Tiger Claw

The Tiger Claw is a pump-action shotgun originally designed in PA 180 by the Bias-based weapons company Wildcat Armoury. The design is derived from centuries of human experience - finding the most traction and familiarity amongst police and security forces, game hunters, and target shooters.

Due to its age and the changing needs of the world around it, there are many makes and models of what is essentially the same 'Tiger Claw' receiver and pump-action. The most recent iterations are the Tiger Claw 66/MP, produced in PA 266 for military and police use, and the Tiger Claw 67/S, produced next year for the civilian market.

• Timeless slide-action design, with a number of chamberings available.
  • Common calibres include the security-oriented 12 gauge, the hunting and competition-made 20 gauge, and the enormous big game 4 gauge/four bore.
  • Trigger Disconnecter system to prevent slam-firing, increasing reliability.
• 18“ barrel as standard, with front bead sight, and flat rear sights.
• Underbarrel magazine tube - holds five cartridges in 12 gauge chambering with one in the pipe.
• Solid wooden/synthetic stock included as standard, with a recoil pad as standard.
• Commonly associated with human-derived police and security forces in the Unity Protocol, but has found widespread use across the Aleph Null System.

A pump-action or slide-action firearm is one in which a fore-end can be moved forward and backward in order to eject a spent round of ammunition and to chamber a fresh one. It is much faster than a bolt-action and somewhat faster than a lever-action, as it does not require the trigger hand to be removed from the trigger while reloading. Once fired, the fore-end is slid rearward by hand and the expended cartridge ejected. It is then reloaded by manually moving the fore-end to the front.

The weapon has a single barrel above a tube magazine into which shells are inserted. New shells are chambered by pulling a pump handle (often called the fore-end) attached to the tube magazine toward the user, then pushing it back into place to chamber the cartridge (in a few cases this action is reversed). The barrel of the gun is smooth-bore, firing shotgun cartridges - rifled barrels optimised for shooting slugs are available.

Derived from countless iterations of human-made shotguns with humble origins in game hunting and sport, this pump-action shotgun . The exterior furniture on the gun can come in factory-made wooden or synthetic styles, in a variety of finishes and colours. Plastics can come in black, navy, camouflaged or other colours according to the user's taste or lack thereof. Wood varieties can come in oak, teak, birch, pine, walnut, spruce, and more; each with a complementary coat of varnish to protect the wood from weather.

The receiver and trigger group are milled out of a few moving pieces, making disassembly of the weapon's outer shell quite simple. Disassembly starts by unscrewing the magazine tube and pulling the barrel away from the receiver. From there, the user can lift the receiver and trigger group out and unlock the tubular magazine from the fore-grip and slide. Reassembling the gun only involves reversing this process. The stock is slid onto a rod on body of the weapon and bolted in place through holes in the stock.

The following shotshell payloads are commonly used by owners of a Tiger Claw.

• Buckshot - Generally double-aught sized lead pellets, ideal for police and security for its low penetration and wounding ballistics against unarmoured targets.
• Birdshot - A finer grade of buckshot optimised for hitting far-away, moving targets like birds or clay pigeons. Hot birdshot loads are often used for competition shooting.
• Rifled Slug - A heavy slug with a rifling around it and a powerful charge behind it, intended for hunting big game¹⁾.
• Beanbag - A heavy beanbag compressed into and fired at low pressure, likely to bruise a target and less likely to kill them.

Military and Police orders can be made directly to Wildcat Armoury, selling twenty shotguns in one order and several dozen boxes of ammunition for a cool UC50000⁰⁰. This purchase is scrutinised and background-screened extensively by both the local government of the purchaser, as buyers must have a license to operate as a police entity in their locale. Within the Unity Protocol, this screening process is handled by the Units.

Sporting models of the shotgun have reduced-size magazines, usually holding three shots plus one in the chamber. Otherwise, they are similar to their military counterparts, and often sold with wooden furniture. A new shotgun usually goes for UC800⁰⁰, and a box of twenty shells is UC44⁵⁰ at most One-Stop retailers.

Secondhand shotguns can range between UC1250⁰⁰ to UC1500⁰⁰ for surplus combat models, down to UC550⁰⁰ for a former sporting shotgun in good condition, or even a low UC250⁰⁰ for a beat-up old scattergun with numbers scratched into the stock and wear all over.