Bella Dea wrote:
And what do you use them for?
Hunting? If so, why?
Why not use just a shotgun?
I grew up in an area full of hunters and not ONE of them used a semi. Not one. In fact, no real hunter I know even now uses one.
Bella Dea wrote:Because one is capable of rapid fire. The other is not.
What is the purpose of rapid fire?
From reading your posts it appears that you have the concept of what a shotgun is/isn't confiused with the difference between a manual action/semi-automartic/automatic action is.
Firearms are made in:
a.) single shot (the "action" must be opened and a new round of ammunition manually loaded into the chamber after each shot)
b.) manual action (i.e. pump, lever or bolt action where manually activating the mechanism loads the next round into the chamber from a stored well within the firearm after each shot.)
c.) Semi-automatic (where the firarm uses internal mechanisims and "re-couped" energy from a fired round to load the next round into the chamber after each shot but only does this once each time the trigger is pulled.)
and d.) Automatic (where the firearm performs in the same sort of manner as a semi-automatic but continues to fire and reload as long as the trigger is held in the pulled position.)
Those 4 main action types are independent of the type of projectile the firearm expels. You can find all of those action types in shotguns, rifles or handguns so the fact that someone may use a shotgun doesn't preclude them from using a semi-automatic. The idea that "one is rapid fire and the other isn't" is simply false.
The choice of what type of action and what type of projectile to use for hunting is also dependent on the purpose and type of hunting one is doing. Shotguns work well for bird hunting, upland game (rabbits, etc..) and in areas where the hunting area is small and the game is likely to come within the shotgun's very limited effective range. In many areas hunting is limited to "shotguns only" not because the shotgun is the best firearm to use to hunt with but because of concerns with how close houses are to the hunting areas.
Outside of those conditions, a shotgun is pretty much useless. No one is going to shoot a deer, elk, mountain goat, etc.. at ranges or 200-400 yards with a shotgun - and those conditions are readily and widely available in most of the midwest, the south and the mountain west.
Once you have decided on the type of action and the type of projectile you'd also have to look at the size of the projectile and the type of casing that is best suited for the particular task at hand.
You may not know anyone that uses a semi-automatic for hunting but the idea that no "real hunter" uses them is just silly. Hundreds of thousands of people use them and they are just as "real" as any hunter you might know.
I wonder what other uses there would be for a trigger mechanism...
