Citations:scattergun

English citations of scattergun and scatter-gun

shotgun

• 1836, H. R. Howard, The History of Virgil A. Stewart, and His Adventure, New York: Harper, page 142:

  You say you have a good scatter-gun. If you can get no other chance, shoot him as he sits by the fire : you can get off without being seen, and we will make our escape to Arkansas together.

• 1900 January, Nessmuk, “A Chatty Letter”, in Game Laws in Brief and Woodcraft Magazine, volume 1, number 4, page 91:

  There was a time in my earlier hunting days when, having become rather expert with the hair-triggered muzzle-loader, I came to have a most thorough contempt for the "scatter-gun."

• 1915 November, Palmer E. Pierce, “Field Firing”, in Infantry Journal, volume 12, number 3, page 376:

  A bad game shot will kill more birds with an old scatter-gun which will cover the whole face of a barn than he will with a choke-bore, and a captain who gives wrong ranges and fails to properly appreciate the fire situation will inflict less loss on an enemy with a company of marksmen than with a company of third-class shots who would be the equivalent of the old scatter-gun in my simile.

• 1971 February, Paul Wahl, “Indoor Wingshooting Is Here”, in Popular Science, →ISSN, page 65:

  It uses electronic scoring, a slick little scattergun, and “ice pigeon” targets

• 1973 September, Gary Gillespie, “How to select a modern scattergun”, in Popular Mechanics, →ISSN, page 134:

  But in all-around use, the scattergun now ranks first across fields and forests, trap and skeet ranges.

• 1999 December 1, Jason Manning, Gun Justice: The Unforgettable Story of Texas John Slaughter, One of the Greatest Gunfighters of the Old West‎^[1], Macmillan:

  Groundhitching the horse, he left the Winchester in the saddle boot and reached under his duster to unsling the scattergun.

• 2013 February 21, “Relevance”, in Person of Interest, season 2, episode 16, spoken by Sam Shaw (Sarah Shahi):

  You ever have a staring contest with a fish? No eyelids. Kinda pointless, right? Like you reaching for that scattergun.