Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Recommendations for home protection-Novice user

I went back and tried to understand how blunderbusses come in. I'm going to take a wild stab at this. I think Mister Flave is referring to the Rem 1100 with the deer barrel.

No, it isn't a blunderbuss. It's an I/C choke and it works very well as a skeet barrel as well as long as you can get past the sights. I won some money many years ago taking it out to the skeet range and folks would bet me I couldn't hit jack with it. I'm no skeet ace, but I could do maybe 20 of 25 with the deer barrel. The thing folks don't understand about cylinder and I/C chokes is they don't actually spray. Sure the pattern is more open, but inside a house the spread is pretty tight. It's been years since I tried, but as I remember a cylinder choke would put a round of #6 birdshot into 20 inches at 10 yards I/C would do maybe a third better. At ten feet, however, they're still both a single mass that hasn't left the wad. If you're coming out of a sound sleep, your aim is not going to be all that certain.

The reason for the #6 is that if you hit a perp anywhere important with #6 bird shot, his evening has just changed dramatically. He is no longer worried about you. His calendar is cleared. He's not thinking about anything but what's happened to him. I got this tip from a fellow whose pedigree was a marine armorer, an ex-cop, and an FD captain who spent 20-some years responding to calls in one of our town's worst neighborhoods. Jerry also owned his own gun store. Jerry was my best friend for years and this was the advice he gave me. From my memory of the subject, his advice came from seeing what #6 had done to a perp at close range. The perp had taken 1 round at close range. It was winter, and he'd been wearing a down vest. The front of the guy looked normal, but there was no back left to corpse, and there were feathers everywhere.

BTW: I would not recommend using a rifled deer barrel. My Rem 1100 is smooth bore. My Mossy 500 is rifled. I accidentally put the wrong barrel on the Mossberg and went out to sight in turkey loads (Duh!) I knew something was amiss when no pellets landed on the target. Yikes. A 3" inch load of high brass #4's was spreading about 10 feet at 20 yards with a 4-foot hole in the middle.

BTW#2: Jerry also had a story about 00 Buck. It seems somebody was diddling a woman when her husband came home and the vic went out a second story bedroom window, attempting an escape off the porch roof. He had to run barefoot through a vacant lot to his car, and would have gotten away, but he panicked and flooded out his Caddy convertible. Meanwhile hubby had been making his way across the lot armed with a pump 12 GA. He came up behind and sent a round through the ragtop. There was no head left, just a stump of a neck.

The Shockwave is unbeatable.

But it is not for a novice.

.38/.357 double action revolver. Many available used and some police trade-ins that were carried alot but shot little. Stoke it and a couple of speedloaders with moderate defensive loads, add a pump action 20 gauge with stout field loads and a good flashlight and you are ready for just about anything. Note that you could most likely live several lifetimes before you had occasion to use them. If little ones in the home, store appropriately, they are more likely to get hurt than the bad guy.

Another doozy.

I once had a Mossberg 12ga Semi auto with the short Deer Barrel ( rifled) I got to thinking about it and tested it on paper...the rifling Twist "opened up" the pattern of shot to 16 inches or so...at room distance! thats a pretty good "spread". My current HD barrel is a short Cylinder Choke, but I'm not worried about pattern inside the home. Those that have kids, other people in the house may want to use a 20ga with rifled Barrel and #8's or 9's. Sheetrock, however, will still not stop much of anything. A Boat Horn by the bed might scare the crap out of them too, run them out of the house......just saying.

Inside 30 yards, not much makes a statement like a 12GA and buckshot. Getting a novice to feel comfortable with a 12GA pump can be a challenge. Never shoot someone with birdshot, that probably will not workout well . For ease of operation a 38 revolver is a no brainer. The new easy M&P shield without a slide safety gets a honorable mention for woman and older folks. For someone willing to train a bit, glock17/19.

????

that isn't really true.
shot needs distance to spread
at five yards no 6shot is gonna tear you a new one.