Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Buckshot tests

I like it A LOT.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/92...oke-with-tritium-rifle-sights-parkerized

I meant a full choke plus buckshot if you want a denser pattern at distance.

That is correct. It is stupid easy to activate the TLR-1 with this set-up.

I have fired hundreds if not thousands of rounds of buckshot- mostly in official capacity. In a standard police shotgun (Rem 870 with no work done to it) I could not reliably get all 9 pellets to hit inside the scoring lines on a TQ19 at 15 yards. If you did a long forcing cone you could keep them in at 15. There was a guy, Louis Aurback or something that had a system with a really long forcing cone that would let you pattern pretty good to 25 yards.

Fast forward to shotgun hunting. I played with many different loads and choke tubes. Generally, buckshot does not like a tight choke. A long modified is as good as it gets usually. I never could get any buckshot to pattern good enough to want to hunt with it. I ended up using #2 hevi shot and BB hevi shot. They patterned enough better to be worth using.

When I did entries on search warrant and arrest warrany executions, I was often point with my 870 and I would either carry 000 buck or maybe slugs. Ranges were whatever you could get inside a house or apartment. It was close range stuff! Only thing I ever smoked with buckshot was a dog!

Why not use a slug?

Wouldn't HeviShot or Tungsten-mix goose loads with the largest available shot pattern really well and offer nearly as much penetration?

Couldn't agree with your assessment more. I too have served in similar capacities on entry teams...there is NO better tool for homes and apartments. Period. I have witnessed the Rem. 870's effectiveness first-hand with 00 loads. It is devastating. I believe it would be even more effective if one had the luxury of a fixed position and let the threat come to them as in defending ones home.

Yes. #2 Steel is an excellent burglar round.

There are tungsten BB & T low recoil loads designed for home defense.

Many years ago, when running deer with dogs was legal in Texas and shotguns with buckshot were the prefered weapons, I came to some conclutions that I feel are valid for self defense purposes as well.

First is that buckshot is best used at very close range.....preferably under 25 yards or so. It can be effective at longer ranges but even the best patterning guns begin to spread the pellets pretty thin at more than 25 yards. For deer or self defense you want every pellet to strike in the "kill zone" and that means a spread of no more than 8-10". It matters not how many pellets strike in a 30" circle as many (maybe most) will strike "fringe" areas and not be effective killers. This is not a problem at all for typical self defense use as it would take an extreemely big room to offer a 25 yard shot inside a home.

Second, since the effective range of buckshot is so short, pellet size matters little. The only real advantage of larger pellets is better penetration at longer ranges. At close range any pellet size has plenty of penetration and multiple hits are more effective than any energy advantage a larger pellet might have.

Third is that most shotguns will pattern smaller size pellets better than larger sizes. This is particularly true if the choke is tighter than IC. In fact, with #4 Buckshot the very best patters are often had with a modified or even full choke.

I found a load of #4 Buckshot to be much mopre effective for me as deer medicine.....and would choose the same load for self defense purposes. You also gain the advantage that the lighter #4's will be less likely to penetrate multiple walls endangering unintended targets.

Why not indeed. I vote for a 5.56 over the shotgun, and if you are going to use slugs that just clinches it for me.

Back to chokes and busckshot, guys spend $$ to get their guns Vang Comped so they can shoot better patterns at longer ranges, when all they need is a full choke. Last box of 00 I bought the manufacture recommended a full choke. At close range the pattern is tight enough regardless of choke you have to aim, so the full choke really only helps when you move out to longer distances.

Well said, and one thing that even experienced shotgun hunters fail to realize about shooting people is that you ain't worried about finding and eating what you shoot. At 10 yards, a load of #8's from a .410 will stop an aggressor every time.

Nothing over BB would pattern nearly as well as conventional shot sizes. I used #2 hevi shot from predator calling and feel comfortable to 65 yards with this combo. The hevi shot seems to penetrate and kill about 2-3 shot sizes bigger than lead.

I keeps me a couple of boxes of 3" (lead) BB's for the calling.

..

Steel does not work well on fur though. I am surprised it would work well on clothing and people. Steel will somehow get caught up in fur. We have all tried it and went back to hevi shot or lead. It's dang hard to find lead in #2 or BB or T sizes these days. Steel might work at 15 yards but not at 40.

you ought to read this guy and what he does to a shotgun.
https://vangcomp.com/Pattern_dea.html

be sure and look at the dea test

I have not found this to be true. Specialized buckshot chokes are not usually full but rather modified choke at tightest. I got my best patterns ever with a patternmaster choke tube but they are not compatible with slugs and until recently, we could not hunt lions with buckshot so I kept a slug ready in case I called in a lion. I have killed a few deer with buck and slugs but not under the classic conditions for which they were intended, all were over 100 yards and were probably more luck than anything.

I used 000 towards the end because I felt like even if I got one pellet in I wanted it to make a big hole. I also felt it was better on cars than the smaller stuff and so I just loaded one type of shell.

I've been keeping 00 Buck in the gun, and that won't likely change any time soon.

But, I picked up a box of Winchester 3" steel BB, 1/1/8 oz, at 1550 fps. Gonna play with it a bit.

At in-home distances, I think it would close-out one's Health Record in a hurry.

I've got 3" Lead #2's in mine for home defense. It will kill anybody I shoot at at inside the house ranges.

Why do we try to make bullets come apart and shot loads stay together for personal defense? A skeet load of #9's is as good as it gets for defense within a house.

Hits like a slug at short range...low penetration of interior walls...easy to control...easy to defend in court...and hard on the eyes (the bad guys.)