A shotgun to keep bad guys from busting down my front door? 00 buck? Even a whole handful of bad guys.
Yeah, you can't do much better than that. And I agree.
But I have a problem. And this is me. Not you, necessarily.
Here in the suburbs there is a better chance of finding a place you can shoot a rifle than you can find to shoot a shotgun, sorta. So I don't even own anything scattery of any halfway decent prowler stopping utility but antique Remingtons. And none of those are a pump gun. I can't operate a pump gun. Well, I have barely ever operated a pump gun. Most of it is easy, yes, but there are little levers and switches and button and such for loading and unloading and locking this or that back...
I'd have to go far afield for familiarization, and further for training. As my knowledge is woefully inadequate.
Total rounds I've fired in my short shooty lifetime is in the thousands. But is is like 92% pistols, 7% rifles of all sorts, and 1% shotguns. A tube of buckshot or a 30 round magazine of 5.56 are both almost certainly a better selection at 3AM for prowlers than a pistol. Assuming all have a light. But I should probably go with what I am most familiar with.
Ideally I take it upon myself to get better with a shotgun and get lots of training and practice, but I am getting old and slow.
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About Me
6 comments:
I would always choose a reliable self-loading shotgun over a slide-action, given the choice.
Someday when I'm not poor, I'll have a 1301.
With #1 Buck. https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44751
I know this might violate the "Roast Guinea Pig" rule, but what about a Saiga 12 style shotgun?
They are legal in Maryland with a fixed stock.
The SDS Lynx 12 is around $400 takes Saiga mags, has a optics rail, is liked a lot by Jeff Zimba (Big Shooterist Channel on YouTube, published author and writer for Small Arms Review, American Rifleman, etc.) https://youtu.be/7tH5PuP7PVk
and by a bunch at the Saiga12 forum.
Vs. the current hotness of a 1301 at $880+
What Tam said. It's amazing to see how many people short-stroke pump shotties when things get exciting. Doesn't seem to matter how much time they have on the gun, at some point they will do it. Real time waster for sure! Might could be the rest of your life you throw away.
I've had good results with a H&K/Benelli with ghost ring sights. Once it broke in, it has never balked, and can put slugs into target at 100yds.
Problem with buckshot is it penetrates typical house walls easier than 5.56 or 7.62 does. That's why swat teams have moved to 5.56, as the neighbors are much safer than using 5.56 or buckshot or 9mm. (9mm is scary with how many house walls it will blow through.)
The main takeaway from a 4day tactical shotgun class was how limited the shotgun is as a weapon. Within a narrow window of distance and ammo it's very effective. Change a variable and things tend to go to hell rapidly.
Most people hate the shotgun due to bad training or experiences, and therefore perform poorly. Which is why in most police videos they almost never grab it for situations where it should be employed. Proper training really helps to get shooters to be competent with them.
With your hand/arm/neck problems, don't be afraid to consider the 20ga. Possibly 16ga in your neck of the woods? I used 16ga a bit when I lived near Philly as a kid, but don't recall how different it is from 12ga, or how available ammo and guns are for it.
Saigas are a lot finickier than a 1301 or pre-Cerberus 11-87.
The only reason for their popularity as Open guns in 3-gun is the speed of the reload for longer field courses, but they're as fussy as 2011s.
If you need to reload a shotgun (or carbine) in a home defense scenario, you're gonna wind up with your own Wikipedia article.
This is a classic "What gun for Bigfoot?" worry.
You are most probably right Tam.
Until very recently I hadn't ever shot a shotgun.
The only other review I'd like to point to was the one by Russell Phagan (SinistralRifleman) https://www.recoilweb.com/chairman-pow-135952.html
He stated that the one he tested, after fixing a few of the "teething" problems of a it being a part of a the first batch of twenty imported, ran through the rest his big box of leftover ammo (400+rd) with a random mix of low and high-brass birdshot, buckshot and slugs with only about 12 stoppages most having to do with a sharp edge on the chamber.
He also said that it ran bottom of the barrel bulk pack Winchester Universal right out of the box.
He also stated that it was as good or better than all of the Saiga12s he had owned.
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