Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire SKS for home protection?

ditto.

After the fact could get rough when the cops, prosecutor, and the damned criminal's civil attorney start talking about Soviet assault weapon and unfolding the bayonet.

If you have a defense attorney worth a schit it won't get to that point, and I'm not sure the OP was referencing such times.

Depends on your sit/rap of home defense. Wife and I live out in the boonies and have carbines as well as pistols handy.

FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.



Just sayin'.....

and push together three times

Indestructible and reliable?, yes. Accurate?, NO. I've had several and the best would group about 6-7 inches at 100 yards benchrest. Of course, the crude issues sights didn't help, but adding a scope only made it into a 5-6 inch rifle. It would make a good home-defense weapon for about 100 yards, but not much further (except to warn an attacker that you are armed).

For urban home defense, I wouldn't recommend it as it is too powerful for shooting in congested areas (penetration of houses across the street is generally frowned upon).

Yes, if in an urban area load and shoot some 123/125 gr soft point ammo, of course check for reliability.

I'd prefer a Hipoint 45ACP carbine. Cheap and accurate.

All depends on YOUR situation. Particularly what's behind your target and potentially in your house (family member) or close neighbor. If in protecting my family with SKS at hand, I would certainly not feel under-gunned. Earlier I saw posted about birdshot not being effective...not sure I would like to be hit in the face or chest with 12 gauge birdshot at 5 to 10 feet and would possibly feel better about drywall pass through into my kids wall. JMHO

My Russian shoots 3" groups at 100 yards with the copper jacketed hollow points. I kept it handy for years until it was retired and replaced with an AR.

Yup, depends on where you are. Close to other folks no an SKS is not good

Agree with Gunner. And my SKS will shoot a 5- shot 3" group at 100 yards with good ammo.

While and SKS wouldn't be my first choice for home defense, I'd Definately use it if that's all I had. That being said, I've got three dedicated "house" guns.

1st choice is. Always a 12ga loaded with # 4 buck shot. Mines an old Steven's SXS 12ga that's been cut down to 20" barrels.

My second choice is a S&W M&P AR-15 in .300 ACC/ Blackout with a Light / Lazer combo

My 3rd choice is a Glock 17 loaded with 18 rounds of Hornady Critical Duty +P ammo. It lives on the nightstand by the bed and also has a Streamlight Flashlight / Lazer combo on it.

Fan of standard vel #4 Buck here, myself.

No problemo with birdshot, either.

...I'd like to see the idiot that recomended "Pistols Only" try and get into my place and take my Mossberg away from me with bloody stumps, but that's not germain, and keeping one's balistically launched payloads ON one's own spread, and out of the neighbor's hard won areas adjacent is (and should be) PARAMOUNT.

Whoever recomended a well serviced and served .22LR is on to something, too.

I really hope that the OP's requirements for a good home defense tool are not of a sort to cause undue angst,....and as an inquiry, merely an academic excercise.

This subject's got a LOT of miles on it, here on the fire, and I'll bring up something that invariably gets tossed into the Salsa. Your VERY best "Home Defense" system is the Ears, Nose, and sensibilities of a good Dog, or two.

.....Their input and feedback should leave one in a position of TOTAL CONTROL of any potential Angst generating evolutions.

....forget this "Room Cleaning" horse pucky, you're gonna have a hard time getting past the outer perimeter fence,....

Noting as well, that it all depends on where, and what "Home" is, may alla' yours be safe, and free of the unwanted.

GTC

00 weighs about 58 gr/pellet. 8 of them in a 12g shell is about 460 gr. 58 gr isn't going to penetrate too many walls but it'll sure as heck penetrate a bad guy at 15' plus it'll spread enough to make hitting him a lot easier. That's very important when you're sweating blood. 99% of us have never been in that situation, me included, and we never know for sure how we'll react. Most of us won't be at our high point when it comes to accuracy.

Shot doesn't spread much at room distances, and buckshot penetrates drywall like tissue paper.

A .12 gauge at 15' throws the entire load (pretty much any load or choke constriction) into roughly a single ragged 3" hole. Even a wide open cylinder bore isn't a "street sweeper" at that range and you better be holding on target pretty tight or you can miss a lot easier than you might believe.

I trust this guy's results.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-14-rifles-shotguns-and-walls/

From his conclusions: "00 Buck penetrates 4 walls with ease. It is a great �Stopping� round, but there is a price to pay. Until someone invents a �Phaser� like on Star Trek, anything that will stop a bad guy, will also penetrate several walls."



I've thought of a 10/22 as well, in my younger days I even recommended it to a guy to buy for his wife. And while it does have the advantage of being light and maneuverable, no recoil to speak of and has 10 shots on demand, I have one big problem. What bad guy is going to stand still and let you take 10 shots at him? I want something that will incapacitate with the first shot - as much as possible.

After doing several rounds of buckshot tests (patterning only at 7, 15 and 25 yards) from a cylinder choked 18" barrel and an IC choked 28" barrel, my 12 gauge Hall Monitor is loaded with Federal Personal Defense 00 buck with their Flite Control wad. That wad really works, even from a cylinder choke. It produces a tight pattern even at 25 yards. I've been trying to find the #4 buck version but it's pretty scarce, I'm not sure they even make it any more. Until then I'll use the 00.

My thinking is:
A. I'm not relying on the spread of buckshot to make up for bad aim. Instead, I want the massive trauma of multiple wounds in a small area. To put it as bluntly as possible, I want to smash that MF'ing SOB with as much force as possible,I want to put his ass down NOW with the very first shot. The only reason I have a shotgun is that an M2 .50 cal. takes up too much space in the bedroom and shaped charge warheads from anti-tank weapons nullify my homeowner's insurance.

B. While I have no way to test this and don't want one, my hope is that the bad guy serves as enough of a backstop to slow down the buckshot enough that I don't have to worry about penetration through drywall. Again, I don't want a wide spread of shot with errant pellets going hither and yon, I want a tight pattern to blow a BFH in the BG.



I still have one more round of buckshot testing to go but no one makes an 18" or 20" barrel for an 870 that uses screw in chokes and doesn't have rifle sights, so I may have to just get a 20" rifle sighted deer barrel. I want to try some standard #4 buck with IC and modified tubes to see how that patterns. If it's tight enough I may switch to that.


Standard 00 buckshot - Olin "Military Grade", at 7 yards from a cylinder bore.




Federal Personal Defense copper plated 00 (1145 fps) at 7 yards from that same cylinder bore, the pattern on the upper right. Lower left is Federal Premium Max - same copper plated 00 and same wad but 1300 fps and heavier recoil. If it comes down to shooting someone to save my life - a very serious business despite the banter tossed around here - I want to blow the wound equivalent of a 3.00 or 4.00 caliber hole in my assailant.

Had this paratrooper model for a while, sold it. Was going to add better rear sight but ended up selling to a neighbor.

Rely on a 20" 870 12ga with rifle sights for my primary long gun, even in a rural setting.

I figure about one chance in a million I will need a gun for self defense in my home.
I estimate odds of accidental injury from over penetration from any handgun or shotgun to be so small as to not be a factor in the choice.