What is a "SHOTGUN" speaker cable??

If you look at a shotgun, you will notice that it has 2 barrels. Basically, shotgun speaker cable is a double run of cable terminated into one connection at the speaker and amp ends. This differs from bi-wire which usually implies 1 connection at the amp end and 2 at the speaker end. Bi-wire can also mean 1 connection to the woofer and one to the tweeter with an independent wire run for each driver. In theory, a shotgun run would cost twice as much as a single run. Personally, I think this is a waste of money unless you have very inefficient speakers and a very powerful high current/high wattage amp to drive them.

I though that shotgun is a single connection at the amp end, and two connections at the speaker end. Biwire would have two connections at both ends.

I believe you are right themadmilkman.

Gosh- here is what I think:

An internal bi-wire has a single connection at the amp end and a double connection at the speaker end all housed in a single cable.

An external bi-wire or "shotgun" cable has two separate runs of cable with a single connection (a '+' & a '-') at the amp end and each separate run of cable has a '+' & '-' at the speaker end. So you have four runs of cable total. If you break the single connection at the amp end you could single wire two sets of speakers.

I think the term external biwire is aptly descriptive. Where the term "shotgun" came from is anybody's guess.

Jig has it right. The mad milkman has it wrong.
Example: Kimber 8tc has eight wires in the cable and a pair is two eight wire cables. A regular pair has eight wires with pos. and neg. at each end, thus four for pos. and four for neg. Shotgun wire for 8tc has the same eight wires with only one connector at each end or four cables with eight wires each. Thus eight wires for pos and eight for neg. Oh and biwire generally has two connectors at amp end and four at speaker end.