1836, H. R. Howard, The History of Virgil A. Stewart, and His Adventure, New York: Harper, page 142:
You say you have a good scatter-gun. If you can get no other chance, shoot him as he sits by the fire : you can get off without being seen, and we will make our escape to Arkansas together.
1900 January, Nessmuk, “A Chatty Letter”, in Game Laws in Brief and Woodcraft Magazine, volume 1, number 4, page 91:
There was a time in my earlier hunting days when, having become rather expert with the hair-triggered muzzle-loader, I came to have a most thorough contempt for the "scatter-gun."
1915 November, Palmer E. Pierce, “Field Firing”, in Infantry Journal, volume 12, number 3, page 376:
A bad game shot will kill more birds with an old scatter-gun which will cover the whole face of a barn than he will with a choke-bore, and a captain who gives wrong ranges and fails to properly appreciate the fire situation will inflict less loss on an enemy with a company of marksmen than with a company of third-class shots who would be the equivalent of the old scatter-gun in my simile.
But in all-around use, the scattergun now ranks first across fields and forests, trap and skeet ranges.
1999 December 1, Jason Manning, Gun Justice: The Unforgettable Story of Texas John Slaughter, One of the Greatest Gunfighters of the Old West[1], Macmillan:
Groundhitching the horse, he left the Winchester in the saddle boot and reached under his duster to unsling the scattergun.
2013 February 21, “Relevance”, in Person of Interest, season 2, episode 16, spoken by Sam Shaw (Sarah Shahi):
You ever have a staring contest with a fish? No eyelids. Kinda pointless, right? Like you reaching for that scattergun.
