Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Semi vs pump for defense

Setting aside my past experiences in combat, let me toss a few items worthy of consideration. If one has a shotgun that fits properly, aiming is not as item of consideration. Mount the gun, point it as you would in the hunting fields when a covey of quail erupt, and pull the trigger. Works daytime and night time, dang near every time. The important point if FIT. To be successful in the world of scatterguns, it has to fit. Illustration: Skeet shooters typically mount the gun before calling "pull". Sporting clays shooters do not. Eyes open, ready to mount and shoot, they call "pull". Reason is that they do not know where the clays are headed, and in some cases do not even know where they are being launched. More like bird shooting than skeet by a couple miles or so.

Some years ago I pursued the clays game because it was available in my neighborhood. Skeet, trap, sporting clays were the games. Well, we also had live pigeon shoots, but that's another tale. When I first delved into the games, I did what other shooters did, ie. mounted the gun and called "pull". After about a year of that I started calling "pull", then mounted the gun and shot; singles or doubles. My average score for all of the clays games hovered on the threshold of A to AA class, except for the pigeon shoots. None of them every got away from me. Not a single one.

Guns with red dots/lasers etc. suffer a minor issue IMHO. Say it's dark, you're home and someone breaks in; or maybe there's a revolution ongoing and it's dark when the enemy approaches. Turn on your sight and you ID yourself and position to the enemy. OTOH, wait quietly until you see the shadow, mount your old scattergun and blow a hole in them. They're a little farther out? OK, I have to admit I've never known a person that could take a face full of #6 shot at 40 yards and continue forward as if nothing happened. If you're really mean, shoot'm in the crotch.

Last point, going back to the days in Nam. A lot of people tried to nail me with spray and pray.....it didn't work. How can that be? I mean, 10-20 little people, AK's rock'n rollin', and they only nicked me once in 2.5 years of sport. Range anywhere from 20-150 yards or so most times.

Fella takes the time to aim in close quarters, he gonna feel some pain.

Good luck with your search. The guys I shoot clays with have a wide variety of autos, from cheap Turkish ones to spendy models from Beretta, Browning, Benelli, etc. All of them hang up at one time or another, whether due to lack of maintenance, ammo, or just crappy quality I can’t say. My Browning Gold Hunter 20 had a single whoopsie yesterday, reason unknown, in a 75-round session. It’s been cleaned recently, and isn’t dry, so WTF knows? I cleared it and kept going. Pumps mostly fail IMO due to operator error. Practice makes perfect, hopefully….

Speculation on my part, but short barreled shotguns might be gay.

Not speculation: smaller size buck patterns better and penetrates just dandy. #1-#3 buck is the schizzle.

BS, a quality semi auto shotgun is better than any pump.
Suppose you get shot in one arm, the semi will still function, not the pump

There is something frightening about the sound of a pump shotgun being cycled.

Jim

I'd tend to agree but show me a department mass issuing 18" barrels and #1s.

I've been doing a demo every week that involves a 14" 870 and five shells of 00 buck.

One shell shot at the 50, 30, 25, 15, and the 7.

Lots of lightbulbs come on.

Then some guys say "but I like the shotgun" or "my dad was in Vietnam and..."