News: Marc Newson, the industrial designer who joined Apple in September, is working with Italian gun brand Beretta to launch a new version of the 486 Parallelo hunting shotgun next month (original version pictured).

Marc Newson has designed a version of the double-barrelled 486 Parallelo shotgun for Italian firearms manufacturer Beretta, a company established in 1526.

Newson's design will be released on 13 November, when the gun is officially unveiled at an event in London.

It will be a version of the existing 486 Parallelo (picture above) – a 12-gauge side-by-side game gun that features a round body receiver and lavish engravings.

Beretta currently produces 1,500 weapons a day, with "sporting firearms" counting for an estimated 90 per cent of production. Its repertoire includes shotguns, pistols and rifles.

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American Armed Forces and State Police Forces started using the Beretta 92 pistol series in 1985.

Firearms have proved increasingly controversial in the design world since the first 3D-printed gun was fired last year.

In May, Paola Antonelli, senior curator of design at New York's MoMA, said the notion of design as a force for good had been upturned by the 3D-printed weapon, which London's V&A museum acquired just months after its release.

Tech giant Apple announced that Newson had joined its design team in September. Since then the Australian designer has launched a draught beer machine for Heineken, adding to his diverse portfolio of projects – see a round-up of his work.