It’s hard to argue that a shotgun doesn’t make an ideal home defense weapon. While capacity in terms of shell count will almost always be less than that of a semi-automatic pistol or modern sporting rifle, each one of those shells delivers a whole lot more impact that most any other choice.
Kinetic energy measurements don’t directly translate to fighting effectiveness; they do provide an illustration of the difference in destructive power between various firearms. Consider a few examples. A 9mm pistol cartridge with a 124-grain projectile traveling at 1,250 feet per second delivers 430 foot-pounds of energy. A 5.56mm 55-grain rifle round moving at 3,240 feet per second delivers 1,282 foot-pounds. A 12-gauge, 9-pellet buckshot load with rated velocity of 1,450 feet per second delivers a whopping 2,240 foot-pounds of energy. That’s getting close to double the energy of a standard AR round over which the media incessantly frets.
Like most things, the decision as to whether to choose a shotgun depends on an evaluation of the tradeoffs that are important to you. The big factors boil down to better stopping effectiveness, higher recoil, and lower capacity. Which factors are most important to you?
If you decide to vote in favor of the shotgun, here are some things to consider when choosing the specific configuration for a home defense gun.
The ammo
Until you have to use it as a club, it’s the ammo and not the shotgun, that does the work. The shotgun is just the delivery mechanism.
The blessing and curse of shotguns are the wide variety of ammunition types from which you can choose. At one end of the spectrum is tiny pellet and light recoiling birdshot. On the other end of the scale are giant hunks of lead called slugs. Just choosing a “shotgun” is not enough. You have to make a careful and informed choice about the ammo that feeds it.
Choice of ammo may be the most important “feature” of all. This 10-yard pattern of Federal Premium Tactical FliteControl buckshot is one hole, and therefore very predictable.
Here’s where things get interesting. Depending on the nature of your home, you might make very different ammo choices.
If you live in an apartment, you might need to be concerned with over-penetration through neighboring walls. Regardless of your personal danger, you’re still responsible if you launch buckshot or slugs into the next dwelling. Some folks prefer to use birdshot for this reason. Just be very careful that you understand what you’re sacrificing if you sway in that direction. At distances measured in feet, smaller birdshot will penetrate. However, when you start to get past 15 feet or so, the penetration capability begins to fail dramatically. Yes, it’ll make a mess of an attacker, but may or may not stop them immediately.
If you live in an isolated location, you might choose slugs. They’re amazingly effective at indoor distances, but you can also shoot them accurately out past 100-yards should the need arise.
Personally, I prefer the old standby ammo for shotgun-based home defense – buckshot. Make no mistake, it will penetrate walls like a hot knife through butter, so you need to know what type of pattern your choice of gun and buckshot produce. I keep my Beretta 1301 Tactical shotgun loaded with Federal Premium 8-pellet 00 buckshot with FliteControl wads. These loads deliver amazingly small, and more importantly, predictable patterns. It will keep all pellets on a torso target from a range of 50-yards from this cylinder bore shotgun. At indoor distances, the pattern will stay smaller than a closed fist. In other words, I know where those pellets are going to go when I pull the trigger.
Whatever ammo you choose for your situation, it’s imperative that you test it at the range, a lot, so you know exactly how it’s going to behave. Every time you load a new brand or style of ammo you’ve got to test again.
The action?
Like most topics over which we incessantly argue, the choice of action type isn’t nearly as important as we would like to believe. A semi-automatic won’t necessarily fail when we need it most. A pump-action won’t necessarily work every single time. A break-action may just have enough ammo capacity to get the job done. Again, like most things, the user familiarity and skill are far more important than equipment choice.
OO Buck 8 Pellet?? OOO Buck, 15 Pellet, 8 rounds of it total, Recoil does not kill
I prefer a handgun with laser plus a small tactical flashlight for home defense.
I sleep on the second floor and have a dog gate closed that will slow down anyone and make noise, plus dogs in the house. I have a tactical plan and a certain location where I will open fire if needed where the subject has no place to go but toward me or back away from me.
I don’t want to have to call a hazardous material company to come in to clean up after blowing some idiot away with a shotgun; repair and re-paint walls and woodwork. Do away with the smells of violent death. Shotgun is too long. Too much of a possibility of being disarmed. Just too messy too.
Two Critical Defense rounds to the chest, one to the head should keep the mess to a minimum, unless they decide to turn around and run away if they’re smart.
I’ve possessed a shotgun as a part of both my defensive and, in days past and as might be needed in the future, offensive load out, for years now. It was one of the first firearms I was taught to use and hunt with.
In today’s world the shotgun has evolved into a civilian force multiplier and all-round General purpose firearm. With the advances in munitions, operating systems and availability it now serves in nearly all AO’s.
Add to this the across the board acceptance of its place and standing within the cilivian firearms collective mind as a Go-To , must-have platform for all things common use, everyday, sporting, and if needed SHTF kind of seneiros and it’s a winner all round.
Here are a few suggestions if one is interested in expanding their platforms spectrum of useful applications . . .
Ammunition: take a look at a company called DDuplex. Their Monolite32, Hexolite32, an AP 20 offerings are effective across t spectrum of possibilities. Their offerings don’t end their. The less lethal line is also extremely good.
If your an owner of either an 870 or 500, but always wanted a smaller, shorter package while remaining legal and keeping your current platforms proformance unaffected. I would suggest that you google a U.S. company called “Bullpups Unlimited” and see if what they offer might fit your needs and pocket book!
While recoil may not kill, it does prevent a rapid follow-up shot… And this can go double if the first person to get the HD shotgun is not a “shotgun person.” Some folks advocate a 20-ga. for that reason. Since I’m only getting older, I’d go that route if I had to start over. As it happens, I use a 12-ga. Rem. 870. I went from 16 pellet No. 1 buck to “Win-Lite” 00 buck while I lived in a house. Now I live in a gritty urban ‘hood with lots of cars and foot traffic and neighbors in very close proximity. So for now, it is No.4 buck for indoors, and if I have to go outside, 00 “Win-Lite.”
[…] you’ve fired different types of shotguns, it’s obvious that recoil can be all over the map. Some load and gun combinations are relative […]