Home Defense Choke

[Lord Bodak]

After a lot of reading about HD loads, I think I'm going to pick up a few brands of #1 buck and see how they pattern with my 870. Now, what choke would be good for an HD situation? I have a Modified and an IC tube.

[pauli]

depending on how long the shots you have to take are, it might not matter.

[hillbilly]

If you are really, really determined, get a bunch of ammo, a bunch of chokes, and shoot a whole bunch of targets at real, legitimate "inside the house" distances.

Maximum range is probably 15 feet here.

Shoot a whole bunch of targets from almost contact range to 15 feet.

Or, you could save a whole lot of time and money and just do a little imagining and realize that with a shotgun, at 15 feet or less, choke is not a factor at all.

To perfectly honest about it, at distances less than 15 feet, (most real home invasion situations) it really doesn't even matter what you put in the shotgun, either....birdshot, slugs, 00 buck, T shot, saboted slugs.......

At less than 15 feet a shotgun blast is pretty much a shotgun blast.

Specific example? This story......

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81082&highlight=home

I talked with an officer who was at the scene. At first, they thought the assailant had been hit in the head with a slug.......until they found the plastic shot cup inside his brain cavity during the autopsy.......#7 small game loads, I think they were.....$3 a box at Wal-Mart.



hillbilly

[dfariswheel]

Of the two choices you listed, the Improved Cylinder would be best.

For a TRUE inside the home gun, the more open the choke, the better.

[fecmech]

Here are 2 pics of Federal top gun target loads @15' with 7.5 shot. Big holes in the cyl pic are from the wad. Paper is standard 8.5X11' paper. Gun was a Beretta 390 with cylinder and full choke tubes.n Nick

[porterdog]

Here are some patterns I shot over the weekend; Rem 27 pellet #4 (left) vs. Win 9 pellet 00 (right), all out of my 18.25" Wingmaster w/cylinder bore... Blue dots in photos are ~1".

5 Yards:
http://houseofun.ms11.net/Misc/scattergun/5%20yards.jpg

10 Yards:
http://houseofun.ms11.net/Misc/scattergun/10%20yards.jpg

15 Yards:
http://houseofun.ms11.net/Misc/scattergun/15%20yards.jpg

I'm using #4 in the house.

hth,
Robert

[Lord Bodak]

Nobody around here had much in the way of buckshot (can you believe that Dick's had NOT ONE box of buckshot, of any kind?), so I placed a CTD order tonight.

On the way I have Winchester & Federal 00 Low-Recoil as well as Winchester & Federal #1. That should be a good start to settling on an HD load.