Shotgun Capacity in Real World Use

[Unobtanium]

Bingo. I don’t know how many times I’ve posted something along those lines in response to someone questioning why a non-LE private citizen should care about how their ammunition tests in the FBI protocol. I think the bad guy’s arms are the most likely intermediate barriers a good guy is going to have to defeat, whether LE or not. People have a lot of bones in them.

I always see wounds to arms/hands when someone wielding a firearm gets shot up.

[TCinVA]

Psychological stop only, which is fine as robbers tend to not be very dedicated to pressing the assault. It's business, not personal, and they want to live to rob again. Better shot and/or better shot placement would be more likely to result in a bang-flop then a bang-flee. Buckshot is best shot, but no idea what papaw was using.

I'd love to know, but I wouldn't rule out birdshot.

The psychological aspect of the shotgun deserves special mention here. On the outside of the store the second armed robber could be heard to say "Shotgun!" as he turned tail to run. Then we get the dramatics from the shootee who was untroubled by California's assault weapons laws. (Shocker)

The boomstick gets respect. It's a powerful force multiplier.

Good example of intermediate barriers needing to be defeated. Bad guy's arms and long gun are blocking a lot of his good gibbly bits, and are now intermediate barriers. It's not always plywood and drywall. This is why cartridges that pass the ENTIRETY of the FBI protocols are superior to cartridges that pass some or none and should be used when available and appropriate for the firearm selected.



Shotguns have an admirably record of ending problem people's problematic behavior. I have personally never taken a case where a defender who fired the shotgun *prior to entanglement* lost. The only losers failed to fire or got entangled and fired while fighting over the gun to no avail.

Agreed.

[Duces Tecum]

Good example of intermediate barriers needing to be defeated. Bad guy's arms and long gun are blocking a lot of his good gibbly bits, and are now intermediate barriers. It's not always plywood and drywall. This is why cartridges that pass the ENTIRETY of the FBI protocols are superior to cartridges that pass some or none and should be used when available and appropriate for the firearm selected.

Didn't know FBI protocols were available for shotguns. Would you happen to have a link?

Thanks.
Duces

[45dotACP]

A righteous smiting indeed. Ol' pops there got hits on target with a single round and the would be thief thought he had an arm blown off and ran shrieking in fear.

One of the best ways it could have ended. Definitively ended the fight, didn't take any damage (did suffer a heart attack the situation caused tho poor guy) and through both his actions and collaboration with the police, allowed LE to take three members of what looks like a heavily armed robbery crew off the board.

Sent from my SM-A326U using Tapatalk

[Pnut]

I always see wounds to arms/hands when someone wielding a firearm gets shot up.

That’s probably because of THREAT FOCUS. The shooter sees the threat… the gun, and subconsciously tunnel visions onto that.

[Erick Gelhaus]

And there's the issue that in many cases those hands/arms and guns are in front of center mass.

[BehindBlueI's]

Didn't know FBI protocols were available for shotguns. Would you happen to have a link?

Thanks.
Duces

I was speaking more in generalities then shotgun specific, so I used the qualifier of when available/applicable language. I don't know what the protocols beyond "Use Federal Flight Control" are for this, but use FFC...

[Tensaw]

I don't know what the protocols beyond "Use Federal Flight Control" are for this, but use FFC...

Out. Standing!

[TCinVA]

Didn't know FBI protocols were available for shotguns. Would you happen to have a link?

Thanks.
Duces

There aren't any specific to shotgun. The FBI penetration standards are an attempt to quantify what it takes for a projectile to reliably hit the vital organs of a threat.

Bullets that may be required to incapacitate aggressors must reliably penetrate a minimum of approximately 10 to 12 inches of tissue in order to ensure disruption of the major organs and blood vessels in the torso from any angle and through excessive adipose tissue, hypertrophied muscle, or intervening anatomic structures, such as a raised arm.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....formance-Facts

The typical FBI tests in ordnance gelatin are the standard used for measurement for all firearms. Note that there isn't a 1:1 comparison of penetration in ordnance gelatin and flesh as flesh is a heterogeneous medium (Some tissue is very elastic, some is very hard, and some is very inelastic) DocGKR did a good writeup on defensive munitions for the 12 gauge in the following thread:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....or-LE-duty-use

Some of the pictures disappeared, but the data is still solid.



The temporary stretch cavity you see in the first 3/4 of that gel block on impact shows you the synergistic effect of multiple projectiles hitting about the same place at about the same time and how it tends to pulverize tissue. Then the pellets radiate out from the entrance as they are each acted on by the physics of passing through tissue and spread out to hit more structures inside the body.

To put it bluntly, properly performing buckshot is the most destructive thing you can lay on another living creature short of ordnance.

Poorly performing loads like birdshot don't carry enough energy and are stopped very shallowly inside flesh. Think of the difference between being hit by a golf ball and a ping-pong ball. The ping pong ball simply cannot carry enough energy to do any serious damage because it's too light. Same happens with birdshot and smaller buckshot pellets:



That shallow penetration has real-world consequences.



Birdshot used against an oblivious coed at probably 10 feet or so is insufficient to stop her from walking away and calling the cops.

Shotguns aren't magic. We're trying to hit the same things with a shotgun as we are with a rifle or a pistol because that's how you reliably incapacitate a threat. A properly loaded shotgun just does more damage to those critical structures per press of the trigger than handguns or rifles because of the projectiles that they fire. Multiple projectiles hitting roughly the same spot at the same time overwhelms the ability of tissue to stretch. A slug punches a big damn hole in tissue and causes no small amount of temporary stretch itself.

But it needs to penetrate deep enough (past the FBI minimums) to reliably hit the stuff that turns bad guys off.

[DDTSGM]

I always see wounds to arms/hands when someone wielding a firearm gets shot up.

That’s probably because of THREAT FOCUS. The shooter sees the threat… the gun, and subconsciously tunnel visions onto that.

It's quite common for the hands of role players to take a beating during force on force with sim rounds.

Also, quite common for shots to cluster around the weapons on paper targets depicting a bad guy holding a weapon.