Developed in the mid 1990s by South African designer Tony Neophytou, the Neostead 2000 is a pump action shotgun with a substantial cult following. It was the first truly high-capacity shotgun put into production, with two magazine tubes over a single barrel (a concept which was independently implemented by KelTec in their later KSG shotgun). This configuration gave it a capacity of 12+1, and a selector switch allowed the shooter to control whether only one tube was fed from or if both would be used alternating back and forth. Thus the tubes could be loaded with different types of ammunition to have readily available at the flip of a switch. It was produced only in 12ga, with a 3″ chamber.
The Neostead has a bullpup type layout, with the action and ejection port behind the grip and trigger. This allows a full-length barrel in a short overall package, and it is for this reason that the pump mechanism is designed to cycle opposite of traditional shotguns (forward to open and back to close). By having the shooter pulling their hand rearwards to close the action, the potential danger of the hand slipping in front of the muzzle while firing (something that has happened on the KSG) can be avoided.
Production of the Neostead did not happen until the early 2000s, and only 200 of the guns were made. The problem was ultimately the excessive complexity of the design. Short-stroking the pump could result in two shells both trying to feed onto the lifter, which would require field stripping the gun to resolve. The internal complexity also made the gun quite expensive – too expensive to be commercially successful. Most of the guns remain in South Africa today, where they are sought after as collectible items.
Many thanks to the anonymous collector who provided the production gun for disassembly, and to Mr. Neophytou for providing his prototype for firing!
“(forward to open and back to close)”
Russian RMB-93 also work this way:
https://modernfirearms.net/en/shotguns/russia-shotguns/rmb-93-eng/
I would think it harder to blow one’s hand off shooting rapidly with this arrangement.
“Complicated” is right! The only function I could recognize is the bottom ejection and shell lifter from the Ithaca model 37 shotgun. 🙂
Would have been simpler to build it with 2 bbls and 2 mags. In operation you’d PUMP, BLAM TWICE, PUMP, BLAM TWICE! until the tank was empty. Have I worked out the details? Hell no! I just thought of it!
There could be a market for it…
We can already find double barrel safari rifles with bolt action associated with 2×3 round magazines (or more, depending on the caliber).
The Fuchs rifles are good examples of such…
There is one – the Standard Mfg DP-12. It’s a double barrel pump. http://www.stdgun.com/dp-12/
It is comically massive and heavy, too. Probably fun, though.
“massive and heavy”
Not surprising with weapon with 2 barrels, each 12 gauge. If someone wants 12 gauge of high capacity, I think solution might be MM1-like weapon:
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Hawk_MM1_grenade_launcher
Does anybody know if Tony Neophytou is still alive?
“‘Orrible little beastie!” as my former musketry-instructor grandfather would have said! Looks as complicated as a Lewis gun, albeit not as reliable.
The banning of self-loaders always seems to generate a harvest of freakish alternatives. I’ll stick with proven manual actions.
Ops. Just saw at the bottom that he is still kicking. Sorry about that.
How does one contact Tony Neophytou?
If I am not mistaken, the Neostad design was licensed (maybe just stolen) to produce the dual-head-tube UTAS UTS-12 out of Turkey. It’s the shotgun that looks like it was a prop from Starship Troopers.
If-the-1984-Voltron-cartoon-were-adapted-into-live-action-like-Hasbro’s-Transformers-and-GI-Joe, it would reuse the Starship Trooper uniforms for the Galaxy Garrison officers and grunts just like the 1999 Power Rangers season Lost Galaxy.
What ever prototype ideas in every sciense we Greeks have, we realise them abroad.Even the Troian horse! All our history long, we give the “lights”… and we remain in the darkness !
If we started to expand in other historical subjects like historical events,-run out of FW ? -, please do bother to have a look at mr Chatzidaki’s private war museum in Crete,chatzidaki_an@yahoo.gr, as well as few others all around the country.
back in the early 2000’s SWAT magazine was all over this..every few issues it would be something about the neostead.