Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Buckshot tests

Ltppowell- I'm not questioning your opinion, but do you know of any real world uses of #9 shot being used and what the effect was?

I'e seen many people shot, and killed, with all sizes of shot from all gauges. In a house, the results were always the same, with the larger gauges resulting in nothing more than a bigger mess to clean up.

I saw a guy shot in the back of the neck at 6' with #8 shot and it knocked him down but not for long! He got up and was wandering around with a ginormous flesh wound on the back of his neck. I never heard what became of him after he went to the hospital. He was mad because it messed up his tattoo. I saw him 10 years later and he had a pretty good scar on the back of his neck. He told me that they treated and released him from the hospital the day he was shot! You cannot reliably count on small pellets to penetrate clothing and into the vitals. You will have to trust me on this. I would not use anything smaller than #4 buck for home defense in LEAD. I would feel ok with BB or T in tungten-iron or lead.

I really didn't know any agencies that used anything other than 00 or 000 buck for police work. There is a good reason.

itppowell, I know exactly what you are aiming at with the posts about "squirrel shot" for self defense.

At 15 feet (which is a LOT more likely to be true inside a house than a 20+ yard shot) it makes little difference what load you are using....they all hit hard. The "goal" it must be remembered is to "stop" the shootee.....not nessisarily to kill him (although killing would be a very nice side benifit).

That's why I would choose a load of #4 Buck because of it's potential for "lethal" results, but I can't really say it would hit any harder than a load of #8's (or even rubber buckshot which is more effective than many believe at close range).

I'm not trying to argue with the effectiveness of OO or OOO loads in killing power, just that smaller buckshot has proven (to me at least) to be more effective at ranges of less than 25 yards.

Police and military agencies don't choose heavy pellets because of their superiority at close range, but rather because they know these loads may (and most often are) used at longer ranges. At 40+ yards (where police weapons are likely to be used) individual pellet energy and penetration become a very important factor where a single pellet strike might be the deciding factor in a gunfight. For typical self defense, this is not the case.

"NOTE" All loads and gauges are tested out of 24" barrels. (Actual Velocities)
B202A Holds Really Tight Patterns. We Recommend a 10 Ga. .690 or
a 12 Ga. .665 Turkey Choke for 00 BUCK.
For The Benelli Super Black Eagle, we Recommend A.655 Choke.
We do not use moly when shooting from a Mossberg Model 835 12ga. 3.5" shotgun.
"NOTE" All Buckshot is Designed to Hold Tight Patterns at Long Range.

This is a quote that I copied from Nitro Company.
I have been using my turkey choke for years with #4 and 00 at 50 yards it might not drt a yote but they don't go very far either.

what bout dead coyote ammo?

Kind of spendy way to kill intruders:)

This is my last post on this. Police don't use 00 buck because they know it will be used at longer ranges. I was a LEO firearms trainer for 15+ years and had training with many agencies across the country as well as international. A standard police shotgun (what almost all agencies use) cannot reliably hit anything smaller than a school bus with buckshot beyond about 10 yards.

They use 00 buck because it makes a mess of whatever it hits and is steeped in tradition and very defensible.

If you are looking for something to use in your home for defense, use whatever you want. The range you shoot at will be very, very short. I personally wouldn't use anything smaller than #4 and #2 would be better. The advantage to using #2 or #4 is that you will probably not have any pellets exit your house. In this liability driven world you should be just as worried about the pellets that don't hit as the ones that do.

I leave my shotgun loaded with either #4 buck or whatever coyote load I am trying at the time. Pretty easy to defend these choices- I grabbed my turkey gun or my coyote gun and defended myself. If you have a tricked out tactical shotgun in your arsenal, great, just be ready to be crucified over your use of it however wrong that is.

If you choose to use promotion dove/quail loads for home defense, you are making a poor choice. You will most like NEVER fire a single round at an intruder. I would be smart to pony up and buy at least ONE box of the stuff you really want to bet your life on.

I would also not recommend magnums for the simple reason that the recoil will not be fun and at 10 feet you don't need magnums. If you have 00 buck it will work great but some pellets might have enough momentum to carry through a wall and hit something unintended; like a neighbor. Food for thought.

I'll say it again, the most obvious and overlooked choice in a buckshot load is No. #1 Buck. #1 Buck has it all and is the best combination of everything.

For lead buckshot, yes #1 is probably the best compromise.

I choose #4 for deer, buck thtat is. Have killed easily out to 50ish steps.

For the house, generally I keep dove loads in the gun, backed up by either 00 or 1 buck, and a few slugs for good measure.

Inside my house there isn't anyone I can't kill or stop with dove loads.

RE vests... my first shot will always go center mass no matter. Adrenalin being what it is and not shooting your defense guns daily... I"m going to the biggest target.

Even with a vest a dove load will get someones attention.

After the first round we will decide what the next step is. I do NOT want to get tied to an exact routine that might screw me in the end.

Though my guess is in a panic, it'll be 2 dove loads and then decide if we need hips, head, whatever else I can see etc.. and shortly there after there will be some bigger pellets flying.

Thats assuming I've grabbed the shotgun instead of the AR or 45...

A good read on Shotgun Home Defense Ammo. Their conclusion is that #1 buck is the best with respect to lethality without over penetration through walls and such.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs10.htm

The Box O' Truth website also has some interesting discussions on various aspects of shotguns with buckshot - if different chokes work better than others, various brands etc. I read about 5 or 6 of his short articles last night and found them very informative.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/theboxotruth.htm

Imagine that...

People who actually use shotguns to kill stuff don't have the slightest concern about what shot size to use on humans at 30', do they?

I spent a lot of time with buckshot back when it was the only thing legal during the gun season around here. I found with the right choke combo I would like to shoot 0 or 00 much more than the smaller shot IF I had to engage past 25 yards. IF I was shooting under 25 yards, the smaller pellets still had the energy to penetrate. I saw many deer that were knocked down with #4 buck at 35-50 yards get back up and run a long way. One poor deer was shot with 2 loads of #4 buck at 40+ yards. When the guy went to get it, it got up and ran. When it went by another guy, he threw 2 more loads at it and it kept going. Finally walked under a guy in a stand who hit it with 2 loads of 00 at 20 yards. When I saw it with the skin off it looked like roadkill...

At 30 feet and under there's just gonna' be a big ragged hole anydamnway...