HD barrel length

[Piedmont Plinker]

In an article in Guns & Ammo,Customizing Guns for Home Defense,it says that you should either shorten you scattergun's barrel or buy a new one. Now I can understand this logic if you're clearing a house, but what about i you're waiting in a bedroom, shotgun in hand, ready to blast anybody who comes through the door. Our only shotgun, a Beretta Urika 20ga, sports a 30'' barrel, and shortened barrels are expensive. I think that this length barrel would be fine if you stayed in a room with plenty of room to move.
If a burglar comes through a door and sees and shotgun with a long barrel pointed at his solar plexus than the first thing he's gonna think is "oh s..." IMHO

 

[Fred Fuller]

Few folks who have a clue suggest DIY house clearing singlehanded, even with a short barrel on a shotgun. If you use the more often suggested barricaded position in your bedroom or other safe room, the length of your shotgun barrel shouldn't matter too much.

The idea is that upon hearing sounds indicating an intruder in the house that you hunker down in the dark in your safe room and diall 911. Then, either by turning on lights elsewhere in the house by remote control or using strategically placed night lights, you wait for the source of such sounds to appear in the backlit doorway of your saferoom while you and family members hide inside behind good cover.

House clearing on your own gives up all the advantages you have with no real benefits, lots of folks who have done it for a living know it's a bad idea. Moving to secure a family member elsewhere in the house is one thing, looking for trouble is another entirely. The long barrel is less a hindrance if you stay put. So stay put, and use your advantages.

lpl/nc

 

[Dave McCracken]

Bro Lee nailed it. Also, I did a walkthrough through Caca McC with an 870 TB with 30" barrel. The barrel was little handicap.

 

[dfariswheel]

Massad Ayoob once said that while he and his huge dog checked out the noise downstairs, his wife was to be crouched behind the bed armed with a Remington 1100 20 gauge with a 26" inch barrel and a 10 shot magazine extension filled with buckshot.

He figured if they got past him and the dog, she'd hold 'em off until help arrived.
Waiting for help is not a bad plan for anyone.

A good offense is a good defense, and making a bad guy come after you while you're in a barricaded and covered position is suicide..... for HIM.

 

[Simon Yu]

I think it's a lowest common denominator type deal (the mathematical sense, not the other one).

I attended a home defense shotgun course a few weeks back since there weren't any basic shotgun classes readily available. Unsurprisingly, most of the class wasn't really experienced in using shotguns so suggestions had to be boiled down to keep things simple. The hole up in a safe room and wait for the police approach was advised, but conditions may not allow for sticking to the plan for whatever reason when stuff happens so the instruction can't just be based around the ideal. And if you're not that experienced with a shotgun, then an 18 inch barrel is going to be easier to move with than a 28 inch one, as I can personally attest to after bumping my 870 against a wall when taking it back upstairs after cleaning.

Obviously a longer barrel can work quite well, it just may not be ideal for a relative newbie. And obviously spending more time with the gun so that you're not a newbie is ideal. But that takes time and the things that go bump in the night might not wait for that to happen so the 18" recommendation probably won't be going away soon.

 

[shotgunkevin]

The shotgun is ideally suited for the "wait for the cavalry" approach. Massive stopping power directed into known fields of fire from cover and concealment? Sounds like a winner to me. In this situation, barrel length is unimportant.

However, you may one day need to clear your house, check out a suspicious noise, or even abandon the house. Now barrel length will become, well, somewhat important. The task would be easier with a shorter barrel. Additionally, shotguns are HEAVY! Having to point one one-handed is extraordinarily difficult, maybe to open a door or direct a child. So any possible weight loss would be helpful.

In order to be the most effective for it's task, IMHO the home defense shotgun ought to be short.