A breaching round or slug-shot is a shotgun shell

Shotgun shell

A shotgun shell is a self-contained cartridge loaded with lead shot or shotgun slug designed to be fired from a shotgun....

 specially made for the purposes of door breaching

Door breaching

Door breaching is a process used by military, police, or emergency services to force open closed and/or locked doors. A wide range of methods are available, one or more of which may be used in any given situation...

. It is typically fired at a range of 6 inches (15 cm) or less, aimed at the hinges or the area between the doorknob and lock

Lock (device)

A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object or secret information , or combination of more than one of these....

 and door jamb, and is designed to destroy the object it hits and then disperse into a relatively harmless powder.

Design and construction

Breaching rounds, often called Disintegrator or Hatton rounds, are designed to destroy door deadbolt

Deadbolt

A dead bolt or dead lock , is a locking mechanism distinct from a spring bolt lock because a deadbolt cannot be moved to the open position except by rotating the lock cylinder. The more common spring bolt lock uses a spring to hold the bolt in place, allowing retraction by applying force to the...

s, lock

Lock (device)

A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object or secret information , or combination of more than one of these....

s and hinge

Hinge

A hinge is a type of bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation. Hinges may be made of flexible material or of moving components...

s without risking lives by ricochet

Ricochet

A ricochet is a rebound, bounce or skip off a surface, particularly in the case of a projectile. The possibility of ricochet is one of the reasons for the common firearms safety rule "Never shoot at a flat, hard surface."-Variables:...

ing or by flying on at lethal speed through the door, as traditional buckshot can. These frangible rounds are made of a dense sintered material, often metal powder in a binder such as wax, which can destroy a lock then immediately disperse. They are used by military and SWAT

SWAT

A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...

 teams to quickly force entry into a locked room. Amongst police, these rounds are nicknamed 'master keys', and their use is known as "Avon calling" Breaching rounds may be used in a standard combat shotgun

Combat shotgun

A combat shotgun is a shotgun that is intended for use in an offensive role, typically by a military force. The earliest shotguns specifically designed for combat were the trench guns or trench shotguns issued in World War I...

 or riot shotgun

Riot shotgun

A riot shotgun is a shotgun designed or modified for use as a primarily defensive weapon, primarily by the use of a short barrel. The riot shotgun is used by military personnel for guard duty and was at one time used for riot control, and is commonly used as a patrol weapon by law enforcement...

, or in a specialized shotgun, often attached to a rifle, such as the KAC Masterkey

KAC Masterkey

The Masterkey is a door breaching shotgun system manufactured by Knight's Armament Company.The Masterkey project was initiated during the 1980s to provide assault rifles with a potent built-in door breaching tool. Individual soldiers were often forced to carry a breaching shotgun in addition to...

 or M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System.

Examples of breaching rounds are:

• The US Military M1030 breaching round, a 12 gauge
  Gauge (bore diameter)
  The gauge of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the diameter of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the firearm, and is expressed as the multiplicative inverse of the sphere's weight as a fraction of a pound . Thus...
  
   2¾ inch (70 mm) shell which uses a 40 gram (1.4 ounce) projectile made of powdered steel
  Steel
  Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
  
  , bound with wax
  Wax
  thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...
  
  .
• The Clucas MoE Hatton Round, a 12 gauge 3 inch (76mm) magnum shell which uses a 50 gram (1.8 ounce) frangible projectile, consisting of a high density material in a plastic binder.

Though designed not to endanger people behind or around a door, a breaching round is easily lethal if fired directly at a human target.