Originally Posted by GJM
Can we land this plane already?
Can we land this plane already?
.
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Not another dime.
It's definitely better suited to low odds of multiple threats than high ones!
Here's what I like it for: "I'm 99% sure that was nothing but let me just make sure."
If I go downstairs to poke around, I can really easily step around corners in a high ready kind of position.
If I want to step out into the yard, I can lay it flat against my leg and it's invisible.
If there's neighbours in the yard for some reason I at least have a very conventional looking shotgun; I haven't shown up with extremely memorable artillery.
But for sure there's an inherent limitation with the capacity. It's not something I would necessarily recommend. But within its range I think there's an argument for it.
Nope, all of his shotguns hold either 8 or 9 rounds.Would Mike Pipes agree?
I know, I've watched him shoot them. Proficiently, I might add.
Well, if we're doing this...
A S&W model 12 snubbie with an Ithaca model 37. The Ithaca was owned by the late Pat Rogers. He had considerable experience with the Ithaca during his NYPD days and was, according to his own words in the Lightfighter post linked below, a fan of the Ithaca 37. I don't think the forearm strap that's welded to this one was a common mod for NYPD, but I'm sure someone will be along shortly to say whether it was or not.
You can read some of his thoughts about the Ithaca here:
https://www.lightfighter.net/topic/i...del-37-shotgun
The Ithaca is an excellent shotgun. The main drawback to the gun is that the only way to load it is to put another shell in the mag tube. There's no quick, convenient emergency load like you see on a Remington 870.
Of course, one would be sane to ask how often someone needs to perform an emergency reload with a 12 gauge in the first place. And the answer is "Rarely." When this gun was in police use, if an officer expended the onboard supply of ammunition he had a sidearm to fall back to. The typical home owner has either a long gun or a handgun on their person, so transitions to a handgun are a more unlikely event than the need to reload quickly.
Of course, if one handles the shotgun competently and has ingrained sufficient skill to hit an intended target with it at speed, the shotgun's fight-stopping power makes it unlikely you'll exhaust your ammunition supply on a shotgun with 4 or 5 rounds in it and still have bad guys that are interested in continuing the contest.
The photo above is from an attempted home invasion that took place in Puerto Rico. Four armed assailants rolled up on a farm house with the likely intent of robbery and other criminal entertainments beyond that. The farmer, however, had a 12 gauge and apparently had some skill in its application. As a result as soon as those robbers dismounted they were met with a hail of accurately placed lead which stacked them almost on top of one another. The fourth was injured in the gunfire and later went on to be killed in a shootout with the police.
I don't have details for the shooting beyond that, but it is unlikely the farmer needed to reload his shotgun to accomplish this goal. Within the typical capacity of any off-the-shelf pump gun that doesn't have the duck hunting limiter in place, a guy who probably isn't a gunfighter cut through an experienced criminal crew like a hot knife through butter, dropping three out of four dead on the spot and scaring the fourth one so shitless that he fled as fast as he could. Note that same dude would, shortly thereafter, engage in a fight to the death with the police. So he wasn't just cowardly. I'm betting that the immediate, remorselessly violent, and instantaneously effective nature of the farmer's counter assault was something completely outside this crew's realm of experience.
It's sort of like hunting. It's one thing to hunt squirrels and deer. It's an entirely different thing the first time you have a close encounter with a big bear. It triggers a very different part of your brain, at least in my experience.
As for some of the contentions/questions in the original post:
Pattern size - In class I rarely see someone miss with an entire pattern of FFC buckshot when we put them under stress. I frequently see folks make a mistake that results in hitting a slightly different part of a humanoid target than they intended, but it's extremely rare to see them put a full pattern off the target. Even when we present them with a moving target. One of the things I do in my more advanced class is present a mover that folks engage with buckshot, including Flight Control buckshot. Even then, even when presented with what to most of them is an entirely novel shooting experience (shooting a moving target with buckshot) they don't miss with a full pattern.
In Shotgun 360 we have students engage an unpredictable moving target that is only the size of the vital zone on a human being...and even with Flight Control that is no bigger than the size of the bore they rarely miss entirely. When those misses happen, they're still well within the size of a human target at that distance.
Conversely I see folks with more conventional buckshot patterns throw pellets off into the unknown in every class. Those pellets do jack shit to stop a threat and pose lethal risk downrange. They aren't helping me at all. So I don't want them.
Terminal ballistics -
Buckshot works as well as it does because multiple projectiles impacting roughly the same spot at roughly the same time overwhelms the ability of human tissue to stretch. Some tissue is very stretchy, some is not. When you stretch tissue at 8 or 9 distinct points you divide the tissue's ability to stretch across each of those pressure points. This makes elastic tissues inelastic so they tear much more readily. This can literally pulverize inelastic tissues. (The sort of tissue most of your vital organs are made of)
So you do not, in fact, get a larger wound cavity with a wider pattern.
If you hit someone with FFC that is still the size of the bore, each of those pellets are acted on by physics. Which means that inside tissue they start to radiate out from the entrance doing incredible amounts of damage to tissue until they get far enough away from each other to limit the multiple pressure point phenomenon. At which point they just start cutting a hole through whatever happens to lie in their way. Tissue. Blood vessels. Bones. Nerves. Etc.
When the gun is fired with acceptable accuracy, all that damage is happening to the most vital structures in the human body.
Remember why it is we are pressing the trigger on this thing: Because someone is trying to kill us. We want to stop him. As quickly as possible. We are no longer at the point of convincing this person to stop. It is now time to render him incapable of continuing to press an assault. We are going to make him stop. Pellets that land in a dude's fat rolls do not make him stop trying to kill us. I want every pellet I fire working on those small vital structures buried deep inside the armed criminal that is trying to kill me.
The need for Flight Control -
Now does any of this mean you need FFC? Of course not. If your gun patterns acceptably at whatever your maxium range happens to be with something else you like better, by all means use it. FFC is simply an easy shortcut for people who don't have the time or desire to try out 50 different types of buckshot to find the load that works best in their gun. FFC will give good results with 9 out of 10 shotguns you try it in, which is not something I can say for any other buckshot load. That makes it a good default option for people to work with.
Another factor that gets inadequate consideration, in my view, is the prevalence of entanglement in home defense situations. Watch some video of actual home invasions and you will very quickly realize that bad guys are often in close proximity to innocent occupants of the home. The tendency of typical buckshot to pattern widely and to have flyers is a deep concern even at very close ranges when we are dealing with bad men in close proximity to others.
I know most people's idea of a home invasion scenario is them standing in front of their family armed with a shotgun and a clear lane of fire in front of them. And with proper security procedures and a good family plan that is hopefully what will happen. Unfortunately that isn't what happens all the time. Most doors kick in very quickly, criminals frequently use ruses at odd times of the day to get the door open, or they seize upon opportunity when the people in the house are going about their lives. It is extremely common for a bad guy to end up between a home defender and their loved ones. This creates serious problems.
Crime is a close proximity phenomenon in general. If you are going to deal with a violent criminal it's highly likely that will be transpiring with uncomfortable closeness to other people. If you don't live alone, even in your home.
This proximity issue is why, for example, the NYPD Stakeout Unit made more use of slugs than most realize. Here's a recounting of a Stakeout Unit shooting that shows the problem:
You may not be set up on a bank counter, but the range dealt with in that incident is not uncommon inside a residential structure and the performance of the buckshot in that incident is exactly why FFC was invented. If we could go back in time and give Jim Cirillo Flight Control I'd dare say he would have used it.
With the right buckshot load, at the sort of distances where you would be taking a shot on a bad guy entangled with an innocent, you wouldn't need slugs, and you don't have as much of a concern with what happens when the slug blows completely through the dude you just intended to hit. (Because it is highly likely to do just that)
Why not just use slugs -
You certainly can. I don't because their tendency to carry through an intended target and pose a serious risk on the other side of the intended target is undesirable for typical defensive use. Buckshot isn't completely harmless should it pass through a threat, but it tends to completely pass through an intended target less often and significantly weaker when it does so.
Weight -
It's fair to say that in a typical home defense scenario you will have to hold the shotgun until the police arrive on scene. That could be 2 minutes. It could be 30 depending on where you live. If you aren't sure that the bad guys have all run away or are no longer a threat because you did your best Puerto Rico farmer impersonation, you probably don't want to set that shotgun down.
Close Quarters -
Yes, you can use techniques to shorten up a shotgun. Will an extra couple of inches of barrel get you kilt in the streets? Probably not. Does an extra couple of inches make a significant difference when using the gun in close quarters? It most certainly does.
Here again, it is not uncommon for the home defender to literally run into the bad guy. Bad guys tend to enter the house and then fan out looking to establish control over the space for the same reason a SWAT team wants to use speed and violence of action to establish control over a structure. You can end up in a close physical confrontation with a bad guy just trying to get to your Alamo line.
Searching for bad guys through one's house is certainly not the safest course of action. If an attack happens at the wrong time, however, it is also the only course of action available to you. If you have kids and they have a sleep over in the den and that's when the bad man breaks in, you're now on the offensive and you will be hunting for a bad guy because I doubt anyone on this forum is going to dial 911 and wait for the cops to show up when the kids are that close to danger.
Once again, in the real world it's a hell of a lot easier for a bad guy to end up between you and people you care about than most realize.
Offensive Shotgun -
There is a distinction between going on the offensive and defending in place, certainly. But it's also true that circumstances will often dictate which approach you need. You will not be making decisions with a free hand in your best case scenario. The need to use lethal force often arises in suboptimal circumstances. Bad guys are inconsiderate that way.
So while going on offense shouldn't be your primary concern, don't set yourself up to make the already dangerous and difficult problem more dangerous and difficult than necessary should you be forced to do it.
No Side Saddle -
Returning to the pictures of Pat's shotgun, if someone told me I had to use that shotgun exactly the way it is for home defense I wouldn't loose a moment's sleep over it. I'm pretty good with a gauge and I'm reasonably certain I will be able to handle the problems I am most likely to face with that gun.
I can, however, have more capability with minimal additional cost. I can have more ammo on the gun just in case it is necessary on those statistical outlier occasions where it might be. I don't have to put 100 extra shells on the thing. I can just put a couple on there and odds are it will be sufficient to reload the shotgun to more than useful capacity should I need to use it in defense.
If one dislikes practicing manipulations investing some time into learning efficient and simple manipulations (which you will have to use to load the damn thing anyway) isn't a bad idea. When a good instructor can teach you the why on a manipulation that is well thought out, and you understand the whys of the technique, you will be able to use it well enough should the circumstances arise.
Everyone doesn't need a sub 1.5 second emergency load. I have that because A.) it nicely demonstrates that shotguns are not slow to reload to a useful capacity and B.) one should have an exceptional level of skill with one of these things if they are going to be teaching it.
My goal for clients, however, is to get them to use a reliable technique that works for their physiology under almost any circumstance and within a useful time frame. This takes less time and practice than you might think. Mastery takes more work, but mastery of anything takes far more time and effort than competence on any skillset.
Last edited by TCinVA; 04-08-2020 at 07:13 PM.
3/15/2016
@TCinVA -
That was far more useful and encompassing information than I had any right to expect. Thank you so much for the time and thought you put into your post.
I have never met Pat Rogers, but rest assured, "Learning has occurred."
Last edited by Lex Luthier; 04-08-2020 at 01:08 PM.
"If I ever needed to hunt in a tuxedo, then this would be the rifle I'd take." - okie john
"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself." - Michel De Montaigne
Unfortunately Pat didn't have much influence on me in a personal manner because I never capitalized on the opportunity to train with him. It was one of those things on my list, but life happened and now the chance is gone. I've read a lot of what he wrote over the years, though, and it's nice to be able to draw a little attention to a subject that people don't readily associate with Pat: The defensive shotgun.
Some details on the gun:
The barrel is 18.5" long when removed from the gun. Sitting in the gun it's 17" from the receiver...as short as it can get without NFA registration. As shown in the LF link, Pat used an even shorter gun in uniform working Robbery. I don't believe (Ithaca experts feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that this is a standard factory configuration. I believe the barrel was cut down and the front rifle sight was re-soldered to the barrel.
EDIT - after doing some poking around it seems that Ithaca did make an 18.5" barreled 37 Police model. Most I've seen have been longer 20" barreled guns, but the 18" version could be had from the factory.
The rifle sights on the gun point to heavy use of slugs and the realities of buckshot spread at close range...which is minimal. While a bead can be used if one has a good mount, a good mount is a luxury that is not always available in the real world. Rifle style sights allow a quick, useful sight reference even when one has a sub-optimal mount. For defensive use of a shotgun rifle sights really are much better than beads for most humans.
The stock's LOP is just a hair shy of 13". Which likely means it was cut down a bit, too. (Again, Ithaca experts can correct me if I'm wrong)
The butt pad is also ground down on top to prevent the gun from snagging during a mount from a high-ready/port arms style carry.
The addition of the strap to the forend is likely a result of seeing how often people's forward hand separates from the gun under recoil with these corn-cob style forends.
While Pat wasn't famous for his shotgun knowledge, the setup on this gun has a lot of subtle touches that show he knew the defensive gauge very, very well.
Last edited by TCinVA; 04-08-2020 at 06:51 PM.
3/15/2016
Thank you Bill for your kind words. Dov I do have a retired Shreveport PD 870 with a 4 rd tube, that lives in my closet with flight control buck. My truck shotgun is a Super 90 M1 Benelli with a 7 rd tube. Ghost loaded she can hold . CYA
The Thin Blue Line is TOO Thin........Thug Life Must End
Thanks for the response, but I was mostly being a wise acre, though I had a faint image of you carrying 2-3 shotguns to backup the j frames. I believe a few people have made shoulder rigs for whippit shotguns, muzzle down more or less vertical, suppose you could have one under each arm and transition when the primary stocked gauge went dry. /jk
Seriously though I have wondered if Ed Lovett and/or Jim Cirillo were significant influences on you & your choices.
Ithaca use to make a Model 37 Stakeout model. It had a pistol grip and no stock. The barrel was cut back to the front of the magazine. Because the barrel was short they added the loop on the fore end to prevent the hand from slipping forward.
Those are nice guns TC.
TCinVA, that was hundreds of dollars worth of knowledge, wisdom, and experience in your post that you shared with us. One of many on here that make this the best gun forum in existence. It answered several questions I had about defensive shotgun use. Thank you very much for sharing. I really look forward to the day I get to do some shotgun training with you.
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