#1 Buckshot For Defense

Quote:
In my experience #1 buckshot spreads much faster than 00 (and that's bad IMO). 00 seems to be a very good size for 12 guage shotguns.
Isn't that why they make different choke tubes???

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My house shotgun has a fixed IC choke. IC seems to be the best choice for tighter patterns with a variety of buckshot and an IC (or Cylinder) choke is better for slugs.

I use 00 buck and don't plan to change. (And no, I will NOT volunteer to stand in front of even a skeet gun shooting #9s!)

I say this because a couple of African PH's I hunted with became disenchanted with smaller sizes of buckshot (including the famous English SSG) when following up wounded cats in dense brush.

Forget about lions - they're WAY bigger than people - and think about leopards. Their skin isn't very thick and the animals themselves aren't very large; adult tom leopards will average around 160 or so, and rarely get above 200. People sized, right?

Though leopards are faster and stronger than a human of the same size (not to mention having claws and teeth) if smaller buckshot can't be depended on to stop them, then what about the 6'4" steroid-enhanced biker dude with a fistful of PCP up his nose that's about to start carving you? Especially if he's wearing a leather jacket?

If I knew that I'd be engaging a skinny T-shirt clad bad guy at off-the-muzzle range, even birdshot would do the trick . . . but since a real scenario may be very different, I'll stick to something that will work under any reasonable circumstance.

I found #1 buck easily held its own with 00 as far as penetration goes in my unscientific media testing, while providing fuller {and not necessarily larger} patterns and quite a bit more raw lead. Of course it's not all gravy as you're getting damn close to the same level of recoil as a 2.75" 00 Magnum load, #1 buck seems to be a lot harder to find at hand in quantity in many locales also.

Shooting a leopard at 25 yards is a lot different than defending myself in my bedroom at 10 feet. I ain't shootin' at ANYone outside my home with a shotgun and I have a small home. Really, I ain't shootin' at anyone outside my bedroom with a shotgun. So, for my purposes, 8 shot would work, but I load with 3 buck anyway and just think of it as a prefragmented slug for the ranges I'm lookin' at and that's with cylinder bore.

btg3
What's the image issue involved in wearing a white hat?

Shooting a leopard at 25 yards is a lot different than defending myself in my bedroom at 10 feet.

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25 yards would be a very LONG shot at a wounded leopard . . . when following up a wounded cat - which heads for the densest bush it can find - your encounter will likely be at 1/10 that distance.

If the BG is so close he's going to be singed by one's muzzle blast, just about anything out of a 12 gauge will work . . . but if distance opens up (in my house, it could potentially be as much as 20 yards) or the BG is in leathers, I want bigger pellets.

My Mossberg 500 (18.5 inch barrel, cylinder) won't group well with any 00 buck that I could find (I spent about $70 on 5-shot boxes of various loads) but does fairly well with Remington Express #1 buck.

In my experience #1 buckshot spreads much faster than 00 (and that's bad IMO). 00 seems to be a very good size for 12 guage shotguns.
Isn't that why they make different choke tubes???

Click to expand...

And why is that bad when shooting distance is likely a maximum of 10 yards or less? And most SD shotguns by far do not come with choke tubes.

FWIW:

A comparison of the performance of various buck and birdshot loads in ballistic gelatin:

http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=109958

Warning: quite a few images at this link, so it may take a while to load.

-- Michael

Thanks for the link, elSquid. I missed that one over at Shotgun World.

Birdshot

I've seen several people that have been shot with birdshot, looks like a bad case of acne, little pimples all over (back and chest). This one person was shot more than once, and it didn't stop him from shooting another person.

Here is a forum that posted about gel tests on different shot.
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=109958

That was the most thorough, well conceieved and well presented work I have ever read about SD SHotgun alternatives, in any format. Well done!

If the BG is so close he's going to be singed by one's muzzle blast, just about anything out of a 12 gauge will work . . . but if distance opens up (in my house, it could potentially be as much as 20 yards) or the BG is in leathers, I want bigger pellets.

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My whole house would fit in that room. ROFL! I could probably fit a football stadium in a room of John Edwards' house, but that really doesn't relate to me. I reckon in his house, you'd need a 7mm STW to make a cross room shot. LOL