writers of avengers fic consistently misunderstand this phrase, and honestly i don’t blame them, it’s pretty confusing in context. bucky barnes is a sniper. snipers use rifles. fury was shot outta nowhere, by a sniper, presumably with a rifle. and if you’re not a humongous gun nut, you probably don’t automatically think slug == shotgun, not rifle. nor will you know that ‘rifling’ can mean two different things.
lucky for you, i am a humongous gun nut, so i’m here to sort that out for you!
okay, for starters, shotgun barrels are, in fact, rifled. and we all know you trace a bullet by the marks the barrel’s rifling leaves on it. so how could the winter soldier’s leavings make the ballistics techs at SHIELD shrug helplessly? well, because it wasn’t a bullet, it was a slug. a shotgun slug. and in shotgun slugs, ‘rifling’ doesn’t mean the grooves in the barrel, it means the fin-like protrusions on the slug itself, like so:
that’s an american-made big game slug, and it’s got those fins to keep it twisting despite the drag of the cork back end, which acts to stabilize it with air resistance. short range, but plenty effective if you’re hunting moose.
but the winter soldier was hunting bigger game: nick fury. through a brick wall. which is why he used something more like this:
stainless steel saboted slugs. as you can see, they have no rifling – that is, no twisty fins. they rely on their forward-weighted mass for their accuracy, which is tolerably good up to about 100 meters.
there are a number of russian makers of these, going back to soviet days, but you can also easily machine your own. these don’t deform on impact, meaning they wouldn’t have great stopping power against, say, a charging polar bear – but also meaning they keep their trajectory when going through obstructions like the wall of steve’s apartment. and that plastic sabot, or boot, which makes it fit tight and grip in the barrel, flies off when fired, taking with it any identifying marks from the barrel rifling.
i don’t think we ever got to see what bucky fired these from, but it would probably have been something like this:
a russian vepr 12 shotgun, which looks a whole lot more like a rifle than a shotgun at first glance. tactical shotguns like these are popular with law enforcement for the same reason bucky used one to shoot fury – urban combat. right through the dang wall.
so there you have it. ‘russian slug, no rifling’ means bucky came loaded for bear.
finally I’ve sorted (with help, because oh my god thanks for no ??? good screenshots????) Bucky’s new sniper piece and YOU GUYS:
This is a M249 Light Machine Gun.
This is !!!!! SO RAD !!!! FOR RECOVERED BUCKY!!! for so many reasons:
First of all, the M249 is a belt-fed, gas-operated American-make machine gun. It’s a most importantly for Bucky a throwback weapon, because it fires in a similar manner to his M1941 Johnson Rifle from the War. The M249 fires with an open-bolt, meaning it will provide the accuracy of a sniper rifle BUT the power, velocity, and volume of a machine gun. It fires 5.56 NATO (.45mm) cartridges, and can feed off both linked rounds AND other magazines, meaning the user could swap to an M4/M16 rifle magazine in a pinch (incredibly useful in the field).
Also, this motherfucker is HEAVY, approaching 25 pounds when loaded, and as we can see from the new spot, it’s also been retrofit with an M4 50-round magazine (can be seen over Bucky’s left forearm when he’s standing behind Steve), most likely pushing it into the 30-pound range. A weapon this heavy, with high volume fire, is a testament to Bucky’s physical endurance in both carrying and operating it, as the kick-back on a weapon this size is disruptive at best.
Additionally, even the disadvantage of this weapon caters to Bucky’s strengths: the M249 is known to heat up quickly along the barrel when in use, but, GUESS WHAT: metal hand steadying the barrel deals with that. Bucky, as always, adapting!!
Finally – the M249 has been in use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in every major military conflict since 1989. It’s primarily used for high-volume cover fire, but allows for sniping accuracy as well.
So consider: Bucky picking up a weapon that’s defensive in purpose. A gun that yes, can be used for sniping but is almost always used to provide cover for other fighters. A gun that can, at highest volume, discharge approximately 10 shots a second, but operates almost like the weapons he’d used in WWII.
Bucky at Steve’s six, seventy years later, choosing a weapon of defense in his own way. It might not be a shield, but he’s come a very, very long way.
Zynn's Exodus 