington Arms
Remington Arms Company, LLC was an American manufacturer of firearms and ammunition, now broken into two companies, each bearing the Remington name. The firearms manufacturer is ''Remington Arms''. The ammunition business is called ''Remingto ...
. Many militaries in the early 20th century also experimented with takedown systems, particularly for the use by
paratroopers
A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during Worl ...
. An example of this being the Japanese experimental
TERA Rifles.
Shotguns
Most single barrel and double barrel shotguns readily break down into separate buttstock, barrel and forestock and are often transported cased as takedown guns. Among repeating shotguns, the Winchester
Model 97 and
Model 12 shotguns were factory made as takedown guns. Savage also makes a series of takedown over/under rifle/shotgun combination guns.
Survival guns
Survival guns such as the
ArmaLite AR-7
The ArmaLite AR-7 Explorer is a semi-automatic firearm in .22 Long Rifle caliber, developed in 1959 from the AR-5 that was adopted by the U.S. Air Force as a pilot and aircrew survival weapon. The AR-7 was adopted and modified by the Israeli Air ...
may be disassembled and its barrel, action and magazines stored within its plastic butt-stock. This lightweight , .22 caliber (5.6 mm),
semi-automatic rifle
A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt-act ...
measures overall when assembled, when disassembled and can even float. Although the AR-7 was designed as a pilot and aircrew survival weapon, it is commonly used by target shooters and backpackers, and is frequently stowed away in vehicles and boats.
[The AR-7 exotic weapons system, Paperback: 63 pages Paladin Press (1982), {{ISBN, 0873642422]
See also
Poacher's gun
The poacher's gun was, as its name suggests, an easily concealable firearm predominantly used by poachers in Northern England from the 18th until the early 20th century for bagging rabbits and other small game. The contemporary cane gun had a sim ...
, the 18th century precursor to the takedown rifle
References
* Carmichel, Jim
Outdoor Life. Feb 1, 2004. Accessed 2008-06-16.
Firearm construction
Rifles
Shotguns
Takedown gun