16 Gauge for Home Defense?

[paducahrider]

the fish was THIS BIG!!! I swear!!!

Howdy!
to MachIVshooter:
Sounds like your friends were luckier than mine.
It also sounds like you doubt that #9 will blow off a leg.
The fact remains that he has only one leg and uses a prosthetic, from the knee down, on the stump.
I wasn't there to see his incident(thank Goodness), but was in the house when Mom blew the hole through the two doors, It was,,,,,IMPRESSIVE!!!
I would say that distance is everything, when shooting a shotgun. At very close range(4 feet?), it won't make as big a hole as with a few feet more. But, in that few extra feet the pattern will be larger, with little reduction in total energy.
If all that energy goes into a joint(like his knee) it's likely to shred everything, and blow it apart, and it did.
On the other hand, my uncle, while a teenager, shot himself in the foot, completely through the upper and sole of his boot, with a .22 rifle, and he never told his parents for fear that he would get a whipping. The bullet went between his foot bones, but didn't break anything. He never missed a day of school.
Another teenage friend of mine mishandled his twelve gauge auto, going through a fence and had it discharge at point-blank range, up through his diaphragm, heart and lungs. He was hunting quail, so was probably using # 9 shot.
Almost all his internal organs were damaged, but some were just gone.
Needless to say, he was dead before he could be taken to a hospital.
You can believe whatever you want, and I'll believe what I've experienced.
Thanks for your time.

 

[MachIVshooter]

It also sounds like you doubt that #9 will blow off a leg.

Perhaps on a small child. Not on a full grown man. And especially not after passing through two wood barriers. A load of #9 won't even go through 3/4" OSB.

The fact remains that he has only one leg and uses a prosthetic from the knee down, on the stump.

I suspect it's in the details with this story. In the hospital a few days, staff or MRSA sets in, then they amputate. Nasty infections are very common with GSW's. As I said, my friend who was shot in the calf nearly lost his leg to staff a couple weeks after the incident.

Another teenage friend of mine mishandled his twelve gauge auto going through a fence and had it discharge at point-blank range, up through his diaphragm, heart and lungs. He was hunting quail, so was probably using # 9 shot.
Almost all his internal organs were damaged, but some were just gone.
Needless to say, he was dead before he could be taken to a hospital.

That I don't doubt. That tight cluster of pellets only had to travel through a few inches of very soft tissue to cause a fatal wound. But.........that doesn't mean that the intruder 20 or 25 feet down the hallway is gonna drop dead from a load of .080" pellets. People have died as a result of being shot with .177 pellet rifles, but I'm not gonna use my RWS 34 for defense based on a couple of freak anecdotal cases.

 

[tuna]

You could say it kicks less than a 12.

Or you could just say that you like 16s, once you admit the sickness, you can find help.

www.16ga.com