4 shotgun shells

The shotgun shells ammo pickup provides four shells for the shotgun or super shotgun (eight at the I'm Too Young To Die and Nightmare! skill levels).

Operation of the shotgun is slightly inconsistent. When sergeants fire their shotguns, four pellets are fired. However, players fire seven pellets when using the shotgun. Further inconsistency can be seen in the fact that the super shotgun fires twenty pellets in every blast, causing up to almost three times the damage while using only twice the ammunition.

Each pellet does between 5 and 15 hit points of damage (determined using Doom's pseudorandom number generator), equal to a bullet fired by the pistol or chaingun.