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Erick Gelhaus
02-27-2017, 07:47 PM
Question about the Select-Slug drill … does anyone have a source to it being used in a shooting? Absent that, anyone who has done it in preparation for a shooting only to have gained the BadGuy’s compliance in another way?

Starting with Gunsite’s shotgun class in ’95 & Bill Jeans, I was taught it – it was reinforced during shotgun classes by both Awerbuck and Reitz.

I am looking for an instance of it being used, like the tactical reload and Dean Caputo’s experience.

Just to confirm we are on the same page, I am referring to (and this starts off with a fully loaded magazine tube) a) chambering a round of 00Buck, b) loading a slug into the tube’s open space, c) running the action to eject the 00Buck shell and chamber the slug, d) engage with the slug at distance or on a high percentage target.

In advance, thank you. (I’ll be posting it in several places).

GJM
02-27-2017, 08:00 PM
While I have done it at Gunsite, including in the shootoff, in real life I have only done the reverse.

I carry my shotty full of slugs, but have selected shot a number of times, to harvest a spruce hen or whack a porcupine.

Hambo
02-27-2017, 08:09 PM
Did it a lot at HK, but they loved the drill because it showed the superiority of the (then) HK/Benelli M1 over lowly pump guns. I've never heard of it in a real shooting.

fatdog
02-28-2017, 06:48 AM
Like GJM I have done "select #8" when I went to investigate something in my barn that really agitated the dogs and found a copperhead. I think you are on to something, that it is as rare as the pistol reload in the heat of action for non-LE folks.

jlw
02-28-2017, 08:44 AM
Funny that this comes up on the 20th anniversary of the North Hollywood Shootout. That one could have been ended much sooner has the LAPD had slugs on hand.

txdpd
02-28-2017, 09:25 AM
I have on a felony stop that turned into a barricaded person. That wasn't a gunfight and not exactly time critical.

If I could do things my way, I'd run the shotgun with slugs. If the situation and time permits I'd switch out the slugs for buckshot.

Erick Gelhaus
02-28-2017, 09:59 AM
txdpd- Thank you for the feedback. I'm getting several of those ... "have done the mechanics but never had to take the shot" which is my experience. Have also had a handful of "yes, it was used and here are the circus ..."

jaw - absolutely. I have asked this question a few times over the years without positive feedback. At the time, a LOT of discussion on the possible impact (pun intended) slugs could have had on the outcome.

Randy Harris
02-28-2017, 11:14 AM
After much searching for a real life use of it the only incident I am aware of is one John Farnam told me about where an Oklahoma (Highway Patrol?) officer in a traffic stop ended up exchanging gunfire with the subject who was using his open car door for cover. Officer switched to slug and shot through car door ending fight.

Other than that????? Just have not found anything. It just seems that people with slugs loaded tend to use slugs and people with buck loaded tend to use buck and the incidents are over within a shot or 2 one way or the other and there is really no time (or rarely any reason) to switch ammo. It is kind of like 1 handed weak handed reloads....not terribly common but if you need it things are pretty bad and it is better to know how to do it than to have to figure it out on the fly......

An interesting thing to consider is if slugs had been available to the agents on April 11 1986 would Ed Mireles have switched to a slug to shoot through the windshield at Platte and Matix? Or would he have even been able to with the injury to his arm? That would be a case where the select slug drill might have some merit, but it is also pretty much exactly like the Oklahoma incident...shooting from the cover of one car at another individual inside or hiding behind a car door.

SamueL
02-28-2017, 01:22 PM
I carry my shotty full of slugs, but have selected shot a number of times, to harvest a spruce hen or whack a porcupine.

Same here... slug for vehicles and selected buck to dispatch deer. Ain't nobody got time to clean their pistola.

GJM
02-28-2017, 02:01 PM
I have had the opportunity to train with many of the "name" shotgun instructors, and most loaded their own shotguns with slugs. Sure simplifies pattern and distance considerations.

SLG
02-28-2017, 02:09 PM
I have had the opportunity to train with many of the "name" shotgun instructors, and most loaded their own shotguns with slugs. Sure simplifies pattern and distance considerations.

Slightly rhetorical, but did they say why they didnt just carry a battle rifle instead?

Xrslug
02-28-2017, 02:13 PM
In this thread DB discussed his experience selecting slugs for car barricaded suspects as well as actually shooting out a street lamp with slugs. I would assume the slugs were selected for that but you can ask him:
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?16097-Shotgun-sights-what-kind-and-why

jlw
02-28-2017, 02:42 PM
My home and duty shotguns stay loaded with Flite Control. For home purposes, I don't even have slugs in my ammo carrier. Flite Control will handle any problem I can foresee handling with it. If not, my levergun is readily available.

I did just lay in a supply of Brenneke slugs for my duty gun. They will be available for when we are hunting folks in vehicles; otherwise the work 870 will stay loaded with Flite Control. There's an AR in the rack right next to it. I also bring friends with rifles...

Hambo
03-01-2017, 08:20 AM
My home shotgun is loaded with 00 buck. I do keep a round of #4 shot (not buck) for the switcharoo drill if my dogs get into it with some varmint at night.

Thinking about the OP more, I think this was more of a thing prior to patrol rifles. Our patrol shotguns were loaded with 00, but had slugs in the side saddles. The thinking, as I remember it, was that officers could switch to slugs or reload with slugs if 00 wasn't getting the job done. AFAIK the theory was never tested in reality and it probably would have been a shit show mix of buck and slugs going downrange anyway.

Erick Gelhaus
03-01-2017, 12:53 PM
After much searching for a real life use of it the only incident I am aware of is one John Farnam told me about where an Oklahoma (Highway Patrol?) officer in a traffic stop ended up exchanging gunfire with the subject who was using his open car door for cover. Officer switched to slug and shot through car door ending fight.


Randy, thank you. Any idea of the year?

Erick Gelhaus
03-01-2017, 12:54 PM
In this thread DB discussed his experience selecting slugs for car barricaded suspects as well as actually shooting out a street lamp with slugs. I would assume the slugs were selected for that but you can ask him:
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?16097-Shotgun-sights-what-kind-and-why

Thank you. DB and I were on the phone a bit as I was posting these requests across the net.

Erick Gelhaus
03-01-2017, 12:59 PM
jlw - work & home shotguns are fed differently. The work gun is now exclusively loaded with Brennekes for vehicle focused problems;

Hambo - I understand your thoughts about this being pre-patrol rifle. I'm constantly amazed though at how still not yet universal patrol rifles are. Its been 24 years since my agency got rifles and just a day over twenty years since North Hollywood ... and I still see posts, emails, etc asking how to get rifles approved and programs started.

When I get this all done, I post the wording of the write up I do in case some one needs it.

And thanks to every one for their input.

jlw
03-01-2017, 01:38 PM
jlw - work & home shotguns are fed differently. The work gun is now exclusively loaded with Brennekes for vehicle focused problems;



I hear ya. My scale of likeliness tilts more towards entry than take downs. If it went the other way, I'd be running slugs constantly in a shotgun.

Rex G
03-01-2017, 06:11 PM
(snipped)

I'm constantly amazed though at how still not yet universal patrol rifles are. Its been 24 years since my agency got rifles and just a day over twenty years since North Hollywood ... and I still see posts, emails, etc asking how to get rifles approved and programs started.

(Snipped)



Some of us have aged-out of our employers' rather athletic, timed, patrol rifle quals, but can still fire the simpler shotgun qual whilst remaining standing on our hind legs. Plus, until quite recently, I would have had to keep the rifle cased, and locked-up in the trunk, except for a quite narrow range of specified circumstances, whereas the shotgun could, and still can, ride up-front, and deploying the shotgun has always been discretionary. Working straight nights, in the big city, the shotgun remains a viable weapon, overall.

Actually, my patrol rifle qual lapsed in 2004 or so, when I sold my Govt Carbine to an officer with younger eyes. When optics were eventually OK'ed, I assembled a new AR, based upon a BCM lightweight Middy Upper, but a fractured finger and tweaked knee kept me from attending mandated update training, so my certification to qual with a patrol rifle lapsed. I doubt my ability to complete the week-long re-certification, as getting to my feet, from prone, in a hurry, is problematic. Being in the twilight of my career, I would rather not compete for one of the too-few spots in the patrol rifle cert training.

I bought a Benelli M2, shortly before we hosted the recent Stupid Bowl, partly for the simplified ammo-switching capability, in light of the recent terroristic use of trucks. Had my assignment been to protect the crowds at Discovery Green, I would have loaded all Truball Penetrator Slugs, and kept a few rounds of 00 handy. I was, instead, assigned a few blocks away, so kept Buck in the tube, and slugs handy. (Two slugs are quite ready, in a kydex carrier on my right epaulet.) Another significant reason for buying the M2 was that my aging eyes really like the bold, squared-off Benelli rifle sights, with the wide rear notch. (Another quite welcome change, since I last carried an HK-era M1 Benelli on patrol during the Early Nineties, has been the Comfortech stock.)

In the distant past, I vaguely remember substituting #4 Buck, as the first round or two in the mag tube, from time to time, before going into small apartments and rooming houses. The select-slug method, as decribed in the original post, was not the method used; I preemptively changed the first round in the mag tube, before chambering anything. This was long ago, perhaps not done since the end of the Eighties.

psalms144.1
03-02-2017, 04:56 PM
Hambo - I understand your thoughts about this being pre-patrol rifle. I'm constantly amazed though at how still not yet universal patrol rifles are. Its been 24 years since my agency got rifles and just a day over twenty years since North Hollywood ... and I still see posts, emails, etc asking how to get rifles approved and programs started. I work for an agency that has, literally, near limitless access to M4s, Mk18s, and good ammo. Yet, there are still only a SMALL handful (under 100) people in my agency worldwide who have authority to have full time access to carbines. Shotguns are issued one or two per office, and have to be secured in such a manner that they're functionally impossible to access quickly.

I do have an MP5KN, though, so that's in the cool guy category. Of course, they restrict us to using EXTREMELY subsonic JHP with it - even though we don't have suppressors in the field - because reasons... AND, it has to stay locked up in another agency's armory, because I'm clearly not cool enough to have it actually available should I need it...