Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Maybe a shotgun is better for home defense...

As I said above, make a "bad shot" inside the house with buckshot, and you will blow his arm off.

If they are breaking into an occupied home, you AREN'T the cause.

That is completely on them.

When the bolt drops on my Benelli 20 or AR, his ears will be ringing and he probably will be bleeding.

And know better than to applaud killing folks on a permanent record.

On a side note, we used to refer to moribund patients and targets as "humptyfukt"


mike r

My favorite is an old Rossi .12ga coach gun with 3'' #fours.A Ruger .45lc is in the nightstand for backup and the wifes .38 is in the other.

A friend of mine was hit with a charge of #4 bird shot in a turkey hunting accident years go. He took over a hundred pellets in the chest, shoulder, neck and head from about 30 yards and it damn near killed him. He said it was the most pain he had ever experienced in his life and he truly thought he was going to die. They removed as many pellets as was practical but he still carries several in his sinuses, chest, neck and head. Some of the pellets were too close to vital organs/arteries/nerves to risk removing. He lost his left eye and a couple pellets penetrated the skull and are still lodged in his brain.

Good thinking.

I mentioned the 14 patients I worked hit with birdshot at inside-the-house ranges. All were dead, most were dead when we got to the scene. These were all 20, or 16, or 12 gauge.
I do recall one call I ran, two brothers were rabbit hunting. Boys age 10 and 12. They had .410 shotguns loaded with #6 shot.
They were crossing a barbed wire fence. The second brother was going through the fence and his shotgun discharged. From 10 feet away he hit his brother right in the middle of the back of the neck. There in the neck, you have the spine, you have the spinal column with all the nerves, and you have the jugular veins and the carotid arteries.
When we got to the scene that little boy was dead. We tried the resuscitation of course but he stayed dead.

So even the anemic little .410, loaded with small shot, is a real killer at close range. I wouldn't use a .410 for household defense, but, I wouldn't want to get hit with one, either.

In response to someone's question, believe it or not I never saw someone hit with a .223 Most of the shootings are done with cheap guns, like the .22, the .32 auto, the .25 auto etc. See a lot of .38 special and a few .45 Colt and .357 mag.
Saw a few rifle wounds, saw a guy get his leg blown in two at mid thigh with a 7 mag. He lived but what a mess!

Of all those patients I saw hit with bird shot, one really stands out. Most of these were dead when we got there. A few made it to the ER with a pulse but only one or two made it to surgery, where they died.
I had one guy from the county next door. He was a timber faller, big giant black guy about 27 years old, working all day with that chains saw he was 6-4 and 230, looked like Black Superman. Got into an argument with the girlfriend and she let him have it in the belly with one load of #8 from a 12 gauge. See, it is a lot harder to kill a young man, in shape, than to kill a fat old geezer.
The next county EMS brought him to my hospital, and our docs couldn't handle him we took him to the big hospital in Macon Ga. for more surgery etc.
I attended the 45 minute ride. This guy was conscious and alert. I couldn't believe this guy, 12 hours after the shooting he was looking good! I thought he was going to break the record of the 13 consecutive corpses.

We delivered him to Medical Center of Macon and he looked pretty good. Just to make sure I called The Med 3 days later on my next shift. They told me, he died 6 hours after we dropped him off, kidney failure.

DD, dont tell anyone this, but a couple of times trying to neak up on a muley buck bedded in thick, heavy mesquite in low holes, in the West Texas sandhills, I have slung the rifle over my shoulder and carried the 20 with buckshot.

Holy crap! That would suck.

One of the early pictures showed what is wrong with 00 or 000 buck. There is so much space left with nothing it in. If you go with # 1 buck, it fills up all of the available extra space.

Another consideration is the actual weight of the projectile. You will get a much heavier grain weight from smaller buck than with the larger version. Therefore a greater felt impact by the recipient.

Peter Hathaway Capstick did an article on this very subject. His argument for small buck is very convincing.




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They get the turkey?!

Seriously though, sounds like a bad accident. Glad your buddy made it.

I’m shocked! Won’t tell anyone, I promise.

Stuff I’ve killed with scatterguns in my life would challenge a couple of 18 wheelers I’m guessing. The rifles are trying to catch up but they have a long ways to go. I have never had to shoot anything twice with a shotgun, be it birds or furry/fuzzy critters. Birdshot, buckshot or slugs.

Fella with a good gun that fits and with understanding of how it patterns is a force to be reckoned with.

DD

PS: I love the sound of a 12 bore Forster smacking a pig in the morning.

Touch that thing off early on a cool quiet morning on a bushy tail and a smell a bit of heaven.

Man, I miss those red waxed paper hulls.

It's a training problem and a shotgun isn't going to help that.

The real problem is, most people don't believe they have a training problem. They've never done low-light, they've never been in a shoothouse. They've never done force-on-force or been put under stress of a clock with an instructor yelling at them. Most are incapable of manipulating their weapons and the controls without looking at them. Under stress they are going to fumble with whatever is in their hands.




Yep. In tests we conducted with Federal Flite-Control, we're talking many yards beyond the old A, B and C Zones of buckshot before you get any appreciable spread beyond fist-sized patterns.





Mindset is the most important part of the equation here. Without it none of the others things work.

This is where I’m coming from. Not out of concern for the perp either.

My own home defense plan starts with a barking dog and continues with the .38 j frame Airweight I’ve been packing for the past 25 years.

And if they get me...... bwahahahaha! There ain’t sh$t they can get to in my house worth pawning anyhoo..... 🙂


I did loan my Democrat Catholic Hispanic Ex BiL and his family at their request my over under Yildiz .20ga for the duration. #4 steel shot was all they had left in the store. Took him out and had him shoot it.

Administratively simple and better’n a sharp stick.

Best post on the subject so far.


mike r

Like the cops that took 42 shots to put down a nasty stray pit bull in an alley way here a few years ago ? Or the ones who shot up the ceiling, floor, walls and target frames every time they used our range ? That kind of poor training ?

This sounds like a good idea, until they set the building alight and smoke you out.