It's a pump. Very clean. Agreed Art & Callmaker, I'm thinking I like it for home defense. Like I said, he's a friend of mine. I've had the opportunity to handle/shoot a lot of different guns as a result. I love cleaning guns (yeah I said that), so I spend quite a bit of time at his place doing that. I happened to be there when he took the 20 in cheap, so he's passing it on to me if I want it...