Great Shotgun vs AR talk...

[Phaedrus]

Note, I still think he's off base with .22LR being a good CCW round but obviously if it works for him it works for him (alluding to one of his older videos). Of course, he's skilled enough to do things most of us can't so in his hands maybe it's not so bad.

[MickAK]

I wish he would quit making sense. If he doesn't stop I'm going to end up with a Trash Cannon.

[mmc45414]

A 12 gauge Brenneke shotgun slug is about .68 caliber and 500 grains. I haven’t tried to figure how buckshot compares, but it is also a massive payload compared to each round of 5.56.

I was recently doing some nerding on this, looking at load data for potentially reloading #1 for practice rounds (ETA: this would depend on actual availability of #1B as a component, and maybe a few more 209 primers on hand...). I think Qty15 #1B is about ~650gn, divided by 77gn is more than eight.

[OldManClemens]

I don’t think it’s possible to scientifically determine how many rounds of a certain type of ammunition it takes to physiologically stop someone since most stops are psychological. I can say the training I’ve received in the military, law enforcement, and the private sector generally leans towards the idea of three to six rounds per threat. Unless you’re hitting the brain or the spine with your rounds, what you’re doing is causing bleeding. You’re letting air in and letting blood out. If some determined adversary isn’t going to be a psychological stop, and you fail to hit the spine or brain, then they’re going to fight you until their blood pressure drops to the point that they fall over. It doesn’t much matter what small arm you shot them with, you’re going to have to keep shooting until they stop. If you’re counting on your chosen 5.56 defensive load to reliably physiologically incapacitate determined adversaries in one or two shots, I highly recommend you research terminal ballistics a little more.

I believe the Navy SEAL some folks have mentioned is Michael Day. He entered a room and immediately took fire from three different hostiles using AK-47s. He soaked up a lot of bullets. Then he killed those guys.

ETA: back when Tom Givens was still based in Memphis, he would hear from ER staff about some of the gunshot victims that were brought in to the local level 1 trauma centers. I can’t remember if this is something he wrote or something that he stated during the class I took with him about five years ago, but at the time the highest number of handgun rounds the doctors removed from the heart of someone who ended up surviving was 6. Human beings are pretty damn resilient.

You also have to keep in context WHERE those people were shot who survived who had those 6 rounds removed from them. For every story of people saying that this person survived after taking this many shots or that many shots, I have also seen plenty of people who had succumbed after taking only one shot. Heck, I've seen people die after being shot with a .22 and have seen people survive (although they most likely weren't the same person afterward). I once saw someone shot in the head who was standing and talking with brain matter visible, while another guy who was shot in the head from behind (9mm) had the bullet literally stuck in, and poking out the front of his forehead. I have also seen someone survive after purposefully/intentionally shooting themselves in the face with a shotgun (essentially blowing off the entire front of their face, but leaving their brain/brainstem intact).

There's obviously going to be outliers, and there has to be factors taken into consideration like what substances the person being shot had ingested previously, were they wearing body armor, and there's also a whole bunch of luck (or being unlucky) involved.

[WobblyPossum]

I think there might be some confusion as Rhett hasn’t posted in this thread at all. I would like to hear some more of his thoughts though. @RustyCrusty

[GJM]

I think there might be some confusion as Rhett hasn’t posted in this thread at all. I would like to hear some more of his thoughts though. @RustyCrusty

In that case, my bad. Let’s make sure, though, we keep Rhett around here, and participating!

[TCinVA]

Never have I heard a credible source indicate that it takes on the average three to five rounds of modern, duty-type ammo from an AR to incapacitate a person!

In the last Shotgun 360 we had a recently retired Army SF NCO who had spent all of his 20 years in the military fighting GWOT.

With everyone there I asked him how many rounds he fired from his weapon to ensure a threat could no longer prosecute an assault. He said seven.

This was not an aberration. The only groups I know of that didn't end up using at least 5 shots in CQB situations were those that started targeting the CNS. Even then, CNS shots weren't always available at which point it went back to 5 rounds.

Modern duty type ammo does pretty good. It holds together and it expands...but that just means the projectile holds together and expands reliably poking a slightly larger hole. It doesn't radically alter the TSC of the 5.56 round, doesn't magically alter how rapidly tissue recovers from the stretch of a single shot, or radically improve the rate at which someone loses blood pressure drops below the threshold necessary to power them. People don't drop dead from 62 grain Speer Gold Dot but soak up half a magazine of green tip because it's basically a fucking Nerf dart.

The simultaneous impact of multiple projectiles will yield superior results because of how it damages tissue.

Every bit of quality training out there for 5.56 caliber rifles involves shooting a series of rapid, accurate shots at typical defensive ranges because 20+ years of recent combat experience with such weapons has proven conclusively that's what it takes.

[Phaedrus]

Good info, @TCinVA. As a civilian I won't likely find myself in the kinds of situations the military deals with but certainly I see the need to expect to shoot until the threat has been stopped. I wonder if the US military will switch to a heavier round? It looks like the new 6.8 round is supposed to have DMR and SAW use, haven't really heard much about it. But I know lots of folks have lobbied for something bigger. The 6mm ARC has been adopted I think, either for DMR or for some special purpose. Possibly something like it might be an option. The guys that have discussed the 5.56 with me had good things to say about the Mk262 but as a civilian I'm just going on what they're telling me.

[Norville]

Every bit of quality training out there for 5.56 caliber rifles involves shooting a series of rapid, accurate shots at typical defensive ranges because 20+ years of recent combat experience with such weapons has proven conclusively that's what it takes.

I hesitate to spend the time on this, but the above has been modern doctrine for some time. Tom Givens has been using the concept of “servings “ for years and treats an AR as a 4 serving weapon and the shotgun as 5-7 servings in home defense applications.

[OldManClemens]

In the last Shotgun 360 we had a recently retired Army SF NCO who had spent all of his 20 years in the military fighting GWOT.

With everyone there I asked him how many rounds he fired from his weapon to ensure a threat could no longer prosecute an assault. He said seven.

This was not an aberration. The only groups I know of that didn't end up using at least 5 shots in CQB situations were those that started targeting the CNS. Even then, CNS shots weren't always available at which point it went back to 5 rounds.

Modern duty type ammo does pretty good. It holds together and it expands...but that just means the projectile holds together and expands reliably poking a slightly larger hole. It doesn't radically alter the TSC of the 5.56 round, doesn't magically alter how rapidly tissue recovers from the stretch of a single shot, or radically improve the rate at which someone loses blood pressure drops below the threshold necessary to power them. People don't drop dead from 62 grain Speer Gold Dot but soak up half a magazine of green tip because it's basically a fucking Nerf dart.

The simultaneous impact of multiple projectiles will yield superior results because of how it damages tissue.

Every bit of quality training out there for 5.56 caliber rifles involves shooting a series of rapid, accurate shots at typical defensive ranges because 20+ years of recent combat experience with such weapons has proven conclusively that's what it takes.

Are we talking about it taking that many rounds in warfare where everyone is covered in body armor, or that's what it takes to take out your average criminal, maybe hopped up on something, no body armor, or any other number of scenarios we can concoct and come up with? Or maybe it took that many rounds because the person shooting kept shooting the target in the same spot over and over despite seeing that it wasn't getting the result they wanted, or several of those shots completely missed the intended target? If you keep shooting someone in the center mass and they're not going down and you keep shooting them center mass and expect a different result but your not getting it, then the fact that it's taking that many shots to stop the threat is most likely the shooter's fault for not changing course and shooting them in the head and hotting their off button completely. Easier said than done obviously, but why keep doing something repeatedly when it's not working instead of changing course ad trying something else? Isn't that what we're taught in failure to stop drills? If your shots to the thoracic cavity don't get the result you're looking for transition to head shots. Doesn't matter what body armor they're wearing other torso or what drugs they are hopped up on, a properly placed head shot is going to stop that threat immediately.