Atlas Forces Rewold: a peculiar Turkish semi-automatic tactical shotgun
A Turkish company called Atlas Forces proposes a most unique 12-gauge tactical and sporting semi-automatic, gas-operated shotgun: dubbed the Rewold, this model features a peculiar manually-rotating, detachable horizontal magazine, offering a staggering capacity of sixteen 12-gauge shotshells
In the past few years, Turkish gunmakers got the global markets acquainted with a plethora of new models – chiefly shotguns – featuring some very peculiar solutions in terms of design and aesthetics.
Among those is the Atlas Forces Rewold 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun, a most unique product hailing all the way from Konya, a city in central Anatolia known for being the heartland of the Turkish gun industry.
Atlas Forces Rewold 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun – right side
The Atlas Forces Rewold is a gas-operated semi-automatic shotgun built around a polymer lower receiver – which includes a fixed stock with an adjustable cheek riser and a replaceable AR-15 compatible pistol grip, and hosts the trigger group – and a 7075-T6 lightweight aluminum alloy upper receiver. A polymer barrel shroud is also integral to the upper.
Most of the controls and other elements of the Rewold shotgun are essentially conventional in nature: the shotgun features a standard side-mounted charging handle, a cross-bolt safety, and a full-length top MIL-STD 1913 Picatinny rail for optics or flip-up sights, as well as two shorter rail segments for tactical accessories on the front portion of the handguard.
The barrel of the Atlas Forces Rewold shotgun is manufactured out of 4140 steel, and available in 47 cm, 51 cm or 61 cm lengths (that's 18.5", 20" or 24"). The barrel is compatible with a wide array of slugs, including chokes, and the shotgun as a whole is available in several anodized or Cerakote finish options.
What is – more or less – unique with the Atlas Forces Rewold is the feeding system: this shotgun feeds through a detachable, manually-rotating, horizontal magazine that features four independent columns, each with its own spring and follower, each capable of hosting four 76 mm / 3" 12-gauge shotshells, for a staggering total of 16 shots, plus an additional round in chamber.
A front block pin prevents the magazine from being released or rotating accidentally under stress or by the recoil energy. Each separate column is aligned with the shell lifter by rotating the magazine manually, one-quarter turn counter-clockwise.
Once four rounds are fired, the bolt of the shotgun remains open; the shooter will then be able to rotate the magazine again to align a new column to the feed tray, which will automatically chamber a round and send the bolt shut, readying the Rewold shotgun to fire again.
The magazine can also be rotated manually to change feed column mid-way through one. This will allow the most skilled users to keep magazines loaded with different types of ammunition for each column, and to select between them rapidly depending from the needs of the moment.
This isn't a completely new concept: the first firearm to implement it was the SRM Arms Model 1216 semi-automatic shotgun of US manufacture, which has been in production since 2011 but sadly without meeting the much deserved commercial success due to the high price per unit if compared with most competitors.
What could shape a different destiny for the Atlas Forces Rewold shotgun is the Country of manufacture: the Turkish firearms industry is known for being capable of churning out overall functional products in high quantities and at a bargain price.
As of today, a previous version of the Rewold design – dubbed the Atlas Forces AS-17, chiefly distinguished by the current generation by the different type of stock – is commercially available in France and in the United Kingdom, in its full-length 24" barrel version. We can only look ahead to see more variants of the design hitting the European and north American markets soon.