Is the ‘lock time’ of a gun just another sales ploy?

SHOTGUN LOCK TIME
Mike George
When all’s said and done lock time on a modern gun can be measured in milliseconds and I doubt there?s anyone alive who can tell the difference between the lock time of, say, a Perazzi, Blaser or Browning.

Things were a lot different though in the days of muzzle loading when there was a very noticeable delay between the shooter pulling the trigger, the hammer falling and the powder going off whoosh.

In the early days it was so slow that it created its own technique of shooting to bring about a hit.

Today?s guns and cartridges have shortened this lock time to the point where there seems no discernible time lag at all between pulling the trigger and the bang of the cartridge.

Maybe some makers do claim too much about the lock time of their guns but in my book shotguns are all the better for the shortest lock times possible.