The recent thread on home defense debating the use of a shotgun and its potential downrange lethality on family members or neighbors got me thinking about assumptions I was making. Since the wife frowns heavily upon indoor recreational shooting, I’ve never had any real firsthand experience with the interaction between drywall and shot shells. Gut instinct tells me that 00 buck would be a bit much for indoor use, but left me wondering what would be appropriate. Since I have firsthand knowledge of what a load of birdshot will do to deer size game at close range I thought low brass eights might be the best choice.

To that end I cobbled together a low tech redneck test rig and decided to try some various shotgun loads against it to see if anything jumped out at me. The test rig was intended to duplicate two non-insulated internal walls of an average home. Just four panels of half inch dry wall separated by common 2 x 4 studs. Nothing fancy, but sturdy enough to withstand the proximal blast of a 12 gauge.

During the course of the test I used # 1 buck, high brass # 4, high brass # 7.5, and low brass # 8. All loads were shot from a fully choked 870 at 6 yards to approximate the confines of a family room. Results were sobering ( for me at least ).
All loads easily passed through the fours layers of dry wall and did considerable damage to the backstop used to support the test rig. Going into this I would have bet my left jewel that the low brass # 8 load would have been contained inside drywall layers 3 and 4. That assumption was an eye opener to be sure.

Entrance and patterns at 6 yards. I was surprised that the bird shot was already dispersing radially at that range to the extent that it did coming from a full choke. Also note that in all cases the plastic shot cup penetrated the first layer of drywall. We have dug them out of several does we shot while bird hunting.









Exit view of all loads.



Just for grins and giggles I also tried several pistol calibers with Hornady Critical Defense ammo against the rig. As expected the .45 ACP and 9 MM sailed through all four layers, but I thought the lowly .380 would have been trapped somewhere inside. Wrong again, as it too penetrated much better than expected.

Yes I know this one off test has absolutely zero scientific value, and was not intended to claim such. I simply wanted to see how shotgun loads might perform inside a home.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, if during the course of a home invasion your MIL is sleeping in an adjacent bedroom don't be tempted to swing wide with a couple of loads of shot. You just might fetch the old girl.

AND, 6 yards is probably a LONG shot in most houses................

Interesting. Looking at the exit wounds, is the #1 on the left and the #8 on the right?

When I was a kid, I loved a high brass 7 1/2 for squirrels and rabbits.

Crow, I wouldn't agree the test has no scientific foundation, but suggest a couple of things for consideration.

While choke is a variable with shotguns it would serve well to actually pattern a gun with the load of choice and remove the question marks. Choke is not the only thing that affects pattern spread. Velocity is a big player as is shot column length. I've done a fair bit of shotgun reloading for clays and game shooting. While deep into the world of shooting clays I started loading 20 ga equivalent loads for the 12, ie. 7/8th oz of shot in a IC choke. It shot very much like a FC barrel from a pattern perspective. That said, I have an old 12 bore with a 28" FC barrel that will confine a load of buck in a 10" pattern at 25 yards every time. One simply does not know what will happen with scatterguns until you head to the range and find out what the facts are. Likewise, many subscribe to the idea that more open bores shoot Forster slugs better than a FC. Yeah, maybe, sometimes....but the referenced 12 bore barrel above will shoot stunningly well with such loads. As in dead hog out to 75-80 yards every time. And a load of #8 shot will make a quail bird pretty much vanish out near 20 yards.

Your test geometry is biased by the premise that a load dispatched at the perp will strike the wall at a 90* angle give or take. That is statistically unlikely. Given your test at 6 yards, 90* impact, try it again with maybe a 45* angle and see what happens. To illustrate the point, imagine you confront a punk in the hallway. Any shot that goes wide will have a much shallower impact angle and this will cause far different results. Too, keep in mind that while some shot may in fact pass thru 4 layers of drywall, given the variables in home floor plans, it may be more, or less. Regardless, innocent souls on the far side will suffer less from shot that has made that journey, both in number of strikes and depth of penetration.

With all that out of the way, consider this. Every home has variable geometry and in some portions a 6 yards shot might be long. In others 15 to perhaps 20 yards is a possibility. So it is in my present house and one I lived in some years back in Georgia offered a shot that might have been closer to 25 yards. The variability is large and circumstances are one the home owner has more control of than the punk. Keep that in mind when you become alerted to the fact that someone is trying to break in or has already gained access to your home. It is a point where the home owner holds the advantage, a position not to be surrendered by yelling "Who's there?!" Nope. Keep your lips zipped, grab your cannon and quietly keep your grip on the high ground. One can seek out the punk, or let them come to you, your choice. Make the call, show no mercy. Better the coppers listen to your testimony in lieu of both sides of the debate.

One of my soapbox sermons is; Until you shoot a lot of different "stuff" with a shotgun using various loads & see for yourself, throw away your ideas on the matter. Most, like you are surprised & come away enlightened.

'Ya learn new things, but mostly it's just fun. Sheetrock, plywood, washing machines, dryers, what penetrates & what doesn't? And... what gets penetrated & what doesn't. I've learned, provided you could hide behind it, that a hot water heater can be some of the best cover in a house, even when empty.

If a round won't penetrate a little drywall, how is it going penetrate enough bad guy to stop the threat when seconds matter?

The drywall acts like canted armor plate.

You might also try "cut shells" in your shotgun. If you are worried there will not be enough penetration, and bird shot is all you have handy.

This is good info in case I'm ever attacked by Drywall

BD this was really just a down and dirty starting point to satisfy my own warped curiosity. Most of your above factors were considered and I also thought of using multiple chokes and additional loads. I kinda just wanted a practical idea of what might happen inside the constraints of a home if my aim was off. Some here seem to scoff at the idea of using a scatter gun for home defense as they think it lacks power needed to incapacitate unwelcome guest.

Your descriptions of how individual guns of the same gauge perform differently is well taken. I have two almost identical 20 gauge A5 humpbacks both with modified barrels. One I use for birds and it is patterned about as open as a skeet choke. The other I generally use for doves and rabbits because it is much tighter. Who knew shotguns and women are so similar?

"When good drywall, goes bad!" Film at 11. (What happens when building materials run amok? Join us and see for yourself. )

From what I’ve personally done and seen from others that have fired various shot loads inside homes/buildings (either training or HD), I am no fan of a shotgun indoors, where there are other unintended targets anywhere in the vicinity. Round, slow velocity lead balls ricochet/deflect off of almost any surface and go in crazy directions (though the bulk will just follow down a wall), while penetrating more than most think logical. I’d rather have pointy (or flat/HP), fast, expanding/frangible, well-aimed projectiles, staying roughly in line with my intended direction of fire. JMO. I’m not saying I won’t use a shotgun, if handy. I just think they’re often overrated and misunderstood, indoors.

We used to shoot pine trees in half with birdshot when I was a kid. We were pretty close and the trees were only as big as your knee...

And I saw more than a few point men in Nam carrying short barreled Win Model 12s. Must have been some reason.....

This. Besides, who among us is capable of pinpoint accuracy in a dark environment at 2:00am after being nudged awake from a deep sleep? Maybe one in two hundred of we stalwart Campfire denizens. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt- it ain't fun. Give me a shotgun over the loaded 1911 in the nightstand if I have the time...

In the Navy, we had Ithaca mod 37's. Mag went all the way to the end of barrel. First time I saw triple o buckshot.

Triple ought is for the movies and deer hunters. Ought or #4 buck if you're serious about this.

I knew what your results would be.

One day I was coming home from a squirrel or whatever hunt
right after passing our 1/2" thick plywood 100yd target back,
I spun around and gave her two quick 1 1/4 oz loads of #6's.

From about 10 feet, I blew two hand size holes in it.
One more time Dad had to chew my ass.
I really didn't think it would go through,
But it flat ruined that target.

I wasn't hunting deer in Vietnam. Don't think they even have deer. I damn sure I wasn't in any movie.

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.