For those who choose a shotgun over a carbine for defense:

There are more than a few different birdshot rounds than #8 shot . A coworker of mine got a call one night while we were working , telling her that her brother was killed while turkey hunting .

Elkins45 said:

One pull of the shotgun trigger puts 9 .35 caliber holes in an attacker. Unless your carbine has a full-auto switch it only makes one hole.

Inside a house both options require the same degree of aim. Why would I not choose the one that makes more holes and is easier in my ears?

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Actually inside a house the shotgun is not going to spread appreciably, so you are not putting 9 holes in, but rather one large hole. Now if your shotgun is a 12 gauge with 00 buck that hole is going to be far more grievous than a 5.56 NATO, but it is one hole essentially, and thus poor placement would be an issue just as it would be with a carbine. Now if your carbine is something like 30-06 then it might be a different story.

Upstairs bedrooms are at the end of a hallway leading to just a sole staircase.
It is an ideal arrangement for shotgun since we will not seek to "clear" the house.

If awakened from sleep ourselves (or by barking dog) we will wait it out.
It is not difficult to sit quietly for a few minutes to ascertain coast is clear.

If a criminal WAS miraculously downstairs they will eventually need to move again.
If we were to hear footsteps…we will call 9-1-1 and retain "home field" advantage.

Will Munny said:

Actually inside a house the shotgun is not going to spread appreciably, so you are not putting 9 holes in, but rather one large hole. Now if your shotgun is a 12 gauge with 00 buck that hole is going to be far more grievous than a 5.56 NATO, but it is one hole essentially, and thus poor placement would be an issue just as it would be with a carbine. Now if your carbine is something like 30-06 then it might be a different story.

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It's nine distinct wound channels with nine different opportunities to hit a major blood vessel or nerve bundle. The fact they are only a couple of inches apart doesn't change that, even if we're just talking about a bad hit on an extremity. And the 12 gauge buckshot load has 200-300 more pounds of kinetic energy than the average 55 grain .23 load, even more if the carbine is a 9mm or 30 US carbine round

Who has a 30-06 home defense carbine? Tanker Garand? That doesn't seem like a common thing to me.

I like the shotgun. Tested, it patterns nicely at 25 yards or less. Handles well, lots of power. AR’s are great, but not in NY. People should choose what people are most comfortable with. AR, carbine, pistol, sledge hammer, sword, or shotgun.

hso said:

Some tests from a reliable source. https://www.theboxotruth.com/threads/the-box-o-truth-14-rifles-shotguns-and-walls.310/

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One point -- a wall is TWO sheets of drywall. So a shot that penetrates one sheet of drywall but not the second will not penetrate a normal wall.

I would like to see this experiment repeated with 35 to 40 grain Hornady V-Max bullets.

It’s great. Very beautiful.

Central. Right in the middle.

a shotgun with #8 or 7.5 reduces the possibility of collateral damage.

OFFGRID said:

a shotgun with #8 or 7.5 reduces the possibility of collateral damage.

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30 years ago I killed an average sized whitetail doe and while skinning/butchering her I discovered a mass of birdshot pellets in her neck barely beneath the skin and not even down to the vertebrae. The pellet density was pretty high, indicating she had been shot from fairly close range before they had a chance to spread. There was no obvious wound and she appeared to have fully recovered with no noticeable impairment.

I learned all I needed to know about small shot as a defensive option from that deer. Birdshot lacks the sectional density needed to reliably penetrate into vital organs, especially if your home invader has a layer of fat or is wearing a heavy coat. You need big, dense pellets in order to maintain momentum. Round balls are very poor penetrators compared to pointy bullets. A 00 buck pellet and an 8mm rifle bullet are both 32 caliber but the pellet weighs around 80 grains and the bullet weighs 200+.

I've been away and have not read through.. did anyone ask the OP if he "really learned to use" a shotgun?

OFFGRID said:

a shotgun with #8 or 7.5 reduces the possibility of collateral damage.

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Agreed. But I still wish they had tried Hornady V-Max 35 or 40 grain bullets. Those bullets usually disintegrate when hitting a groundhog or prairie dog, and also on impact with the ground.

I consider my 12 ga bullpup to be my "ultimate" home defense weapon. At 5+1 with an 18" barrel loaded with 4 buck, it'll easily dispatch any threat handily. I however don't currently keep it bedside, but I see any of my 9mm or 357s that are bedside plenty of defense for anything I'm likely to face.

At home defense distance I wouldn't be surprised if the buckshot was still in the wad.

red rick said:

There are more than a few different birdshot rounds than #8 shot . A coworker of mine got a call one night while we were working , telling her that her brother was killed while turkey hunting .

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Not liking that a person died. But that different bird shot sizes are very different in penetration.

A carbine (AR-15) has many advantages over a shotgun for HD. Light and short with light recoil. 30 chances to end the home invasion versus 5-8. Easily fitted with a light source, and laser sights. Birdshot loads are worthless for HD/SD. Use slugs or buckshot. depending on the .223 load it is very likely to over penetrate less than the shotgun. It is important to understand how local laws and if you are living in an urban, suburban, or rural area, influence your weapon decision.

Elkins45 said:

It's nine distinct wound channels with nine different opportunities to hit a major blood vessel or nerve bundle. The fact they are only a couple of inches apart doesn't change that, even if we're just talking about a bad hit on an extremity. And the 12 gauge buckshot load has 200-300 more pounds of kinetic energy than the average 55 grain .23 load, even more if the carbine is a 9mm or 30 US carbine round

Who has a 30-06 home defense carbine? Tanker Garand? That doesn't seem like a common thing to me.

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They are not going to be "a couple inches apart" at home defense distances. There is going to be basically no pattern entropy at all. Not 9 wound channels, one wound channel. And the point is it is not 9 distinct opportunities, it is one opportunity to either hit the target or not. If you miss the target you miss with all 9, if you hit you hit with all 9, no different than a bullet.
I am not questioning its effectiveness on target, but the notion that the separate projectiles is significant at home defense range is simply wrong.

Will Munny said:

They are not going to be "a couple inches apart" at home defense distances. There is going to be basically no pattern entropy at all. Not 9 wound channels, one wound channel. And the point is it is not 9 distinct opportunities, it is one opportunity to either hit the target or not. If you miss the target you miss with all 9, if you hit you hit with all 9, no different than a bullet.
I am not questioning its effectiveness on target, but the notion that the separate projectiles is significant at home defense range is simply wrong.

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Have you ever patterned your shotgun at close range? I have, and at 10 feet you can see individual holes with mine. And that’s before they start diverging in tissue. A single bullet only has one wound track unless it fractures. That’s one of the reasons why buckshot is so effective as a fight stopper.

Edit: scroll down to the bottom of the page and look at the wound track of 00 buck in ballistic gel. https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/shotgun-penetration-with-various-rounds/

Neither...........The handgun. Be it revolver or semi-auto......Lots more handy than a long gun.

The Happy Kaboomer said:

Neither...........The handgun. Be it revolver or semi-auto......Lots more handy than a long gun.

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This is really the "reality" answer for me. As I mentioned I always have my EDC pistol on my side, so thats the "go to".

If it were a "bump in the night" while in bed the closest gun is my G17, and its what I would grab.

I'm a competition shooter by heart and pistols are what I'm most confident with. But I train with both my AR's and shotguns equally.

A pistol of some sort is probably what would be used if a gun was needed on my property, statistically speaking, but if a long gun is needed a 12g is whats on hand RTG.

Inside twenty yards, I’ll take the shotty every time. Automatic.

There is a lot of truth in the videos posted above about over penetration with buckshot.

Plus with any shotgun regardless of gauge, at 10-15 yards the pellets are not going to spread much. At 7 yards and less it will just be one big wound channel.

Here are a few photos of 5 pellets of 000 buckshot out of a 410 at different close ranges to show you how much spread there will be (or lack of)

7 yards



15 yards



The target is the Caldwell 8" Bullseye and the shotgun used was a Mossberg 500 in .410 with an 18" cylinder bore barrel. A 12 gauge won't pattern much different at these ranges.

And forget about using birdshot, especially #6 shot or smaller.

Elkins45 said:

Have you ever patterned your shotgun at close range? I have, and at 10 feet you can see individual holes with mine. And that’s before they start diverging in tissue. A single bullet only has one wound track unless it fractures. That’s one of the reasons why buckshot is so effective as a fight stopper.

Edit: scroll down to the bottom of the page and look at the wound track of 00 buck in ballistic gel. https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/shotgun-penetration-with-various-rounds/

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Ballistic gel is gel, not a realistic target.
10 feet is going to be an optimistic range for most home defense purposes. Look at the fellow above, at 7 yards (21 feet, or twice the distance you could expect to be) there is essentially one hole in the target.
At 3-10 feet, which is a reasonable range for home defense shootings, you are looking at a "pattern" about 1 inch in diameter unless you have a sawed off gun. That is not going to improve your hit probability relative to a rifle.
So we are back to the effectiveness, which is based on velocity and mass. So 12 Gauge 00 buck is going to be more effective than 5.56. Once we start talking 30-06, the comparison is a bit more even.

Will Munny said:

Ballistic gel is gel, not a realistic target.
10 feet is going to be an optimistic range for most home defense purposes. Look at the fellow above, at 7 yards (21 feet, or twice the distance you could expect to be) there is essentially one hole in the target.
At 3-10 feet, which is a reasonable range for home defense shootings, you are looking at a "pattern" about 1 inch in diameter unless you have a sawed off gun. That is not going to improve your hit probability relative to a rifle.
So we are back to the effectiveness, which is based on velocity and mass. So 12 Gauge 00 buck is going to be more effective than 5.56. Once we start talking 30-06, the comparison is a bit more even.

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At no point did I ever ever claim increased hit probability. You’re arguing with a strawman. I said both require the same degree of aim, and since they do I will choose the one with greater incapacitation potential.

My intention is to avoid arguing about the merits of a shotgun vs. a carbine vs a handgun for home defense. Everyone should opt for what they believe best for the purpose. My intention it relate the efficacy of a shotgun in CQB. In Nam many Marine infantry platoon had some shotgun wielding Grunts. Why? Because shotguns were great at flushing out the enemy. In thick brush which you could not see through a few shotgun blasts would force the NVA or VC to move and they would defoliate some of the flora to provide a better view of the immediate environment. However shotguns were not considered from experience to be the weapon to use in a firefight unless the adversary was very close. Shotgun blasts injured adversaries, but rarely killed them.

Now let’s go inside your home. You encounter a home invader. He is armed with a handgun. He takes cover behind you sofa and aims at you. You fire your shotgun loaded with 00 buck shot. The sofa takes the nostalgia damage. The adversary gets a shot at you with a 9mm. If your behind a chair , you enemy is likely to hurt you worse than you hurt him.There are many scenarios where a shotgun would be an advantage, but you only get to select a situation in your fantasies. The reality is determined in a real moment that you cannot control.

In my opinion a rifle is better than a shotgun for home defense, but a pistol is my preference. Depending on caliber the rifle ballistics are head to beat, but ballistics are only part of the contest. A 5.56 or .223 bullet could do collateral damage both inside and outside your home. A 9mm round could do that too but not to the extent of .223 or 5.56 or similar cartridge.

As in all self/home defense situations the most important element is the ability with the weapon of choice and the knowledge of CQB tactics. I cleared building in fight football Hue City. I quickly learned that my M19ll was my best choice because I was more proficient with it in CQB than I was with an M16. Why? Look at my avatar. My primary weapon was a M1911.

You defend yourself best with a firearm you use best. Firefights are not fantasy encounters.