Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Shotgun vs. Drywall.

If you can’t hit them where you need to with a rifle at room distances, you ain’t likely to hit them with a shotgun, either....for various reasons. Shotgun use in actual combat conditions is a different set of circumstances than shooting in your house, and having to worry about where the misses end up after the skipping lead balls don’t go where you thought they would. Shotguns are great for lots of defensive purposes. The advantages a bunch of lead balls flying down range can give you, can also be disadvantages in a home. As long as you can comprehend this, and use it accordingly, cool. I just don’t consider them the only answer or often the best answer, for my needs and concerns. Others don’t have any of my criteria to consider, or feel as confident in other options, and a shotgun may be their best pick.

They do have deer, but not like ours; they're about the size of a chihuahua. Weird looking little things. Not much to eat, although I'm sure the natives do.
This has nothing to do with the discussion of course, your comment just made me remember the tiny deer we saw in different parts of south-east Asia.

There were indeed deer critters in Nam. They were tasty too. Sika deer as I recall.



The one we whacked and brought home to the messhall was not small. Ballpark 200#.

The little deer I saw were something like this (not my pic, random Google image):

Never saw one of those... lot of the others up north. I understand they are extinct in Nam at present.

Too many mouse traps....

On a more serious note though you may well be right, I haven't researched it one way or another. I lived in various parts of s/e Asia for about 5 years as a kid, but haven't been back since the early 90's.

I recently learned about the "saber toothed deer" over there, which I think are in the more northern regions (China, Russia, etc). Those are wild; no antlers but they have fangs in the upper jaw that they can move or rectract. Sometimes they are referred to as "vampire deer".

A recurring topic, dealt with in some depth here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaR1EVybUgc. My first two shots out of a 14" barrel 12 ga. are 1 1/4 oz #6 Duck and Pheasant loads. Next three are #4 Buck. But that is only a backup. Remember that any load out of any shotgun, even with a cylinder bore, spreads no more than 1" per yard (ballpark), and that at across-the-living-room distance of 21 feet (7 yards) your pattern is only 7" wide. Lesson: you gain no more spread advantage from a shotgun indoors than shooting 6 rounds out of a revolver. Accuracy is still key. Last, even with the reduced down-the-line penetration, would you really want your infant lying in a crib on the other side of the wall, counting on those little #6 pellets not to make it through? Not me. First and foremost is mentally mapping your fields of fire from every likely shooting position in the house. A 9mm , or a 5.56, could end up 3 walls away in your daughter's bedroom. Shoot only where you know your fields of fire. My bedside gun is a Glock 17 with a Glock light . Finger on the button, whatever's in the center of the beam is a hit. Shoot only if you have identified the target (not your 17 year old son coming home late) and your field of fire is safe. If not, move until it is--or dont shoot.

Kinda the point I was trying to make earlier.