Having never fired a gun in her life, Faamati Winey pulled up on a flying clay pigeon and dusted it with the latest version of the Quiet Gun.

A small audience at the Metro Gun Club in Blaine, Minn., gave an enthusiastic cheer for Winey, who grinned and said, “Hey, this is easy.”

Inventor Wendell Diller, who developed this shotgun with its characteristic long barrel, beamed proudly. He then watched as Winey, his boss’s wife, broke another clay target, scoring 2 out of 4 in her introduction to shot gunning.

“People look at the long barrel and think it’s going to kick or that it’s too hard to shoot,” he said. “Well, we’re here to show that’s not the case.”

Diller, a kind of shot gunning version of Thomas Edison, proved his point. Three more shooters put the shotgun with a 31-inch extension barrel to their shoulders and dusted clay targets, while the gun emitted a pop slightly louder than a pellet rifle.

Ten years after the first prototype, the Quiet Gun is becoming Diller’s his contribution to keeping urban wildlife in check and urban gun ranges open.

The gun is much quieter than traditional shotguns because the long barrel uses a series of holes, or ports, to bleed away the blast-producing gases that come from discharging the shot shell.

Diller began tinkering with the concept in order to hunt crows without disturbing nearby homeowners. Many of Diller’s favorite crow-hunting spots were in urban areas where development was creeping in.

“The gun is my way of adapting to a changing environment,” he said. “I wanted to continue hunting, but I am not willing to upset other folks in the process.”

The Quiet Gun sharpshooters also use another Diller invention: a “frangible” shotgun slug that disintegrates when it hits a hard surface. Made from No. 7 1/2 birdshot encased in plastic, the slug will humanely dispatch a deer, but it disintegrates if it hits a hard surface, like frozen ground, thus avoiding dangerous ricochets.

“With a .243 rifle, you never know where the slug might go if it ricochets off a hard surface,” Gillette said. “That’s not the case with (Diller’s) safe slug.”

Diller said hunters have killed ducks, geese, pheasants, doves, crows, deer, coyotes and fox with the gun.

He has supplied guns to paraplegic hunters and a group that helps disabled sportsmen, Capable Partners, who have successfully hunted geese with the Quiet Gun.

Diller has built Quiet Guns for friends and wildlife managers, but he hasn’t produced them commercially. (A version of the barrel is being produced by a commercial manufacturer, but not under Diller’s guidance. He is seeking a separate patent.) Diller’s primary motive isn’t making money with the Quiet Gun.

“I wouldn’t mind making money. I’m not against that,” said Diller, who works as a marketing manager for a company that makes high-end speaker systems. “I’m well fed, I get to go hunting and I have gas for my Volare. How much more do I need? I guess I’m more interested in social issues.”

By that, Diller said he means he hopes the Quiet Gun might help stave off the future demise of hunting and gun ranges.