Spas-12

Summary
The SPAS-12, known in Italy as the Franchi SPAS-12, is an end-game shotgun. This is by far the most accurate shotgun in the game, and the former is pretty much its largest upside. It has a tight spread and is deadly at a close-to-medium range. Both are helpful traits in the game.

Background Story
The SPAS-12 is an extremely popular shotgun used by dozens of special forces and police teams. It packs quite a punch, and unlike many other shotguns, its firing mechanism has been perfected to create a tight spread for a much longer range compared to other shotguns. This, with the fact that it has many attachments that increase its flexibility, makes the SPAS-12 a formidable weapon.

Somewhere along the way, this aspect of the gun was lost during production. Some say R-Brain Hardwork simplified the design way too much — folding the stock in, removal of all the safety mechanisms, and the controversial move to decrease the firing velocity. This caused it to lose both punch and accuracy. A statement issued says that these were changes made to make sure everyone can handle such a heavy weapon.

Some people have trouble believing this.

Tips

 * This is a fast firing, pump-action shotgun. Treat it as such.
 * This is a great tool for crowd control.
 * Like other shotguns, using third-person is the way to go.
 * This weapon has the potential to instantly kill any mob on a headshot that isn't a Brute. Use this to your advantage.
 * Regardless, it's still great for taking out Brutes.
 * This weapon doesn't benefit from crouching or ADS'ing since the spread is tight enough.
 * Try shooting the zombies in the center of your screen, since shooting them at the side will probably lead to most of the pellets not hitting your target.
 * The stored ammo on this gun are shells, not clips.
 * As such, you can fire 18 times before needing to restock.
 * Armors that give extra clips will simply give you extra shells.

Trivia

 * This is the third weapon to return from the R2D 2014, as well as the third shotgun in R2DA.
 * In Debug, the Spas-12 was offered for 75,000$.
 * This was changed to 55,000$ when it was actually added.
 * This is the first weapon to have two restricted skins applied to it.
 * Many changes — albeit they are mostly nerfs — have been applied to the Spas-12:
 * The Rank required to unlock this weapon dropped from 25 to 18 in v0.8.4.
 * The Spas-12 was the first occasion where a Prestige Rank would be required for a gun.
 * After v1.0.2, you had to be Rank 20 to unlock this gun for purchase.
 * The range has been nerfed in v0.8.4 and v0.9.1, dropping it from 210 to 160 and 160 to 90 respectively.
 * The damage dropped from 31 per pellet to 22 in v0.9.7.
 * This has the lowest damage for a single bullet with 22, with the second being the Skorpion.
 * However, as 8 pellets are fired at the same time, take this with a grain of salt.
 * The FAMAS used to also share this record, but no longer does due to receiving multiple buffs.
 * During v0.9.3, this was one of the weapons that were affected by a glitch that applied drop-off damage very early.
 * Oddly enough, the folding stock has been folded in and it cannot be used.
 * SPAS stands for "Sporting Purpose Automatic Shotgun", but the first word was originally "Special".
 * Also, one in real life has a capacity of 8 shells compared to the capacity of 6 you see in-game.
 * The 12 has no official meaning, but it probably means 12-gauge as it fires that round.
 * This weapon is also in Left 4 Dead 2, a part of R2DA's inspiration, and is nicknamed the Combat Shotgun.
 * The iteration in that game, however, is semi-automatic while our Spas-12 is simply pump-action.
 * The firing sound comes from the shotgun featured in the Halo franchise, however, its pitch is different.