Probably the biggest surprise at SHOT Show was the debut of Crye Precision’s Six12 Breaching Shotgun. The threat to the breacher is great. He remains exposed at the breach point while at work. Oftentimes he will use a shotgun to breach but these are Masterkey-style short barrel shotguns with limited capacity (generally, 3 shells). If the breacher is engaged, he may be unable to reach his sidearm or carbine and in many cases, he foregoes the carbine altogether due to not having enough hands. Then, there’s that pesky small capacity of the standalone breaching guns. The 3 or 4 shells (if one in the chamber) may not be enough in the event multiple doors must be breached as a building is accessed. The gun can be reloaded but it’s a slower process than replacing a magazine,
The idea of a carbine mounted, revolver-style breaching shotgun with a removable/replaceable cylinder magazine came to Caleb Crye in a dream and he brought firearms engineer Eric Burt onboard to make the concept a reality.
It offers a revolving cylinder containing Six 12 ga shells (hence the name) in a bullpup configuration that retains a full barrel length while keeping the overall length short enough for stand alone or carbine mounted use. Crye Precision has developed a patent pending means to deal with the recoil of a bullpup configuration so that it doesn’t affect the carbine. When the trigger is pulled the cylinder rotates like with a revolver but before the round is fired, it moves slightly forward to mate with the barrel in order to contain the force and flame. Considering the location of the round in relation to the shooter, this is critical.
In this video produced for SSD by Blind Owl Media, weapon designer Eric Burt goes over some basics of the Six12.
Crye Precision Six12 breaching shotgun at Shot Show 2014 from boo keller on Vimeo.
According the Eric Burt, these should be available for agency purchase by December with individual sales commencing after the new year.
