Anything more damaging than a 12 gauge with buckshot?

You can still get buck & ball loads at Cabelas under their Herter's Defense brand name. Looks just like the Centurion stuff to me. Cheddite hulls in both.

Can't think of a more devastating home-defense-distance weapon than a reasonable shooter with a pump 12-gauge and 00 buckshot.

You can try to tell me that ARs are the thing for HD but I will never agree.

If you have an AR and like it- great. $800 investment in a weapon, plus mags and gear.

12-gauge pump for under $200 at the pawn shop or used rack at the gun store. 6 rounds of 00 buckshot. Not as much skill needed for a newer shooter. No stigma of an evil black gun either.

Buckshot for in the house distances- a 9 pellet hello & goodbye.
1-oz slugs for in the yard- 470 grains of git the heck out of my barn.

Mr. Price, that's a pretty closed minded view point to say you'll never agree.

Now that the panic has largely subsided the S&W M&P-15 Sport is once again available for under $650 OTD if one shops around. I realize that's still three times the price of something like a Maverick 88. However, it's hard to make an apples to apples comparison since an AR-15 type rifle since we're obviously comparing a semi-auto rifle to a pump shotgun. However, yes, a base model $200 pump shotgun is the most cost effective HD firearm currently available.

The Sport also ships with a perfectly functional set of iron sights and a 30 round PMAG, as do most AR-15 type rifles. What other "gear" does one need?

Last, I disagree about pump shotguns being easier for a new shooter. Pump guns can be short stroked, and even 20 gauge pump shotguns have significant recoil for a new shooter. A semi-auto carbine in an intermediate chambering is much easier to teach a new shooter to use in my limited experience. I'm not saying a pump shotgun is difficult to learn to use by any means either.


Of course, I can also offer a few counters my own points above:

A Remington 11-87P with a supercell pad was one of the softest shooting shotguns I've ever fired. The Remington 1100 with a similar recoil pad is about the same. At $744 shipped from Bud's the Rem. 1100 TAC2 is a much more apples to apples comparison to a semi-auto carbine.

If pump shotgun a recoil is a concern a drop-in replacement / pre-fitted Limbsaver, Decelerator, or similar premium recoil is a low cost way to bring felt recoil to much more tolerable levels.

If one has physical strength issues or other serious problems dealing with recoil there are always .410 pump shotguns as well. 3 pellets of 000 buck per shell at the same velocity as 12 ga buck is still a very good option for defensive uses.

Based on what I saw coming through the ER about a year and a half ago one thing more damaging would be a PO'd woman with a leather purse full of Mary Kay products.

A few thoughts about this topic.... most of it is speculation since few will ever find out what works (or doesn't..) the hard way. In my limited experience an ordinary 00 buck 12 guage round is very effective on a human target - at close range (under 15 meters). There might be better weapons - but not something owned by an ordinary guy (unless you're police or military you're not likely to have a full auto MP5 handy for self defense...).

As far as flechette rounds go... the real deal was always as an artillery round and was used for last ditch close quarter work as the enemy was coming over the wire. A special forces warrant officer I worked with briefly in 1968 described how it worked in an actual incident at a small firebase he was at. He said that as things got bad and were getting worse you'd hear someone yell "beehive" and you did a groundhog as the rounds went overhead -aimed right at the wire. It was just a much more modern version of cannister or grape shot that was the last ditch cannon ammo in years gone by.... I didn't ask how well it worked since I figured that if he was telling the truth, then "beehive" was why he was there at all. When I finally got over there three years later the item we relied on (and hoped would never be used) was phou-gas (sp?). It was your basic home brew instant napalm set along the wire at intervals and meant to be command detonated (just a 55 gallon drum of jellied gasoline with a directional charge behind it....). Like others have said the attempt to use flechettes in shotgun rounds proved ineffective.... If anyone one can tell me I'd like to know if there are any current flechette artillery rounds in service today... or has it just gone out of fashion?

Lastly firearms, deadly as they are, aren't the greatest man-stoppers available to the ordinary man. I always thought that a car, used properly, was a real fight ender if needed. Although I kept that tactic in my arsenal - I never found out on the street. Still there are a few cops killed every year by getting hit by a car....

Real life buckshot experience .... I can nearly cut a small deer or feral dog's head off with buckshot less than 1 inch strip of skin holding head on shot at 30 foot . Feral dog in the air coming to eat me shot at 5 foot> head mostly disappeared and got blood all over me. second feral dog decided eating me wasn't a good move took one shot to chest at 40 foot... dead right there
Roy

@ UGAARGUY:

Well, I have my own mind made up, not to say someone elses' mind won't have a different opinion. You know what they say about opinions.

The AR platform is not my thing. I've owned them, I don't like them.
Yes, with a 12-ga there's jams possible like short shucking the pump or double feeds etc. Same can be said about the AR. Bolt over base jams, FTF, FTE- all guns can break.

Let's compare terminal energy of a 55-gr 223 at 2800 fps versus a 470-gr 12-ga slug at 1550 fps.

Sure a slug runs out of energy at 100 yards and relally is best at 50 yards and under.
And 223 can reach out to 300 yards but is great in the 100-200 range.

I don't forsee a home defense scenario where the need to get out to over 50 yards will be very necessary. If someone is 50 yards away from me they are no longer a physical threat. I don't live in a warehouse.

Home defense is more like trench warfare than open-field battle. Lots of obstacles, turns, tight clearances and distractions.

Again, MY OPINION, and I'm no Awerbuck.

Feral dog in the air coming to eat me shot at 5 foot> head mostly disappeared and got blood all over me.

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I've witnessed the same thing with a human being and it wasn't pretty at all. A good portion of the mans head was scattered everywhere. Saw another man hit in the chest with 00 buck and it too was a pretty disgusting sight with bullet holes in both lungs, the heart, and the neck with a single trigger pull. My dad relayed a story to me where he witnessed a shootout and the guy with the shotgun won with a single pull of the trigger he took out the brain and the heart of the other involved party. I'll continue to offer the advice that nothing beats a 12 gauge loaded with buckshot for home defense ranges. If one wants to argue for the AR one can go right ahead, but pull that trigger nine times instead of one and see how well it goes over in court.

In up-close bad breath ranges, the 12 gauge with 00 buck will probably always be the general go-to for home defense with good reason. Even a "glancing" blow is going to ruin a home invader's day.

For years, an 870 then Ithaca 37 was my self defense weapon of choice. Still is when I stay at my stepdad's cabin.

However, for me, the AR is now what I'll grab in that situation. It has nothing more to do with than in my new home I would possibly have to fire TOWARD my daughter's room. I like the tumbling nature of the .223.

Actually, there are probably scores of different weapons with various uses that make them more or less adequate. My house has pretty narrow halls. I would most likely grab a .40 pistol over either long arm if I had to check something out downstairs.

The IWBA has stated that #1 buckshot is the most effective against humans based on their analysis. If I remember right, it is the smallest pellet size for which the projectiles will all reliably reach FBI minimum penetration while having the largest combined cross-sectional area.

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True, dat, but I find #1 buck ungodly hard to find, whereas 00 buck is available everywhere. As such, I keep my HD shotgun loaded with 00 buck from Remchester, normally. I haven't even been able to pattern it with #1 buck as of yet, though it does extremely well with 00. The same articles that tout #1 buck as the best HD load also say 00 buck is ranked no.2, both in 2.75" size.

Wish #1 buck would start showing up regularly around here. Like to try it out.
But I also have an AR and EDC pistol loaded for HD to keep all bases covered.

In a perfect world I would have a shotty with 00 and a light and a few flashbangs.

This would be when I had the family in the safe room and only badguys roaming the halls.

Let me see...

Gramps Browning semi-automatic shotgun will fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, say all six shotshells in 30 seconds.

There are 8 32 caliber ball in a 12gauge shotshell

8 * 6 = 48
48 * 2 = 96 (bring up to a full minute.)

That gives a cyclic of 96 rounds per minute with an effective magazine of 48 rounds...

Can you fire 48 rounds out of an M-16 in 30 seconds? Or an M-14 or AK-47 for that matter?

In the end it's really kind of a moot point. In a real world situation if the only thing you can get to is a .22 single shot it would still be head and shoulders above your winning smile and killer personality.

Can I fire 48 rounds out I my AR in 30 seconds? I can do it in less than 20....

By the same token, I can empty my 11 shot shotgun in under 5 seconds.... A little better than 6 shots in 30 seconds

Re: shotgun or AR, keep in mind several states already have AR's on their ban list. So far, none have outlawed a sporting shotgun.

The anti AR trend will probably increase. Long live the shotgun.

Anybody making a modern ducksfoot pistol? http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...a=X&ei=UMyCUqrGPKnasASO64LYBw&ved=0CC0Q9QEwAA

jmr40 said:

Most any centerfire rifle round with softpoint ammo and most pistol calibers. While buckshot is effective, it is the most over rated defensive load. It's only real advantage is being able to increase the probability of hits because of multiple projectiles. Each projectile on it's own is a poor performer.

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This post is correct, tests show that buck shot is only effective at very close range. It is a great in home defense because of the high number of hits and energy but it is like being shot multiple times with a .22lr or at best a .32 cal. Pistol. And beyond a few yards penetration drops ,off dramatically. This is a plus for home defense unless you have really large rooms or long hallways and heavy furniture to duck behind. Very deadly inside a 20 foot room.

Stevie-Ray said:

The same articles that tout #1 buck as the best HD load also say 00 buck is ranked no.2, both in 2.75" size.

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Um, #0 Buckshot is right in between them... Standard Factory loads have a little less power/recoil. Really an ideal shell...

Buckshot has an effective range of well past 'get off my lawn' (at least most suburban lawns) and getting dangerously close to 'too far away to be considered a SD/HD threat' under anything but a Mad Max type of scenario. It's not just for clearing a room...

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=726909

Specifically, you can watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S546W_L0tFo

d2.... must disagree with the idea that buckshot is only effective at very close range.... At 15 meters an ordinary 9 pellet 00buck round (2 3/4") will not only penetrate a human torso laterally from side to side -it will also (in a standard riot configuration shotgun) have a small enough spread at 15 meters (about 15" in every shotgun I ever used) to keep all of those pellets in the chest cavity... Unfortunately for me this is one of those "ask me how I know" propositions.... As a practical matter you can pretty much count on that same round dispersing the pattern at one inch per meter from the muzzle in an 18" improved cylinder barrel.... I consider any shooting situation under 15 meters (say less than fifty feet) as prime territory for any riot configured shotgun, period.

Since I was a young cop the day I fired my one and only shot on the street I was in and out of court for about six months as a result until the shooting was ruled to be justified. I had access to all the autopsy work-up, measurements and all, so the above description is pretty accurate -even though the incident involved was almost 35 years ago now. When the dust settled and I finally came to grips with my own reactions to what I'd been involved in - I made a point of learning as much as I could about shotguns and the best tactics to use one and survive. I relied on one for years after that -but never fired another shot on the street...

Lemay. You have first hand knowledge superior to mine. I guess the specifics of what range we are talking about we're not clear in my post. I agreed that in a home buckshot is lethal. Or inside a duck boat. I was thinking of a test that showed at 75 yards in some shots no pellets hit a human size target. Those that did would not have much penetration particularly in case of armor or heavy clothing like leather with padding. I agree that it is good at close range and thanks for your information, again you know more than I do especially about specifics. I just think some are overly impressed with TV shows and imaginary scenarios. You speak from knowledge, not imagination so I welcome useful information in your post.
I also thank you for public service and commend you for pointing out that shooting someone is a very serious matter with lifelong effects.

I posted on page 1, didn't read the whole thread and if this has been mentioned I missed it.

Any shotgun, 12 or 20 ga shooting slugs or buckshot loads are going to generate 25-30 ft lbs of recoil depending on indivdual guns and loads. That is 300 win mag recoil levels. I find it amusing at how many will tell novice shooters they need a shotgun for protection, but emphatically steer veteran shooters away from any magnum loading for hunting because of excessive recoil.

An AR with a more effectve soft point bullet generates around 5 ft lbs of recoil by comparison.

Any shotgun, 12 or 20 ga shooting slugs or buckshot loads are going to generate 25-30 ft lbs of recoil depending on indivdual guns and loads. That is 300 win mag recoil levels. I find it amusing at how many will tell novice shooters they need a shotgun for protection, but emphatically steer veteran shooters away from any magnum loading for hunting because of excessive recoil.

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The answer to that is semi-auto. My HD shotgun is a fully vetted Mossberg 930 SPX and is the softest shooting shotgun I've ever fired. There may be better ones out there, but I seriously doubt they'll be any easier on the shoulder.

D2.. you're right about the consequences... I retired out in 1995 and have not carried a sidearm one day since then (after carrying 24/7 for just about 22 years when I was up and walking around). Although I'm tempted to pick up another popper - to date I haven't, and don't regret the decision one bit (...so far).

Shotgun is king in my book

I often use 12 gauge 3 inch magnum extra full choke with #4 buckshot for coyotes.. wait for it..... 43 pellets@ 1450 fps .25 caliber, and they come in steel variety too! so if you fire 4 shots in 4 seconds that's 172 lethal 25 caliber balls.... what sub-machine gun goes that fast?? and you don't have to aim at 30 yards! just point!

I shot Bambie and Feral dogs over the decades with 2 3/4 high brass 00 buck . It made a mess of the dogs and most deer never took more than 3 steps. So that and slugs are all I need in the house. The 30/30 is there for longer ranged stuff.

I did a quick search for Remington Master Blaster 8ga industrial shotgun and couldn't find it in this thread.

And yes it's a mounted system, but technically it's more damaging than a 12ga.

http://www.remington.com/en/products/ammunition/industrial/masterblaster-system.aspx

I also think it's categorized as a destructive device with no sporting purpose (I could be wrong), but unless you only planned on using it to defend your kiln, you might get yourself in hot water - or hot something or other...