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Pancor Jackhammer

Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 July 2009 17:02 Written by Administrator Thursday, 02 July 2009 20:52

The Pancor Jackhammer is a gas operated automatic shotgun designed by Pancor Corporation in the 1980s. There are very few fully-automatic shotguns with the Jackhammer being one of them. It never entered mainstream production and no countries ever adopted it. In fact, according to some sources only two working prototypes of the Jackhammer were ever built. Subsequently, Pancor Corporation went bankrupt and the patents and production rights were sold off.

The Jackhammer was designed and developed by John Anderson. Initially, a number of countries showed interest in the shotgun because of its innovative design. The shotgun was held up for testing by the United States Department of Defence which didn’t find the shotgun to be appropriate and rejected it. During the testing process, Pancor couldn’t obtain export license to fulfil the orders placed by other countries.  Subsequently, the company went bankrupt and its assets which included the initial prototypes had to be sold off.

Design wise, the Jackhammer is a leap into the future. It has a bull-pup configuration and is capable of full-automatic fire. It is designed to use 70mm 12-gauge ammunition fed from a 10-round ammunition cassette which can be replaced just like a rifle magazine. The ammunition magazine also doubles up as an anti-personnel mine when used with a detonator.

Though the Jackhammer never entered mainstream use, it is nevertheless very famous popular-culture. Many video games and television programs often portray it for its futuristic design.

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