Selecting a Sighting System for the Shotgun

[Dagga Boy]

Most of my rational brain says to laugh and just move on....but I can’t.

I ll stand by my article on sights. In regards to the comparing shooting humans trying to kill you and a flying bird....Seriously? My wingsports experience is limited. My wife;however, spent a lot of years as a professional bird hunting guide. Easy question over breakfast...”Hey sweetie, when you were guiding, how often did you have to kill downed birds on the ground”...”All the time, we had to hand kill birds on every hunt”. So this woman who spent all day from dawn to dusk every Saturday and Sunday during upland bird hunting season for 8 years had to hand kill....BIRDS, little, tiny, weighed in ounces, BIRDS because they were “hit” so poorly at bird speed that in many cases wouldn’t kill the bird and hell most were likely killed by the fall and not the quality of hit.

So....Why would anyone think that the level of hit needed to drop a bird or break a clay (that are so fragile they will break in the thrower) is remotely sufficient for a full size, often enraged or medicated into numbness, human being that will require a minimum of about 12 inches of penetration through thick muscle and bone covered in resilient clothing and that load of shot or slug must then penetrate and destroy critical organs to stop the threat of a human trying to kill you.

So with that I use loads and sighting systems that best allow me to place the best ballistic package in a 5” diameter zone in the chest or head from any angle presented to me in any lighting conditions. I also have to take into account ballistic barriers presented in things like a vehicle or other cover.
By the same token, I use a Benelli competition clays gun for shooting flying clay birds and will be getting a Beretta A400 Extreme Plus to match my wife’s for trying to put a couple of small shot on a flying bird enough to make it stop flying...which isn’t a lot.

What I have learned from the wingsports is gun fit to put the sight in direct alignment with the eye is hugely helpful for hitting the vital zone of slower but much harder to stop humans. Combine that stock fit alignment with a well thought out sighting system and load selection for the problem most likely encountered and it is a winning combo.

I am starting to teach using sporting shotguns for defense and it is not that difficult but is limited to mostly indoor home defense scenarios. Exactly where a good fit shotgun with a bead is a workable solution.

[GJM]

While buck and patterning is a big part of many shotgun classes, I have always found it interesting that a number of the “name” shotgun instructors, one dead and others living, carry slugs in their personal shotguns.

[Dagga Boy]

While buck and patterning is a big part of many shotgun classes, I have always found it interesting that a number of the “name” shotgun instructors, one dead and others living, carry slugs in their personal shotguns.

Well....yea....;-).

[Borderland]

Shooting from behind barriers from your non-dominate side for example. If you were to take the shot from your dominate side, you would need to lean way out and expose yourself to the threat. Or, you switch the gun to the other side and operate it thusly, exposing less of your body to the threat.

There are multiple spots on the top floor of my house alone where shooting from my non-dominate side would be a safer choice.

Chris

That's great but what do you do about trying to hit anything shooting from your left side when you're right eye dominant and 99% of the time that's the side you're going to use. I think the OP was asking about a HD shotgun. I don't think he was planning to join a swat team.

It all sounds wonderful but when you introduce anything like a ghost ring between your eye and the front bead that's going to complicate everything 5X. Ever try to shoot a rifle with a ghost ring from your left side when you're right eye dominant and right side is your normal position? How many switch hitters are there in MLB?

I'm going to let this one go here because there seems to be a lot of disagreement about what a tactical shotgun is. Tactical shotguns and buck shot have been around for a long time, probably 100 years. They just weren't called tactical shotguns in WW1. The names have changed and shooters perceptions about how to shoot them have changed. The shotgun itself hasn't changed that much.

[mtnbkr]

That's great but what do you do about trying to hit anything shooting from your left side when you're right eye dominant and 99% of the time that's the side you're going to use. I think the OP was asking about a HD shotgun. I don't think he was planning to join a swat team.

That ability is useful in home defense as not every corner or doorway has the manners of only being situated in a way to allow shots from your strong side.
What works for me (and my daughter for that matter since she's cross-eye dominate) is to close the dominate eye. It's still a tough shot to make, but doable with practice.

It's not about joining a swat team, it's about being able to make difficult shots in difficult circumstances. This isn't a skeet range where the positions and targets are known and aren't trying to shoot back.

It all sounds wonderful but when you introduce anything like a ghost ring between your eye and the front bead that's going to complicate everything 5X. Ever try to shoot a rifle with a ghost ring from your left side when you're right eye dominant and right side is your normal position? How many switch hitters are there in MLB?

It's a practice and training issue. FWIW, I also practice shooting my handguns with my non-dominate hand. I don't practice non-dominate handling with my rifles because they're strictly hunting or recreational tools. I get to choose the shots there.

I'm going to let this one go here because there seems to be a lot of disagreement about what a tactical shotgun is. Tactical shotguns and buck shot have been around for a long time, probably 100 years. They just weren't called tactical shotguns in WW1. The names have changed and shooters perceptions about how to shoot them have changed. The shotgun itself hasn't changed that much.

You're the only one arguing what a "tactical" or HD shotgun is or isn't. The rest of us are talking about gear/feature selection. Do a keyword search for "tactical" on this thread. Most of the hits are your posts, the few others are those responding to your claims. The rest of us are just talking shotguns. There are a number of participants with real, credible and verifiable, experience in the subject. Your area expertise seems to be wing/clay shooting (absolutely nothing wrong with that). The disciplines are different. Trying to claim otherwise is like claiming expertise over all facets of handgun sports because you are an expert Bullseye competitor.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

While buck and patterning is a big part of many shotgun classes, I have always found it interesting that a number of the “name” shotgun instructors, one dead and others living, carry slugs in their personal shotguns.

I'm nobody and my personal practices don't matter, but I've stopped carrying slugs on my shotgun. It's strictly an HD gun and I live in a townhouse in a fairly congested neighborhood. For me, slugs carry too much risk and not a lot of utility. I can't think of a use case where a slug would be the appropriate tool in my area.

Chris

[GJM]

I'm nobody and my personal practices don't matter, but I've stopped carrying slugs on my shotgun. It's strictly an HD gun and I live in a townhouse in a fairly congested neighborhood. For me, slugs carry too much risk and not a lot of utility. I can't think of a use case where a slug would be the appropriate tool in my area.

Chris

Darryl and I were just discussing how the shotgun is a “thinking man’s” tool, by virtue of the variety of projectiles that the shotgun can launch.

A page back in this thread, you said the following:

“I have iron sights on mine (the one that came with the Remington barrel). They worked well in class and at the range. With them I managed a sub 1sec clean hit on a hostage drill with buckshot at 15yds from low ready. The "threat" was about the size of a softball right next to a larger "victim" target.”


If I were that “victim” I would very much prefer you took that shot with a slug, a red dot, and about three seconds on the trigger and sight, instead of the snap shot with buck. Twenty years ago, I was cruising through the shoot off at Gunsite’s 260 shotgun class. Great class, taught by Awerbuck, Cain and Slawson, and a bunch of shooters you would recognize including Hans Vang, Irv Stone, Gary Paul Johnson, Wiley Clapp and Wayne Novak. I was shooting a 11-87 with a ghost ring, and the drill was two US poppers with a no-shoot popper between them at 15 yards with buck, then select slug to a further out popper. In the final bout, and I had been cruising through all the previous contests, I went against Wayne Novak. I got a little quick, and tagged the edge of the no shoot popper with a few pellets of buck, beating myself and giving Wayne the shoot off win for the class. That messed up shot has stayed with me for twenty years, and is a reason I personally want more certainty on a non-threat shot, and will be using a single projectile and an optimal sighting system.

[Dagga Boy]

I'm nobody and my personal practices don't matter, but I've stopped carrying slugs on my shotgun. It's strictly an HD gun and I live in a townhouse in a fairly congested neighborhood. For me, slugs carry too much risk and not a lot of utility. I can't think of a use case where a slug would be the appropriate tool in my area.

Chris

And the beauty of the shotgun is the adaptability to a ton of different circumstances. Pure, close, urban HD use is perfect for buckshot. It is my starting point in the house. When I am road traveling with a gun behind the seat....slug because vehicle work is likely. Hotel room....back to 00. Want to hunt a variety of game, simply adapt.

The way I use a gauge professionally and then personally, GJM uses a gauge daily, the way a cop uses one (urban versus rural will change), and the way a dedicated wingsports shooter uses one is all different and require a bit of adaptation.....the key is you can adapt them and it then comes to degrees of adaptation....which seems to be what everyone is arguing about here.

Like DA/SA pistols, revolvers and shotguns, we are sort of in a golden age.....sadly we keep looking back and trying to copy what we have done poorly over the years instead of studying what has really worked well that are small percentages.

[mtnbkr]

If I were that “victim” I would very much prefer you took that shot with a slug, a red dot, and about three seconds on the trigger and sight, instead of the snap shot with buck. Twenty years ago, I was cruising through the shoot off at Gunsite’s 260 shotgun class. Great class, taught by Awerbuck, Cain and Slawson, and a bunch of shooters you would recognize including Hans Vang, Irv Stone, Gary Paul Johnson, Wiley Clapp and Wayne Novak. I was shooting a 11-87 with a ghost ring, and the drill was two US poppers with a no-shoot popper between them at 15 yards with buck, then select slug to a further out popper. In the final bout, and I had been cruising through all the previous contests, I went against Wayne Novak. I got a little quick, and tagged the edge of the no shoot popper with a few pellets of buck, beating myself and giving Wayne the shoot off win for the class. That messed up shot has stayed with me for twenty years, and is a reason I personally want more certainty on a non-threat shot, and will be using a single projectile and an optimal sighting system.

I'd rather have a different load and gun as well as more time myself.

The drill was mainly around demonstrating the "art of the possible" (both from a platform perspective and a personal ability perspective). The conclusion after was that it was technically possible but none of us would willingly take that shot. Instead, we would try and work closer if buckshot was all we had.

Then, and now, the idea that I could find myself in that very scenario with a loved one gives me chills. It's certainly not something I'd willingly do.

Chris

[GJM]

I'd rather have a different load and gun as well as more time myself.

The drill was mainly around demonstrating the "art of the possible" (both from a platform perspective and a personal ability perspective). The conclusion after was that it was technically possible but none of us would willingly take that shot. Instead, we would try and work closer if buckshot was all we had.

Then, and now, the idea that I could find myself in that very scenario with a loved one gives me chills. It's certainly not something I'd willingly do.

Chris

A shotgun brings power and range to a fight, allowing you to launch a .70 caliber, 400+ grain projectile and hit targets to 100 or more yards. Why would you willingly limit the distance envelope of your long gun to 15-30 yards, or whatever your preferred buck load patterns to?