[SHusky57]

I know, I know. Overpenetration. But is overpenetration still a concern if you live on a few acres and your nearest neighbor is at least 100 yards away?

My thinking is that with ghost ring sights, a slug can be as accurate as a pistol caliber carbine and effective to about the same range. Of course, there is less capacity, but the .70 caliber projectile should more than make up for that.

Anything will penetrate drywall. My thinking is that by loading with buckshot, I can't control the spread and it would be more dangerous than a well-placed slug....

Of course, if cost wasn't an issue I might just pony up and get an HK USC or an AR15.... but a decent shotgun runs about $300 and under 100 yards (the range I am looking at) has a heck of a lot more firepower.

So, to put out the question for the shotgun experts....
As far as accuracy and effective range are concerned, is a shotgun with ghost ring sights and slugs about the same capability as a pistol caliber carbine?

Anything will go through drywall. But is it likely that a slug can exit a house after possibly exiting an intruder, go 100 yards and enter another house?

I may just end up going with 00 buck but I am just curious about opinions. Grandpappy kept a double barrel 16 gauge loaded with slugs, although where he kept it I never found out.

[ArmedBear]

I don't know. Do you think a slug will be a good enough "stopper"?:D

[SHusky57]

I think the slug will be a good enough stopper.
In fact, it's so good I am worried it might keep going.

But in the rare event of a Russian paratroopers coming out of the sky like Red Dawn, I don't want to be limited to 20 yards effectiveness. Hence the desire for slugs and ghost ring sights.

And yes, I could just get a bolt action rifle and an AK and an RPG. But in Red Dawn or the Zombie apocalypse, I don't know that I could lug all that around at the same time.

It seems that a shotgun with slugs is going to offer the most versatility. Charging grizzly bears - it has enough power. Russian spetznaz with heavy body armor - even if it doesn't penetrate, getting hit by a slug is going to cause some major damage just from blunt trauma. Undead biker gang - you get 6-9 shots depending on shotgun, with a few more in the side saddle. It's decent out to about 100 yards which is pushing the limits of realism. Most stuff is going to happen within 25 yards if not 5 yards. But it's nice knowing that if need be you can go out to 100 yards and still have a .70 caliber projectile.

[c5_nc]

Buckshot will not really spread much inside a house, pattern only opens at distance. I keep smaller #4 buckshot in mine.

[Fred Fuller]

Disclaimer first- I'm not a shotgun expert.

First thing is, not all slugs are created equal. A dead soft lead shuttlecock- shaped Foster type slug is not likely to penetrate nearly as much as a swaged, hard lead ally Brenneke. They tend to flatten and stop, sometimes with surprising ease. Brennekes tend to penetrate a lot more. I don't have any experience with sabot slugs (told you I wasn't an expert) but I'd imagine many of them would penetrate less than Brennekes as well.

So- what kind of slugs did you have in mind using?

Second thing is, what's the exterior wall of your house? And the neighbor's house? Vinyl siding? Brick veneer? That will have a lot to do with whether your slugs escape your premises and wander about the neighborhood. The maximum range of a shotgun slug (unobstructed and fired level) is almost a mile*. A hundred yards isn't much compared to that... we put a 40' steel conex container between us and our neighbor, and I don't think anything we let go inside the house will make it through that.

As to effectiveness, bottom line is that nothing will be any more effective than you are capable of shooting and hitting with it. Misses are pretty ineffective, hits with big bore slugs tend to put a quick end to proceedings. Shotgun sensei Louis Awerbuck uses nothing but slugs in his defensive shotguns, fwiw...

Effective range? With a good smoothbore barrel and a decent set of sights, 100 yards should be manageable. About the same as a pistol caliber carbine, with a lot more oomph on the receiving end with the shotgun. Much, of course, depends on the shooter. Plinking with shotgun slugs is hardly an exercise for those with tender shoulders and sensitive constitutions.

hth,

lpl

* http://www.shootingwire.com/shooting_wire.html?date=2007-04-09

[rundm]

the slug is not going to go through the walls and into another house 100 yards away. are they overkill in a house, yes but if it is what you want to use, load them up and use them. my slugs are accurate at the range to at least 30 yards. they are more than enough for inside a house but you could always use the low recoil that many companies are selling now.

[dom1104]

My thinking is that with ghost ring sights, a slug can be as accurate as a pistol caliber carbine and effective to about the same range. Of course, there is less capacity, but the .70 caliber projectile should more than make up for that.

So, to put out the question for the shotgun experts....
As far as accuracy and effective range are concerned, is a shotgun with ghost ring sights and slugs about the same capability as a pistol caliber carbine?


1. It will NOT be as accurate as a pistol caliber carbine. If you have ever shot a slug before, it is worlds more recoil than a pistol cal carbine.

Which is not a huge deal on the first shot, but if you miss, and you will if you are scared, the second one is a LONG time coming unless you get trained and trained well.

The issue with guns on the internet is "stopping power, and caliber, and brand name etc"

The issue with guns in REAL LIFE is getting hits on target. And a PCC will do this FAR better. Or a shotgun with buckshot.


Here is an example.

Shotgun: BOOOOOOOOOM! shuck shuck. find sight, point, BOOM!

Pistol Cal Carbine: Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

I love shotguns, and I think they are great for home defense, but talking yourself into the fact it is more accurate then a pistol carbine, is not true.


2. Comparing a gun with MASSIVE recoil and a 8 shot capacity to a gun with almost none and a 30+ round capacity, or hundreds with a few quick reloads, its just not the same ball of wax.




I think the better comparison is between a shotgun and a pump action rifle or lever action rifle. both have limited rounds, and high power.


Which brings me to something I havent thought about.

If you mean Pistol cal carbine like a 43 mag lever action, thats very VERY similar to a shotgun. tube fed, slow to reload, high power. lighter and handier tho.

if you mean pistol caliber carbine like the 45 ACP Beretta CX4, then the capacity and semi auto'ness' wins out in my opinion.

Cost on the other hand, favors the shotgun, so personally I went with the shotgun. But a shotgun with slugs is not in the same league as a semi auto rifle or pistol carbine.

[remingtondude58]

I think slugs will be just fine as long as you have good training and practice

[rcmodel]

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

rc

[lobo9er]

Shotgun: BOOOOOOOOOM! shuck shuck. find sight, point, BOOM!

your right as far avg joe with out practice. with a little practice maybe a training course a quick follow up shot is pretty, well quick. granted a semi atuo anything is faster, but theres always semi auto shotty avail. and your right totally different firearm not apples to apples.
if you live in a true free state (unlike me) you could buy a saiga twelve and team it up with a couple drums. no you got best of both worlds. hi cap mag fed home defense. drum of 1 oz slugs 'bout do the trick short of an army.

[GRIZ22]

An open choke shotgun spreads about an inch a yard. That's easily contained on a man sized target at 20 yds. Low recoil buckshot holds a pattern better. If you are not aimed in properly you may hit the BG with a few pellets where a slug can miss.

Anything will penetrate drywall. My thinking is that by loading with buckshot, I can't control the spread and it would be more dangerous than a well-placed slug....


That's true but the buckshot is much easier to stop. I don't like the idea of slugs in the HD gun.

[Husker_Fan]

Inside a home, the spread will be pretty small.

[mgkdrgn]

My thinking is that by loading with buckshot, I can't control the spread and it would be more dangerous than a well-placed slug....

You won't need to. At HD ranges, buckshot just isn't going to spread -that- much. It's not like you get a 180 spread right out of the end of the barrel.

So, to put out the question for the shotgun experts....
As far as accuracy and effective range are concerned, is a shotgun with ghost ring sights and slugs about the same capability as a pistol caliber carbine?

No contest at all. If you had a pistol caliber carbine in both hands and could work one each with both feet you'd still be outgunned by a shotgun at close range.

Anything will go through drywall. But is it likely that a slug can exit a house after possibly exiting an intruder, go 100 yards and enter another house?

There ARE slugs that could do that, yes. But why limit yourself to -one- projectile (1/2 inch or so wide) when you can fire multiple projectiles covering an area 12" - 18" across? Nothing like turning your near misses into hits. The denser the pattern the better ... hence my like of the "smaller" buckshot for HD. Personally I like #1 for a nice balance of size -vs- density.

The vast vast vast majority of SD shooting take place at 10 feet or less. Slugs would be fine if you are shooting at somebody 25 yards or more away ... but if you are you had better have a damn good lawyer, and you should be using a rifle for that anyway!

[SHusky57]

There ARE slugs that could do that, yes. But why limit yourself to -one- projectile (1/2 inch or so wide) when you can fire multiple projectiles covering an area 12" - 18" across? Nothing like turning your near misses into hits. The denser the pattern the better ... hence my like of the "smaller" buckshot for HD. Personally I like #1 for a nice balance of size -vs- density.

Because there is a nursery in the house opposite the master bedroom, and 20" is a bigger margin of error than I would like.
Because if I go out in the field, slugs will work against charging bears (not that there are any here, but I wouldn't have to change).
Because if Russian paratroopers fall in my backyard, I won't have to change out loads to hit them at distance.
But mostly the first one.... as far as the accuracy comments below, a shotgun isn't go to be LESS accurate than any of my pistols set-up for Home defense, and it's going to be a lot more powerful. Sure it may recoil more than a 9mm carbine, but it's going to hit exponentially harder, which is important if the bad guy can shoot back. You may only get one shot before he starts to return fire, so it better count.

Also, even with a .357 magnum, one of the most powerful handgun rounds (in service calibers at least) anyone know the story where the trooper shot a guy 6 times then ran back to his patrol car, and while running back got hit with a 22 or 25 acp and died from a fluke shot that went straight to the heart? Point is, fighting is all about probabilities. The felon may have died later from injuries, but unfortunately for the trooper, he needed to die faster. Massive trauma and CNS is the only way to do that and a .70 caliber flying brick is going to be the best way to achieve that. You don't need to depend on expansion or tumbling (although it could help), you just need to put the lead on center mass.

Again, buckshot will work fine, but 20" is too far of a spread, and it puts a huge limitation range wise on my shotgun. If I can put headshots with a Glock 17 at 25 yards, then I feel a long arm should too.

The issue with guns in REAL LIFE is getting hits on target. And a PCC will do this FAR better. Or a shotgun with buckshot.

I'm not so sure. Front sight, squeeze trigger is the same whether using a PCC or shotgun. With a PCC, especially in 9mm and .40, your ability for stops with a few rounds is limited. What that means is the BG has more time to shoot back. Granted a 9mm headshot will most likely stop the fight (although plenty of people get 9mm headshots and shoot back, the brain is only a small area of the head), but a slug to the head or center mass will probably end things pronto.

2. Comparing a gun with MASSIVE recoil and a 8 shot capacity to a gun with almost none and a 30+ round capacity, or hundreds with a few quick reloads, its just not the same ball of wax.


Which is why I am trying to figure out which is better. I don't know how many of you do action shooting.... but in a 30 second course I can hit 5 targets with 5 rounds a piece. That means that if I don't put the bad guy down ASAP, he can do the same. 30 round capacity doesn't mean jack if he doesn't go down after the first few shots - because by then, he is probably shooting back.

I know it sounds kind of silly.... but go to an action shooting event and watch even the crappiest competitors. One or two non-CNS hits with a pistol caliber weapon is not going to produce a stop. That means they can't shoot back at you. Whereas even with just 8 shells, I don't know that it would take more than 2 in the most unrealistic of circumstances to put someone down.

[mljdeckard]

There are certainly legitimate reasons for keeping slugs around. Somne guys keep them in the sidesaddle, or a mix, three buck in the front, two slugs in the back. This way, if you want to load a slug you can do it pretty quickly.

You should pattern your shotgun, you might be surprised how tight your pattern is with regular 00 buck. Using the same ghoist-ring sights you can get good precision, and using say, #4 buck, you can stretch the range too.

[zhyla]

My understanding of the effectiveness of buckshot is that anything more is equally effective indoors. You've already got penetration issues with buckshot, why make it worse with slugs? What's the real need here? Why not go with a rifle if you don't care about penetration and are concerned about range?

The outdoor scenarios you're posing seem imaginary. If I was a cop/prosecutor I'd want to know why exactly you shot a bad guy 100 yards away. Having a few slugs in a side saddle can assuage you overactive imagination.

[hogshead]

1 #4 1 buckshot 2 slugs If you have ever shot any living thing at 5 yards with # 4 shot you will never question lethality and I doubt it would penetrate a dwelling over fifty yards away.

[John Parker]

Russian spetznaz with heavy body armor - even if it doesn't penetrate,

If they're after you, it's time to get right with God.

[hogshead]

also would like to know how tall a ladder you would have to be on to fire a slug level and get a mile range

[76shuvlinoff]

No expert here but here's my set up and reasoning

My 12 ga 870 with a 20 inch smooth bore and 2 shot extension is set up with one slug then the rest are 00 all 2 3/4.
For MY families protection in MY home and MY area this is the combo I believe in and practice with. I have the option of somewhat surgical with the first round or shuck shuck and it's out of the way. ( Truth is I'd send it downrange instead of wasting it on the ground.)
I think the energy transfer from a 12 ga slug on someone even in body armor is going to be unsettling at the very least.

As far as pistol caliber carbines go... the 1894c in .357 is at the ready next to the 870.

[SHusky57]

Lots of replies, all of them interesting.

The outdoor scenarios you're posing seem imaginary. If I was a cop/prosecutor I'd want to know why exactly you shot a bad guy 100 yards away. Having a few slugs in a side saddle can assuage you overactive imagination.

They mostly are. I keep handguns for HD. My long guns are usually locked up. But I just want to know my long gun is capable of anything it may be required to do. I may end up loading it with #4 or 00 - I'll probably make up my mind after taking a few classes.

I want to figure out what experts recommend without paying $20 for their books or DVDs. Louis Awerbuck seems to be a super-expert on shotgunning, and if he loads his with slugs that's of note to me.

Also, besides spetznaz commandoes.... if I wanted to hit a coyote at 50 yards, would a full choke buckshot shotty or a cylinder bore slug shotty do better?
The reason I ask is because the shotgun has to double as a poor man's ranch rifle....

My understanding of the effectiveness of buckshot is that anything more is equally effective indoors. You've already got penetration issues with buckshot, why make it worse with slugs? What's the real need here? Why not go with a rifle if you don't care about penetration and are concerned about range?

The real need:
1. Worry about 15" spread in the longest possible shot in my house 15 yards.
2. The real need.... I want to buy a new gun..... and I am trying to justify it as hard as I can.
3. Wal-mart has shotgun ammo in stock
4. For some reason, I just don't want a semi-auto rifle. If AR-15s were like $300 I would consider it, but if I am going to spend $1k on a rifle, I am going to buy a nice bolt action and put about $200-300 in optics. But considering my 30-30 will do everything I need it to do for hunting, a shotgun make more sense than another rifle.

So I'll continue getting internet opinions but it might come down to....
full choke with #4 buck or cylinder bore with slugs?

[Fred Fuller]

hogshead,

I linked to the study which made that statement in my post above. Here ya go:

http://www.shootingwire.com/shooting_wire.html?date=2007-04-09
Ballistic Study Raises Questions About Shotgun Only Hunting

There's an old saying about the word "assume" that may be proven true when it comes to the accepted assumption that, when it comes to ricochet dangers, hunting with a shotgun is inherently safer than rifles.

A new study that came from a November 2004 hunting accident in Pennsylvania would seem to turn the assumption that shotgun slugs are safer than rifle bullets into a myth. This study, in fact, seems to prove - scientifically - that shotgun slugs are far more prone to ricochet than rifle bullets.

Since 1964, deer hunting with rifles has been prohibited in the areas bordering Philadelphia, since 1979 in Allegheny County and since 1991 in all of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Like other heavily populated states including Virginia, it was widely accepted that hunting with shotgun slugs would be safer for those bordering hunting areas.

In the course of a lawsuit, it was decided by legislators to authorize a safety study into the rifle versus the shotgun debate. The project was coordinated by a legislative committee that hired Mountaintop Technologies of Johnstown, Pennsylvania to conduct the study. $41,576 later, Mountaintop, with assistance from the ballistic experts at the US Army Armanent Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC- better known as the Picatinny Arsenal), produced a study that examined ballistic data on three popular deer-hunting guns: a 30-06 rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and a .50-caliber muzzleloader.

As expected, the rifle had the longest maximum range, 2.64 miles, followed by the shotgun slug at 1.97 miles and the heavier, slower muzzleloader at 1.74. That maximum range, it was pointed out, however, isn't something likely to be seen in a hunting situation. In order to achieve those ranges, the weapons would have to be fired at a 35-degree angle, much like an artillery piece, lobbing their projectiles. As Todd Bacastow, the Mountaintop consultant explains, a 35 degree angle fired at a deer 100-yards away would pass 210-feet above the animal's head.

When the shots are fired holding the guns level at three feet off the ground, however, the stories are different. The shotgun slug will travel 0.99 of a mile, sixteen percent further than the rifle bullet under the same circumstances.

According to the study, the reason is that slugs tend to hold together better and lose less energy during ricochets than rifle bullets. So, slugs often travel further than rifle bullets in common hunting scenarios.

//Snip
==========================

They buried the lead in that story, but that test was done with sabot slugs fired in a rifled barrel.

Husky, the 18" CYL Police barrel on my favorite 870 house gun will deliver 4" patterns of 00 buck at a measured 25 yards (75 feet) with the load it likes best, Federal LE 127-00 9 pellet standard velocity with the FliteControl wad (1325 fps MV, IIRC). I still keep slugs (Brenneke KOs) in the Sidesaddle, in case I need to turn a BG's expected cover into mere concealment, or reach out further than buckshot allows. But it's all buckshot in the magazine, loaded one round down to allow for an immediate select slug drill if needed.

Pattern paper is your friend. So is good training... fwiw, see http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=202292

hth,

lpl

[SHusky57]

excellent reply Lee.
4" at 25 yards with CYL is impressive. I may even opt for a modified or full choke.
That's the nice thing about shotguns, versatility.

I am leaning more and more towards getting a shotty. I've wanted a HD-oriented long gun for a while, and after research feel much more comfortable with a shotty.

Keep the thoughts coming.

Anyone with more articles, military history stories, etc. please feel free to share.

How easy is it to switch to a slug from the side-saddle if the mag is full of 00?

[mljdeckard]

If you have a side-saddle, you can point the shells primer up or down. Most think it's easiest to grab one and load it from under the gun with your left hand, but try it overhand too. You need a space in the magazine for it. Meaning, you must either leave it a round short or be ready to shuck one out. (This makes a mag extension a little bit more practical.) If you decide dot shuck one out, load a slug in the mag, this means you will need to be ready to rack the slide again to get a slug into the chamber. This is a bit complicated, but ask yourself, if you had a rifle or autopistol and you wanted to change ammo, it would be just about as complicated.

I DO NOT recommend mixing the types of ammo in the magazine. You need to KNOW what kind of shot you have, and the idea that you can have the right one in the chamber when you need it by luck is asinine. If you have them in the sidesaddle, you have the capability. If for some bizarre reason you NEED to shoot through a wall, a refrigerator, or into a vehicle, you can load a slug.

[nathan]

I wouldnt hesitate to have slugs in my shotgun. Im confident in my shots and if the poor guy is unlucky to be at the receiving end, then so be it.