World's Largest Shotgun?

I'm all for giving our troops as many options as possible, so they can apply the appropriate force for different situations. And though the trend has been towards precison and limiting collateral damage, there are those times when you just need to kill everything in front of you. That's where this munition comes in handy.

This video shows what must be the world’s largest shotgun shell: the 120mm canister round designed for the cannon of an M1 Abrams tank. The 50 pound shell contains 1150 .40 caliber tungsten pellets launched at 4500 fps, with an effective range of 500 yards...

...The last shot shows how much the pattern opens up at long range as the shell decapitates every one of a row of targets that must be 30 yards across. Given the price of tungsten, I can only imagine how much the three shells fired in this video must have cost. Best not to think about it; just click “play” and enjoy the sight of your tax dollars flying downrange.

--Phil Bourjaily

Phil's comments about how much those shells must have cost made me curious. Tungsten runs about $13 per pound, so the cost of materials for the three shells would be less than $2000.