If you don't believe that either of these loads can create massive damage inside the human body from 30' - 45' away then you lack real world experience.
Really? One of several reasons I have gone to 100% slug for defensive shotgun use (though a carbine is of course preferable) is my own, real-world experience, and witnessing others' experience shooting live creatures with shot, sometimes with miserable results. Our own Al Thompson, for instance, got very little penetration when shooting a hog with #4 buckshot at the distances you're describing. I have had a "failure to stop" on a
squirrel with 00 buckshot. I had a friend who suffered a negligent discharge of birdshot to his abdomen from a few feet away as a child. Unless you're talking about 00 buck at almost contact distance, shot is absolutely not a reliable stopper.
A lot of big game has been taken over the years (especially before W.W.II ) with shotguns and loads you consider too weak
Which means/proves
absolutely nothing. Thousands of deer have been killed with .22LR, too, which doesn't make it a good choice. There has been at least one instance of a big bear in Alaska being shot with a .22 (defensive shooting, not hunting). Does that mean you should choose a .22LR for bear defense?
if someone else wishes to defend themselves with a 5.56 carbine or whatever, great. The topic here is "combat shotguns".
Actually, the original post questioned why the SG was losing popularity vs. the modern carbine, so the
topic clearly includes both.
Arriving late to this party (as usual), but all I know is that if I was a bad guy coming face-to face with a good guy, I'd much rather face some inexperienced nimrod holding an AR-15 than a professional holding an 870 or a 590 that he truly knows how to run ...
Which has nothing to do with anything. I'd rather face "some inexperienced nimrod" holding an automatic weapon than Jerry Miculek armed with a .22 revolver, but that is really just a massive red herring, so thanks for that. I have supported genuine armed professionals, for whom kicking in doors was part of the job, and with the option of using pretty much
anything they wanted, they used short M4s and saved the Serbu for breaching. Yeah, we also had shotguns for the HMMVWs (this was early 2007), but that was more of a riot control measure (we also had a big crew served, either a grenade launcher or M2, as well as a short-barreled M249 in case the action got too close or the main crew-served went down, in addition to our own personal M4s).
so shotguns can be cheaper than a lot of other long gun alternatives, like AR-15s, but why not just get a handgun which can be even cheaper?
Quality handguns have rarely been cheaper than many common slide-action shotguns, and if using a weapon defensively, a longarm should always be chosen if possible, due to greater control, accuracy and power Additionally, high velocity, lightly constructed bullets fired at high velocity are much more likely to cause effective damage while having less risk of overpenetration than any handgun rounds.
If we accept that every round we fire has legal consequences then in such neighborhoods rounds that lose their power quickly is more desirable than a .223 that still has killing power 300 yards away
You can't have it both ways. If you accept that every round you fire has legal consequences, then you accept that you have much less control over individual shot than you would a much more accurate single rifle bullet, and you also accept that your chances of injuring a bystander
outside your home from a miss
inside your home is higher with 00 buckshot than almost any .223 projectile.
Switching over to the MSR would discard years of practice and habitually thinking in terms of the shotgun and its use--the shotgun's second nature by now. So, good as the rifle is, I'm still 'stuck on shotgun.'
This is the only truly excellent reason for using the SG instead of the carbine, other than expense. Again, though, the major divide is not between shotgun and carbine, or even one of those vs. handgun, but between
armed and unarmed. A SSS would be far down my list of preferred HD arms, but in probably 90%+ of home invasions, I'm pretty sure I'd make do.
(But I'd really prefer to be using full-power Foster slugs. Less chance of overpenetrating a threat, very good chance of stopping that threat. As an aside, any of you who believe any shot other than to the CNS is going to instantly stop a threat need to shoot more living things. Now deceased buddy Byron had a friend who was shot with a 20 gauge slug to the chest. He was conscious and talking for several minutes, more than enough time to still have been a deadly threat if he'd been an aggressor with a firearm. I've seen a buck jump up and run over 30 minutes after taking a .35 bullet through the chest, though the lights went out when I put a .40 XTP behind his ear.)
