The Becker Blow-Forward Revolving Shotgun

Oh, just a 16-gauge German revolving semi-automatic shotgun from the 1920s which was patented in the 1890s. Nothing weird there, right?

It’s called a Becker, but isn’t marked as such. Instead, it just says “Deursche Jagdwaffengesellschaft-Dusseldorf,” which loosely translates as “German hunting weapons company Dusseldorf.”

The cylinder for this revolver is spring-loaded, and holds five 16-gauge shotgun shells. You wind it up as you load it, and you can then fire five times in a row — after you cock it by pulling the barrel forward.

Oddly, the barrel is about an inch forward of its firing position when the shotgun is cocked and ready to fire. Upon firing, the barrel moves rearward, the shell fires, and the barrel moves forward again. When the barrel moves forward, the cylinder rotates one notch clockwise.

When you fire your second shot, the empty shell from your first shot will be ejected through the loading port by the gases from that second shell. This continues until your final shot, which must be manually ejected.

This ejection arrangement would utterly suck for a left-handed shooter, because hot gases and empty shells would be flung towards the shooter’s face. Ouch!

Pretty nifty arrangement. But it’s easy to see why John Browning’s designs won out, as they are so much more practical.

Enjoy the video.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.