[metalmachine]

I hope someone can give some answers. I've shot game and trap and such with 12 gauge 6&7 shot but never fired 00 buck or 0000 buck. I have an 870 express with 18" open choke barrel for home defense. What sort of effective range can I expect in 00 and 0000 buck if I should be outdoors with this in a SHTF situation?

[only1asterisk]

I've seen more than one deer killed at 50+ yards with 00 If I recall correctly, one had only 1 pellet in a vital area, the other had 3. I would not want to be hit with several pieces at 50 yards. At 75 yards the gun in question would have to really like that particular brand of buckshot to be of much use.

David

[rantingredneck]

OK this first target was shot at 7 yards with Remington Reduced Recoil 00 buck (8 pellets, 1200 fps). You can see the spread of the shot was about 5-6inches.

http://www.rantingredneck.com/evolution/media/Rem870.2.JPG

This one was shot with bird shot at 7 yards and buckshot at 25. It's hard to tell because I didn't put anything black under it for contrast, but the buckshot was spread from one side of the target to the other with some off the body area of the target.

http://www.rantingredneck.com/evolution/media/Rem870.3.JPG

This last one was shot with 2 3/4 inch Remington Sluggers at 25 yds. 8 shots.


http://www.rantingredneck.com/evolution/media/Rem870.1.JPG

I'd advise keeping a mix of slugs/buckshot handy.

You can always keep buckshot in the gun and slugs in a sidesaddle like this


http://www.rantingredneck.com/evolution/media/Rem870.jpg

I keep the 7 round tube loaded with 5 buckshot first followed by 2 slugs with 4 more in the sidesaddle.

With an 18 inch Cyl barrel yours will be a little shorter in range than a 20 inch IC but not by much

[Jim Watson]

Range of a cylinder bore shotgun with buckshot is normally taken as 20-25 yards. After that it seems to be just supressive fire and luck.
On the other hand, my trap gun's improved modified would put about half the load of buck on a mansize target at 45 yards.

How about a screw choke barrel? Cylinder for home defense, full or modified for trekking across contry harassed by zombies on the flanks.

[RNB65]

Cylinder bore guns have a VERY short range with buckshot. I had my 870 Marine Mag at the range a while back shooting at 22"x28" poster board paper at 50 yards. It took 5 rounds of 00buck to score a single hit on the paper -- that's 1 lead ball out of 45 fired that hit the paper.

You might scare the crap out of someone at 50yds, but I'd say 25yds is about the max effective distance with cyl choke and 00buck.

[zinj]

Buckshot spreads out from those cylinder bore barrels really quick. I'd go so far to say that buckshot is best from a moderately choked barrel, as the strength of buckshot is more that it provides multiple hits, and loose chokes comprimise that at range.

Get slugs too.

[only1asterisk]

.

[metalmachine]

can I fire slugs in a regular barrel or need it be rifled? What is a good brand and weight?

[only1asterisk]

can I fire slugs in a regular barrel or need it be rifled? What is a good brand and weight?

That a more ticklish question. I don't know of any common slugs offhand that will damage a either smooth or rifled barrels. Some slugs are made to work with rifled barrels; some are designed for smooth bore. Brenneke or foster slugs work best with smooth bores, but will lead a rifled bore. Sabot slugs work great from rifled bores, but will not stabilize from smooth bores and will have an erratic flight to anywhere but your target. Some recent designs are made to work with either, but I have no direct experience.

David

[RNB65]

can I fire slugs in a regular barrel or need it be rifled? What is a good brand and weight?

Sabot slugs are designed to be shot from a rifled barrel. All other slug types are intended to be shot from a smooth bore barrel.

[only1asterisk]

Sabot slugs are designed to be shot from a rifled barrel. All other slug types are intended to be shot from a smooth bore barrel.

This was true for a long time, but there are now at least a couple of nonsabot loads for rifled barrels.

David

[sonyman74]

Look at this site. They have a lot of scenarios and have answered a lot of my questions on what a bullet will do.http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/theboxotruth.htm

[Bix]

When looking at this question, it's important to define what you mean by "effective range".

Louis Awerbuck has said something on this subject that makes a lot of sense to me. He said, in essence, that the maximum range of your shotgun/load is not the greatest distance you can get one pellet into the target, but rather the greatest distance at which you can keep all your pellets in the target.

That distance is going to vary greatly depending on the gun and the load. I would humbly submit that shotshell construction has as much or more to do with buckshot patterning as choke constriction. I've seen cylinder bore guns print patterns with the blue hull TAP loads at 20 yards that could be covered with my hand.

You really need to just do the leg work with your gun a variety of buckshot loads. My particular gun/load combo is good to 25 yards - beyond that, it's slugs.

[CWL]

Do a search here under shotgun "patterning" to learn how to get the right gun+shells setup for you.

18" Remmy barrel, I would guess that your effective controlled buckshot range (all buck in a spread the width of your hand or less) would be no more than 20 yards, 15-yards would be more like it. Slugs of course will increase your range.

In a SD situation, you still need to hit your target in a manner that will stop the threat(s) -meaning all buckshot delivered into target, not just launch buck haphazardly so it may endanger others.

Practice by shooting various loads of buckshot into paper plate sized targets at 7-yards, 10-yards, 15-yards, 20-yards to understand how your personal gun will perform.

[Plink]

I've always shot buck through a full choke, myself. I figure there's not going to be much difference in the pattern at close range anyway, and it lets me deal with threats at a longer distance if necessary. I can keep all the pellets in the kill zone of a combat silhuette at 40 yards using S&B 00. I don't know what your patterns will be like from a cylinder bore, but it's going to spread quite a bit past 20 yards or so. If your gun has screw in chokes, try patterning it with a full choke just to see. Oddly enough, Brenneke KO slugs seem to prefer being shot through the full choke and are quite accurate. Makes for a good all around combo.

[metalmachine]

Thanks for all the info. You have all helped me out greatly, and I'll now hit the range.

[Fast Frank]

There's another side to this discussion.

When we speak of effective range, we need to remember that our right to shoot has an effective range, too.

Here in Houston, the average house sits on 1/8 acre of property.

Here in Houston, shooting a man that is not on your property is going to be VERY difficult to explain.

So, the effective range of the shotgun has to be from the house to the property line.

Now, if you happen to be living in Jed Clampett's mansion or out in the Boonies then things might be different.

For me, however, 25 yards is about it.

I've been to the pistol range with my 1187P, and at 25 yards the pattern will stay on a silouette target.

So I guess my answer to "What is the range of 00 buck" is yes.:)

[Fred Fuller]

The other consideration (patterning side) is penetration. In general, buckshot is going to run out of effective amounts of penetration before it runs out of pattern. Buckshot starts out as spherical projectiles. A look at ballistic coefficients and sectional density shows that the round ball has the poorest numbers in those categories. That is to say, a round ball's ability to fly through the air and its ability to penetrate once it reaches its target are both compromised by its shape.

There are cases on record where a single stray buckshot pellet has produced a human fatality at ranges somewhat in excess of 100 yards. Ballistic tables usually indicate that the maximum range of buckshot is 600-800 yards, various military organizations indicat a maximum effective range for buckshot at 50 yards or so ( http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/docs/swos/ops/73-13.html ).

Once upon a time I was interested in seeing just how far out I could push buckshot patterns, and arrived at a choke/barrel/load combination (18" Remington 870 Express barrel, with extended forcing cone and Patternmaster choke tube, firing Federal Premium 3" magnum 000 buckshot, 10 pellets per round) that could give reasonably effective (30- 40%) patterns on an E type silhouette at 100 yards. (See also "The 75-Yard Riot Gun?" at http://www.jtk3.com/laissezfirearm/870full.htm for more.) At 100 yards 000 buckshot pellets would still go through the 2X4" treated lumber that made up the target frame supporting the silhouette targets, which was a sufficient indication to me they were capable of producing a serious wound at that range. I was satisfied that this combination was effective in an antipersonnel role at 100 yards and a bit more. However, the particular choke tube I was using precluded shooting slugs- not an advantage I really wanted to give up.

So the answer to your question is: your particular gun, barrel, choke and load combination could be effective at perhaps a longer range than you might think, but not reliable at as long a range as you might hope. In other words, you can endanger innocent bystanders at a lot longer range than you can reliably stop a bad guy. Given that information, responsibility dictates that you limit defensive use of buckshot to whatever range that you can reliably keep ALL your pellets on target. If you can be absolutely certain sure there is nothing downrange but bad guys then it becomes a 'to whom it may concern' deal- but that sort of situation is not likely to arise very often. And remember- Murphy is always there.

Stay safe,

lpl/nc

[Shadan7]

Lee, that's excellent info about your efforts to push the effective envelope. I would not have thought it possible to get 00 out that far with any reliability, and I've been a shotgunner for 40 years. Thank you.

Me, I figure HD distances for buckshot (if outdoors, say 15 - 20 yards), slugs beyond that.

7

[grendelbane]

I too once thought that I had to have a long range shotgun. I experimented with Patternmaster choke tube, and 00 and 000 buck.

I had some success, too. Still, I never considered mine to be a 100 yard weapon.

I had lots of fun experimenting. Still, today, if I needed to shoot at a 100 yards I would grab a pistol caliber carbine before I would my shotgun.

I got my Benelli to the point where I could pattern 00 and 000 buck at 25 yards on a regular piece of 8 1/2 x 11" notebook paper.