Derya MAX: US-Made Mag-Fed 12-Gauge Ships September

Derya built the MAX as an entirely new platform because the magazine, not the action, is what breaks on magazine-fed shotguns. That is the company's stated diagnosis and the organizing idea behind the whole gun. Derya says no manufacturer has built more mag-fed shotguns, and the lesson it took from the DY12 and MK-12 running in matches, in the field, and in duty use was that feeding is the failure point that keeps the category from being taken seriously, including on expensive guns.

So the MAX shares no parts lineage with the guns that came before it. It is a clean-sheet design developed over three years with input from competitive shooters, and Derya positions it against purpose-built competition shotguns rather than against its own budget lineup. Dustin Jones, Derya Arms Vice President, framed it as "a completely new proprietary platform and design, unlike anything else on the market."

The MAX surfaced earlier in coverage out of Türkiye, but the September launch is US production out of Jacksonville, Florida, and the US specification is not identical to the earlier Turkish-market prototypes. Weight, magazine capacity, and trigger pull all differ from the numbers that circulated during development.

The MAX feeds from proprietary polymer magazines with metal feed lips, seated through an enlarged magwell. Polymer feed lips deform under spring pressure and abuse, and a shotgun magazine holds fat, heavy, soft-hulled ammunition that is far less forgiving of geometry drift than a rifle cartridge. Putting metal at the lips is the direct fix for that, and the flared magwell buys the tolerance for fast reloads under a timer.

Capacity is 5 or 10 rounds. The 10-rounder is the competition magazine and the reason to look at this platform at all: a box change is measured in a second or two, while a tube-fed gun of any quality takes far longer to top off. That gap is why mag-fed guns keep showing up in 3-Gun stages despite the category's reliability reputation.

The tradeoff is supply. These are Derya-specific magazines with no aftermarket and no cross-platform source, so magazine cost and availability are entirely tied to one manufacturer. Buyers who plan to shoot the gun seriously should budget for spares up front, which is part of why the six-magazine Factory Exclusive package is the more sensible buy than the two-magazine standard build.

Derya pairs a proprietary progressive muzzle brake, branded the MAX Brake, with a double-buffered recoil system and credits the combination with roughly a 20% reduction in felt recoil. On a 9.5-pound 12-gauge those two things compound: the mass alone soaks up a meaningful share of the impulse before the brake and buffers do anything.

Flat tracking matters more than raw recoil reduction in a competition context. Muzzle rise is what costs time between shots on a stage, and a progressive brake that vents to manage climb is aimed squarely at that. The brake is removable and the gun uses internal mobile chokes, so the choke and the brake are independent choices rather than a single fixed muzzle assembly.

The MAX runs a curved gas piston that extends into the forend and sheds carbon as it cycles, which is what lets a single piston handle everything from light 7/8 ounce target loads to 3-inch magnums without a swap. That is the practical headline. Most gas shotguns that claim a wide load window do it by making the owner keep two pistons in the bag and change them by ammunition type, which is a reliable way to show up to a match with the wrong one installed.

Maintenance access is deliberate. The click-in polymer forend comes off without tools, exposing the gas system in seconds, and the receiver breaks down from the rear the way an AR does. Mag-fed shotguns have historically been miserable to clean, and carbon fouling on a gas gun eating a light target load is exactly the condition that produces a malfunction on stage three.

Controls are AR-derived: an AR-adaptable pistol grip, ambidextrous safety, and an adaptive stock adjustable across a 12 to 15 inch length of pull. The full-length Picatinny top rail carries flip-up iron sights and takes any optic you want, which is the correct answer for a gun that has to serve both a match shooter running a large-window dot and a defensive user who wants irons.

The MAX is a big gun. At 9.5 pounds and 38 inches overall in the 18-inch configuration, it runs about 1.7 lbs over a Benelli M4 Tactical (7.8 lbs) and 2.2 lbs over a Beretta 1301 Tactical Mod.2 (7.3 lbs), and the magazine hanging below the receiver adds bulk that a tube gun does not have. That weight is an asset on a stage and a liability at a doorway. If you are shopping this against tube-fed guns for defensive use, our tactical semi-auto shotgun guide ranks the conventional options, and the home defense shotgun guide covers what actually matters inside a house.

Factory Exclusive MAX builds are $2,499 direct from Derya and ship beginning in September 2026. That price covers the 20-inch model and the colored 18-inch finishes, and it is a genuinely loaded package: a D-TAK D02 red dot pre-installed, six magazines, a six-choke set, flip-up iron sights, a tool roll, and a hard case. The 14-inch SBS Factory Exclusive is listed at the same $2,499.

The standard 18-inch black model and the 14-inch SBS ship through authorized dealers with Standard Packaging, which drops to two magazines and no optic. Derya has not announced dealer pricing for those configurations. Factory Exclusive builds, including the ODG, FDE, and Black Cherry finishes, are sold direct from Derya only and do not go through the dealer network.

Derya has said production will stay deliberately more limited than its other models, so September allocations are expected to be thin. For a gun with no independent testing behind it yet, the six-magazine Factory Exclusive is the version that makes financial sense, because buying five spare proprietary magazines separately erodes most of the gap to the standard build.

The 14-inch MAX is a short-barreled shotgun under the National Firearms Act, which means a Form 4 transfer, fingerprints, a NICS check, and NFA registration before it comes home. The federal transfer tax on that is $0, not $200: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act zeroed the making and transfer tax on suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs effective January 1, 2026. The registration requirement did not go away, only the tax.

The wait is also no longer the deterrent it once was. ATF eForm approvals on suppressors and short-barreled firearms currently run days to a couple of weeks rather than the multi-month timelines that shaped how people talked about NFA purchases for a decade.

State law is the real gate. Short-barreled shotguns are banned outright in a number of states, Washington among them, and the MAX is listed as non-compliant in California, Maryland, and Massachusetts in any barrel length. Check your state law before ordering the 14-inch gun. If you are going down the NFA road with a shotgun anyway, our 12-gauge suppressor guide covers the other half of that build.

At $2,499 the MAX is priced against the Benelli M4, not against budget Turkish imports, and that is the number that will decide whether it lands. Derya is asking buyers to pay premium-tier money for a platform with no independent round counts behind it, from a brand whose US reputation was built on inexpensive guns. The package softens that considerably: an optic, six magazines, six chokes, and a case are real money, and a stripped M4 at similar cost gives you none of it.

The engineering is aimed at the right target. Every mag-fed shotgun that has failed in this market failed on feeding, and building the gun around a metal-lipped magazine and an enlarged magwell is a more honest answer than another round of gas system tuning. The self-cleaning piston and the tool-free forend address the second and third most common complaints in the category.

What is unproven is durability at round count, and that will not be settled until guns are in shooters' hands. Derya has the deepest manufacturing experience in this specific niche, which is the strongest thing arguing for it. Buyers who want a mag-fed 12-gauge for 3-Gun have not had a credible premium option; this is the first one designed from scratch to be that. To see how a shotgun slots against your other options, run it through the catalog or pick an optic for the rail with our shotgun red dot guide.