The best home defense gun

[Glenn E. Meyer]

https://www.guns.com/news/2019/06/27/a-beginners-guide-to-home-defense-guns

Tidbits:


The second-most logical choice for home defense is a shotgun because they’re easy to use to address a threat. Unlike a handgun or rifle, shotguns don’t require precision accuracy to hit a target. A shotgun fires shot shells instead of a single projectile. The shot is comprised of small pieces of metal that look like ball bearings. As they fly through the air, the spread covers a wider area with a tremendous amount of energy like a small net of death.

he drawback to home defense shotguns is limited maneuverability. Without proper training and practice, a shotgun is difficult to safely handle in an enclosed space. According to federal regulators, the shortest barrel available for a shotgun, to keep it under the mandatory 26-inch overall length, is 18 inches. However, gun makers have found ways to make a shotgun feel shorter than it really is. By changing certain characteristics of the design — like removing the stock and shortening the barrel — it can become a 12- or 20-gauge “firearm” instead of a shotgun. Maintaining that mandatory minimum length allows the design to be sold like any other firearm.


Semi reasonable discussion of handguns and ARs. However, the shotgun stuff - well, well. Just anecdotally, I had a good ol' boy coworker who was incensed that his fragile, elderly wife would not learn to or practice with a 12 gauge pistol grip pump. Then he switched her to a Glock 23. That didn't work either.

I like to shoot my 1300 Defender but it's not something I would recommend to the beginner. Took a couple of shotgun classes (Moses, Givens).

[mtnbkr]

https://www.guns.com/news/2019/06/27/a-beginners-guide-to-home-defense-guns

Tidbits: Unlike a handgun or rifle, shotguns don’t require precision accuracy to hit a target.




http://lolwut.com/layout/lolwut.jpg

[Norville]

Where’s that Captain Picard face palm picture when I need it?

[MasterBlaster]

Where’s that Captain Picard face palm picture when I need it?
39664

[feudist]

If you think about it, it's kind of strange that the shotgun myth exists.

At one time, perhaps even still, shotguns were far more widely distributed than rifles above the .22LR.

Anyone who ever shot one-even with birdshot-would see that the pattern doesn't magically expand.

I guess it shows how few people ever did fire a gun throughout history.

[RevolverRob]

If you think about it, it's kind of strange that the shotgun myth exists.

At one time, perhaps even still, shotguns were far more widely distributed than rifles above the .22LR.

Anyone who ever shot one-even with birdshot-would see that the pattern doesn't magically expand.

I guess it shows how few people ever did fire a gun throughout history.

I'm not sure one follows the other. When I've shot clays for instance, the reality is, even a little bit of shot hitting the clay will blow it apart. Most shooters (including myself) don't lead very well and are really hitting clays or birds with the spread of the shot, not the actual bulk of it. Then you hear stuff like, "Don't use the sights, use the barrel." Also, if most people are anything like me, it's pretty tough to gauge distance of clay pigeons flying through the air. So, for all you know you're hitting them at 20 feet, instead of the 30 yards you're actually shooting them at. So, you end up with a warped sense of what shot spread looks like.

In other words, I think the shotgun myth persists, because when people shoot clays and birds, they don't have to actively focus on the front sight AND they don't know what distances they're shooting at. Meanwhile with a handgun or rifle, you know if you don't aim you will miss, regardless of distance.

It's not until you start shooting at patterning boards or actual targets with buckshot that you realize how much work you need to do to make the shotgun do what you think it should do. It's also then that you realize why bird-hunting shotguns and people hunting shotguns are so different from one-another in the way they are setup.

[Darth_Uno]

I recall Larry Correia stating, and I've often stolen this, that a shotgun is not an Indiana Jones boulder of doom.

If someone kicked in my door while I had the safe open I'd probably grab an AR. Can't really quantify that, beyond an intuitive sense that I'd rather have a rifle with 30 rounds.

I keep a 'roided up 870 (glorified deer gun) by the bed though, so...

[Sigfan26]

Best way I’ve found to dispel the myth of magic shotgun spread is this: If shotguns had spread how some people think... Trap, Skeet, and Sporting clays wouldn’t exist (it would be too easy). There wouldn’t be a market for specialized $5K+ guns for the specific sports, and dove hunters would never miss a bird.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[OlongJohnson]

I've heard a GS employee tell someone, "At close range, the bird shot pellets are still all together and act like a slug."

[pangloss]

I've heard a GS employee tell someone, "At close range, the bird shot pellets are still all together and act like a slug."

Not to be argumentative because I agree that the GS employee advice is very bad advice, but simply as an aside: Before I was born, my dad was bird (or maybe squirrel) hunting with a close family friend. They jumped a deer at point blank range, and the friend found that at about 3 yards a load of birdshot (or maybe #6s (https://pistol-forum.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=6s) ) to the neck will kill a deer. I don't know what size the deer was, and that's an important variable. The entire ordeal could have been a 1 in a 100 sort of event, which is one of the reasons why I keep buckshot in my 870. In any case, that's a story that has always stuck with me.

[Bucky]

It’s all relative. For me, my abilities with a handgun far outshine my abilities with a long gun.

[Kyle Reese]

Why worry about patterning and spread with a shotgun? Conventional gun store wisdom dictates that simply racking the action of a pump action is quite sufficient to scare away the baddies. [emoji38]

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[Joe in PNG]

Conversely, one can just get a .410 Judge, because that works in pretty much the exact same way as a full sized 12 gauge anyway- or so I've heard.

[gtae07]

If someone kicked in my door while I had the safe open I'd probably grab an AR. Can't really quantify that, beyond an intuitive sense that I'd rather have a rifle with 30 rounds.

I keep a 'roided up 870 (glorified deer gun) by the bed though, so...

I’d probably grab a rifle as well, and if not, one of the pistols. That said, my go-to right now is my carry pistol because it’s easier to access and I’d sort of prefer a suppressed AR pistol if I were going to use a rifle in the house. I don’t have the coin to drop on a suppressor right now.

Shotguns just don’t compute in my head for some reason—I can’t get the manual of arms straight, at least not to the intuitive level of my pistols and rifles. Of course that’s probably also because I only have 200 rounds or so of shotgun experience, all of it on semis, and half of it with the balky one I bought intending it for 3-gun and clays use. I’ve even tried manually cycling dummy rounds through and that seems to act differently than actually firing.

One of these days I’ll figure it out; it’s just frustrating because I’m usually really good and picking almost anything up and figuring out how it works and how to use it.

[BehindBlueI's]

Why worry about patterning and spread with a shotgun? Conventional gun store wisdom dictates that simply racking the action of a pump action is quite sufficient to scare away the baddies. [emoji38]

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

I don't even own any guns any longer. I just have an external speaker system and a "shotgun racking with large dog barking in the background" soundtrack on loop.

[Baldanders]

I'm not sure one follows the other. When I've shot clays for instance, the reality is, even a little bit of shot hitting the clay will blow it apart. Most shooters (including myself) don't lead very well and are really hitting clays or birds with the spread of the shot, not the actual bulk of it. Then you hear stuff like, "Don't use the sights, use the barrel." Also, if most people are anything like me, it's pretty tough to gauge distance of clay pigeons flying through the air. So, for all you know you're hitting them at 20 feet, instead of the 30 yards you're actually shooting them at. So, you end up with a warped sense of what shot spread looks like.

In other words, I think the shotgun myth persists, because when people shoot clays and birds, they don't have to actively focus on the front sight AND they don't know what distances they're shooting at. Meanwhile with a handgun or rifle, you know if you don't aim you will miss, regardless of distance.

It's not until you start shooting at patterning boards or actual targets with buckshot that you realize how much work you need to do to make the shotgun do what you think it should do. It's also then that you realize why bird-hunting shotguns and people hunting shotguns are so different from one-another in the way they are setup.

I was patterning my cylinder bore FP6 with a variety of loads at 22-25 yards recently and came to the conclusion that magnum loads in 00 buck bring nothing to the table at that distance over 8 to 9 pellet loads, and may be worse in #4 buck over a 2 3/4 load.

Any home defense shotgun article that doesn't state the necessity of patterning is crap.

[Rex G]

The shotgun is neither magic wand, nor death ray. Having said that, my wife was an M.E. Investigator in Harris County, Texas, for 21 years, and is a believer in the effectiveness 12 gauge shotgun. (Most of Houston lies within Harris County.) While it is true that M.E. folks see dead bodies, blood spatter evidence is a science, that tells the tale of what happened after the projectile(s) struck. The shorter the blood trail, the more effective the hit. Elongated blood drops, on the ground, show the speed at which the shoot-ee was moving.

The M2 Benelli, with Comfort Tech stock, is my long gun, of choice; very natural, comfortable, and intuitive, for me. By comparison, my skill with the Remington 870 perishes much more quickly, and it is a much less-comfortable platform.

I have yet to become really comfortable with the AR15/M4 system. I would say that I have a “working knowledge” of the AR15/M4 system, and would much rather engage an adversary with something other than an AR15/M4. I find nothing intuitive about this weapon system, with the safety/selector lever being particularly non-intuitive, as the lever is vertical in semi mode; the lever being in-line with the enemy, or moved toward the enemy, is more intuitive, to me. I learned the Garand safety, the tang safety, and the Winchester Model 70 safety, plus, working with the hammer of a lever rifle, before learning to use the AR15/M4. Plus, with S&W/Beretta handguns, the weapon is on-safe when “the dingus is down,” so even my prior pistol training works against my ability to feel comfortable using the AR/M4 safety.

I have a BCM Lightweight Middy, from the time I almost re-booted my patrol rifle status, at work. I had actually carried a personally-owned Colt Govt Carbine, while still active in the patrol rifle program. I did not learn the AR/M4 system, until 2002, whereas I had learned other systems in the Eighties and Nineties. I have recently been trying to again re-boot my AR/M4 skills, with an AR pistol, .300 BLK, as it makes sense as a “rule-book” long-ish gun, while road tripping in states that do not allow loaded long guns, inside vehicles, but I am already questioning the wisdom of spending the money. Long-barreled .357 revolvers, and full-sized 1911 pistols, might remain my better mousetraps, on the road.

Of course, there is nothing particularly intuitive about a cross-bolt safety, but internalizing move-left-to-fire does have a similarity with unscrewing/loosening a threaded bolt/screw. (Left-Loose, with the similarly-sounding German “Los” actually being the command to “Fire.”)

[Clusterfrack]

I totally agree about shotguns not being a good choice for beginners, and many others. Heavy recoil, difficult loading, and very difficult malfunction clearance all make shotguns a very poor choice for many people.

Handguns are hard to shoot well, but they are easy to shoot.


Semi reasonable discussion of handguns and ARs. However, the shotgun stuff - well, well. Just anecdotally, I had a good ol' boy coworker who was incensed that his fragile, elderly wife would not learn to or practice with a 12 gauge pistol grip pump. Then he switched her to a Glock 23. That didn't work either.

I like to shoot my 1300 Defender but it's not something I would recommend to the beginner. Took a couple of shotgun classes (Moses, Givens).

[TDA]

I have a BCM Lightweight Middy, from the time I almost re-booted my patrol rifle status, at work. I had actually carried a personally-owned Colt Govt Carbine, while still active in the patrol rifle program. I did not learn the AR/M4 system, until 2002, whereas I had learned other systems in the Eighties and Nineties.

Totally off topic, sorry, but... Why were you using an R6520, but not in the 1980’s? Even in the late 90’s, people looked at my A2 Government Carbine like it was a stone axe.

[Rex G]

Totally off topic, sorry, but... Why were you using an R6520, but not in the 1980’s? Even in the late 90’s, people looked at my A2 Government Carbine like it was a stone axe.

I do not know/remember the Colt model number, but my “Colt AR15A2 Govt Carbine” was purchased new, in 2002, with PD letterhead. It had the LE/Govt-only warning, a pencil barrel, the evil, then-banned-for-mortals flash hider and collapsible stock, and the A2 upper receiver. I do not know when it was made, but it was a Colt product, and what the seller had available, at the time.

As my eyes aged, the front sight being so near my aiming eye made the front sight fuzzy, so I gradually grew to dislike this carbine, and sold it to a younger colleague. Working night shift meant a shotgun was the better long gun for patrol, and, PD policy dictating that the carbines/rifles remain cased, in the trunk, except in very limited circumstances, also made the shotgun the default long gun choice, to be kept up front, with me, and used at my discretion.

Toward the end of my career, optics on patrol carbines/rifles became OK, and, eventually, it became OK to keep the carbines/rifles in the racks, in the passenger compartment. I did end up with the BCM Lightweight Middy, somewhere along the way, but never got around to re-certifying to carry a patrol carbine/rifle. The Benelli M2 was sufficiently comforting; I never felt deprived.

[Rex G]

Totally off topic, sorry, but... Why were you using an R6520, but not in the 1980’s? Even in the late 90’s, people looked at my A2 Government Carbine like it was a stone axe.

Now that I have thought about it, a bit more, I probably bought the version I did, simply because it was all that was available, for sale, at that point in time. The flat-topped-receiver versions were probably sold-out, leaving only “stone axes” available. This was the immediate aftermath of 09-11-2001, when many PDs suddenly realized that, WOW, patrol officers probably should be armed with longer-range weapons. In the case of my employer, Houston PD, patrol rifles/carbines had been eliminated in 1983, by a newly-imported, outsider chief. The quickly-implemented patrol carbine program created a sudden local demand for hundreds of AR15-type weapons.

Even if I would have been willing to wait for a flat-topped version, I would not have been allowed to mount an optic, anyway, until optics were allowed, some number of years later, so, the stone axe sufficed.

Notably, the longest distance involved at the scenes where I uncased my carbine was about 35 yards, from my position of cover, to an apartment door. (I could have gotten somewhat closer.) I reckon I chose a decent spot, because when SWAT arrived to relieve the inner perimeter, the sniper took my place. (That scene, a hostage incident, was resolved without gunfire.)

[TCinVA]

I routinely teach people who have little to no experience shooting a 12 gauge how to use one effectively....and they get through around 200 rounds of ammo in roughly half a day without getting the daylights beaten out of them or getting bruised by the gun. A fair number of students in my Home Defense Shotgun class are people who have never fired a long gun of any sort in their life.

Most shotguns on the shelves are set up for 6 foot tall and over males to shoot at birds with. These configurations suck out loud for smaller people shooting buckshot.

With a gun that is properly configured and some useful knowledge on how to actually mitigate recoil with the weapon, I've literally watched small 64 year old women rock a 12 gauge like it's a pussycat. Oddly enogh I don't see many stoppages with shotguns that aren't traceable to quality issues with the gun itself. The most common stoppage is short stroking a pump gun, which is usually resolved very easily by running the action again with vigor. I'm a fan of a reliable semi-auto over pump guns but even with pumps people run them pretty effectively after I've explained and demonstrated with one.

Of course, competent instruction with a shotgun seems to be about as rare as hen's teeth. Once someone is exposed to it they tend to be pretty darn enthusiastic about the shotgun as a defensive weapon.

"Best" is a relative term, relative to the circumstances one faces. Some people would be best served with a pistol. Some with a rifle. Some with a shotgun. Just depends on all the factors that they are facing. I don't tell people what they should use. I simply inform and encourage them to make an intelligent decision based on solid information rather than lore and bullshit from people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Which, when it comes to the defensive use of the shotgun, is most people.

Shotguns are great defensive weapons because there's nothing commonly available in the United States that has a better track record of instantaneously stopping a threat than a properly loaded, properly wielded shotgun loaded with buckshot. If I have one second of target exposure I can fire one well aimed shot that will, in the vast majority of instances, instantaneously incapacitate the threat I needed to stop. That's not something we can say with rifles or pistols. I can then move on to another threat.

If I'm a little off with my aim the terminal ballistic benefit of a full pattern of buckshot hitting in roughly the same location will prove highly effective even if I don't hit the small vital structures I'm aiming for with a pistol or a rifle. The extent of tissue damage caused by buckshot will bring a rapid end to the threat even if I make a slight aiming error. It has the benefit of being seen as an acceptable defensive choice by the vast majority of the population because they are as ignorant about what a properly loaded shotgun does as anyone else. The ability to press a trigger once and get the desired result is also kind of nice in a world where how many times you shoot someone can most definitely become a factor in the aftermath of the shooting.

It's not necessarily the best option for everyone's circumstances, but it's a fucking amazing weapon for the purposes of personal defense. Or even, as some of the guys here who have used them in combat overseas will tell you, for offensive action, too.

[Totem Polar]

I don't even own any guns any longer. I just have an external speaker system and a "shotgun racking with large dog barking in the background" soundtrack on loop.

Do you also have an "uncle joe" bobblehead figure stuck to the dash of the Camaro to go with?

[Gray01]

Do you also have an "uncle joe" bobblehead figure stuck to the dash of the Camaro to go with?

With hands outstretched...

[Totem Polar]

With hands outstretched...

Of course!

[willie]

I've heard a GS employee tell someone, "At close range, the bird shot pellets are still all together and act like a slug."

I would not count on this to occur but once saw two dead men who were shot at almost contact range. 12 ga No 6 went all the way through both. Both were wearing T shirts.

[TDA]

Now that I have thought about it, a bit more, I probably bought the version I did, simply because it was all that was available, for sale, at that point in time.

That is exactly how I ended up with mine!

[Caballoflaco]

Shotguns are great defensive weapons because there's nothing commonly available in the United States that has a better track record of instantaneously stopping a threat than a properly loaded, properly wielded shotgun loaded with buckshot. If I have one second of target exposure I can fire one well aimed shot that will, in the vast majority of instances, instantaneously incapacitate the threat I needed to stop. That's not something we can say with rifles or pistols.

I’m not trying to shit on your post because I really like shotguns, especially semi autos, can shoot them well and really enjoy shooting them. The biggest reason I left the gauge as a home defense long arm is that your statement isn’t true if someone is wearing even just soft armor.

Maybe this is because I started getting into guns in the late 90’s when the gun media was behind the push towards patrol rifles after the North Hollywood shootout, but it’s still always in the back of my mind when I start thinking shotguns and it doesn’t seem to be mentioned as much in the gun world since some “carbine fatigue” has set in and folks are looking for different gun experiences.

if I could only have a shotgun I wouldn’t loose a wink of sleep in worry, I just like to have the ability to defeat soft armor if I have that option since it does exist and get used by bad people doing bad things.

Attempted to edit to fix me screwing up quoting TCinVA

[TCinVA]

Soft armor is pretty uncommon for a typical crew working home invasions (ripping off drug houses is a bit different) but in every class I teach we cover a failure drill just in case they encounter the rare armored baddy.

[willie]

In 1981 I participated in rudimentary shotgun instruction at the Texas prison system. I went there as an 870 guy but learned some things. One was that buckshot shoots high, and the second point was that when using buckshot, the shooter must aim. Our instructor was retired DPS and had students fire on paper targets at 7 yards to dispel the myth that shotgun patterns always spread. That was news to many. The class was the state's first to have females. They outdid the male group because they were better at following directions. Too, I think that bias caused the female group to be selected to higher standards than the male group with the result that they had higher IQ's and were smarter. The girls did not short shuck the pump guns. Guess who did? The instructor would chew ass if the student did not slam with force the slide back and forth. Having experimented with 870 and Mossberg 500 series pumps, I think that less experienced persons are less likely to have operator induced malfunctions with Mossbergs.

[TCinVA]

One was that buckshot shoots high,

That's usually the result of a bead sight on a shorter barrel. Very, very common.

[willie]

I never thought about the bead sight. We were told that the light weight of the short barrel in conjunction with heavy recoil caused the barrel to rise so fast that poi was high.

[TCinVA]

I never thought about the bead sight. We were told that the light weight of the short barrel in conjunction with heavy recoil caused the barrel to rise so fast that poi was high.

'Fraid not.

That's one of the enduring problems with the defensive shotgun...so many people were taught things about them that just aren't true.

The "belly button hold" was certainly a thing, but it was a thing because when they chopped the barrel of shotguns they often put a bead back on that sat right down on the barrel. The bead sitting directly on the barrel was pretty common for shotguns back in the day (still more common than it should be today) and it worked fine on a typical shotgun barrel that was 26" or so.

When they chopped the barrel of sporting shotguns and put the bead back down on the barrel then all of a sudden you can't see the bead anymore if you keep the same mount. So people tended to angle the gun up to where they could get the sight picture they expected from a longer barreled gun and that resulted in tilting the gun significantly higher. This was avoided on most trench guns of the day due to using a taller bead and one that was typically mounted in a bayonet mounting fixture attached to the barrel.

Remington's pedestal bead:

http://www.rem870.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/degrease_bead_sight.jpg'

...is an attempt to compensate for this phenomenon by getting the bead up higher.

In the photo below:

https://images1.americanlisted.com/nlarge/winchester-1200-pump-12ga-shotgun-americanlisted_38025663.jpg

...you can see a Winchester 1200 "Defender" which has the bead mounted directly on the barrel. If you get the correct sight picture to hit point of aim, you can barely even see the bead...and that after driving your face hard into the stock. If you can see the bead like you expect to on a typical sight picture it shoots high.

I found it so vexing that I sent my 1200 off to Vang Comp to do something about it:

40040

The addition of Remington's rifle style sights makes it a much more useful gun.