The Winchester Liberator was a prototype 16-gauge, and later on 12-gauge, four-barreled shotgun, similar to a scaled-up four-shot double-action derringer.

Robert Hillberg, the designer, envisioned a weapon that was cheap to manufacture, easy to use, and provided a significant chance of being effective in the hands of someone who had never handled a firearm before.

[1] The linear hammer and its integral firing pin rotated within a fixed breechblock behind these barrels.

This ratchet mechanism, although only visible when the hammer was stripped and removed, bore some relation to the cylinder of the Webley-Fosbery self-loading revolver or even some retractable ballpoint pens.

Reloading was in the usual derringer fashion, by the barrels tipping forward on a hinge ahead of the breech block.