Walther Automatic Shotgun - A toggle locked, semiautomatic Shotgun in 12 Gauge

Shooting my new(old) Walther semiautomatic shotgun in 12 gauge (2-1/2" shells) that holds 5+1 shells. The shotgun was the brainchild of the Walther brothers, but built in the Deutsche Werke plant during the interwar period on the Walther license. Production ran from 1921-1922 through 1931 with perhaps less than 6000 units produced.

While it is not the first toggle lock shotgun to exist, with earlier patents granted to Hiram Maxim, John Browning, and Carl Hoffman, it's a very unique action in which the shotgun utilizes a semi-long recoil operation. The barrel and upper receiver reciprocate rearwards 1" to 1-1/2" of the length of the shell before the toggle unlocks for shell ejection. All Walther Automatic Shotguns sport a full choke, and came in both 12 gauge and 16 gauge, although 16 gauge examples were far more uncommon. My example does not have an import mark.

The cause of the jam in the first video is the last shell hitting the side of the chamber.

This shotgun is also featured in the new Cawadootdoot Wawa2 video game as the "Toggle Action", but features a dissimilar manual of arms and a drum magazine where the elevator and toggle would reside.

As for ammo, I bought 1175 FPS "Lite" 2-1/2" shells from RST Shells. Seems to function pretty reliably through the Walther Autoshotty. I also tried 1125 FPS UltraLite and MaxiLite loads from RST, but they were not powerful enough to cycle through this shotgun.

More info can be found here from this excellent forum post: http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?262846-The-Walther-automatic-shotgun