"Rhodesian Jungle" loads for HD?

[stillaftermath]

A guy over on http://www.reddit.com/r/guns/ posted up a link to this ammo:

http://www.brassandlead.com/inc/sdetail/227

Essentially, it's 6x00-buck shot and then backloaded with #4 shot.

One of the guys mentions that it would be a good HD load. Another guy says to stick to "normal" loads as it "may expose yourself to liability in a civil case." I'm assuming he means over penetrating and hitting someone outside your home.

We all know the stories about birdshot, which is remarkably good at not blowing through walls and into adjacent homes. It's also remarkably pathetic at BG penetration. If used, it would be used on a 180 lb armed intruder on your home who probably just finished off a sack of PCP and amphetamine in the car on the way over. It won't be used on a pretty little bird. Too often you'll hear tale of a guy who took a blast of bird running out of the house and showing up at the hospital days later to complain he'd been shot in a "hunting accident" or, worse still, continuing the attack.

That leaves buckshot. The respectable man-stoppers in buck shot are #4, #1, and 00. #4 and #1 have pretty similar interior-wall penetration. There's also a lot of evidence to suggest that they may not hit hard enough to penetrate protected vitals - heart and lungs in a COM shot. 00 Buck definitely will.

To me, a round like the Rhodesian Jungle sounds perfect. There's less 00 Buck flying around, but it should deliver all the stopping power of a full 00 Buck load because those #4 shots will thump in pretty hard and start clearing the way.

Am I missing something? If any of you do see my side of things, are there any environmental situations in which you'd use something else?

Currently I use a Glock 19 with Winchester Ranger SXT rounds as my HD gun, but over-penetration IS a concern to me; my house is ancient frame-and-board with masonite (cardboard) siding. I've been looking to switch to a pump shotgun as primary HD, and planned on #4 shot as the best compromise, but this might be an even better answer.

 

[HorseSoldier]

One of the guys mentions that it would be a good HD load. Another guy says to stick to "normal" loads as it "may expose yourself to liability in a civil case." I'm assuming he means over penetrating and hitting someone outside your home.

I suspect the concern wasn't about over penetration but that your ammo might look "exceptionally bloodthirsty" to the gun-ignorant jurors in a civil suit and/or be used to portray you as a deranged gun-nut.

Personally, I kind of doubt the rational in the advertising, and don't think the load would do anything in a home defense situation that 00 buck wouldn't do, except give you 2-3 fewer deep wound channels.

 

[Sunray]

No 'jungle' in Rhodesia, as I recall.
Buck shot isn't reliable for anything past 30 yards or so. Bird shot, at close range, is about the choke. If you're thinking shotgun, for anything, you have to know how it shoots. Get some big hunks of cardboard(food warehouses or your local supermarket for boxes) and go shooting.

 

[stillaftermath]

I suspect the concern wasn't about over penetration but that your ammo might look "exceptionally bloodthirsty" to the gun-ignorant jurors in a civil suit and/or be used to portray you as a deranged gun-nut.

Personally, I kind of doubt the rational in the advertising, and don't think the load would do anything in a home defense situation that 00 buck wouldn't do, except give you 2-3 fewer deep wound channels.

Eh... maybe. But worse than HPs? Worse than full on 00-buck? If anything I'd think you could argue that you were trying to use the minimum effective round for the safety of others.

And no, it won't do anything 00 won't do. It's the stray pellet or two that concerns me (Say I fire high and left and catch him mostly in the shoulder, etc,) from a liability standpoint, and if I've got better than even odds that the strays are #4, with less penetration potential when they go pounding into my exterior walls, that might be worth it to me.

"I loaded buckshot just to clear the path for more buckshot!"

The real test would be to see how the stuff patterns.

 

[stillaftermath]

Update: A little google-fu turns up that it's actually packed with 00-buck and BB shot. I.e, useless novelty crap. I'm still curious about small and large buck mixed in a shell, though.

 

[Sunray]

"...and catch him mostly in the shoulder..." Chances are you'll get sued by the bad guy. Buck shot doesn't go far due to it's relatively low velocity and shape. However, you are still responsible for where anything you shoot ends up. Training and practice with the firearm using whatever ammo you opt to use is the best thing. A shotgun, even with #4 bird shot, must be aimed at house distances.
Shoot your shotgun at 10, 20 and 30 yards, using bird shot, on the big hunks of cardboard and you'll know.

 

[stillaftermath]

Not sure what you're chasing after here. Is that some kind of implication that I don't believe shotguns need to be aimed? That they have some massive pattern? Or that a trained shooter could not possibly miss dead-COM in a stress-fire home defense scenario in the dark? Are you advocating the use of bird shot as a defensive load? I really can't tell.

I'm sure that everybody likes to believe they'll hit the heart, in the dark, with every bit of adrenaline your body can muster rushing through you, while the guy knife-edge's his body to you and presents a moving 4" target, but I'm a bit more realistic than that.

I've done plenty of patterning at 10, 20, 30 (and 40 and 50! Extra credit!) with both bird and buck. What mystical divining am I missing that you have seen?

 

[orphanedcowboy]

Load Duplexing as it is known has been around for years, it is simply something that adds pattern density to a given application.

For turkey hunting and duck hunting it is quite popular and quite time consuming to perfect.

I think you are over thinking the given situation, and I believe what the other poster is saying is, the time to perfect the combination isn't worth the same amount of time practicing at the pattern board in given shooting scenarios.

If it were me, I would study my home, then design shooting scenarios based on given "possibilities" and then "re-enact them out at the range, easy for me since I have a "range" on my farm and several old structures to utilize.

But in the end pattern density is worthless unless you can INSTINCTIVELY hit your target.

 

[Dave McCracken]

When the Brits still owned Malaya, or thought they did, a common ambush deterrent was an A-5 loaded with shells that contained some 00 and some 6 shot.

The rebels lived in the jungle and had little medical resources. Infections carried off many an insurgent that survived the British defense but succumbed to the germs carried into the wound by the shot.

Use here and now?

No way.

00 is usually the best answer.

 

[Sebastian the Ibis]

A friend of mine saw a 90lb white tail shot with #4 buckshot at about 30ft. Despite all the shot hitting, none penetrated far enough to hit vital organs. I don't plan on shooting anything smaller than 90lbs in a HD situation. I'll stick to 00 and 000 shot.

 

[rcmodel]

Buck & ball was a very effective load in the revolutionary war.

But it was a .69 cal musket ball and three 00 buckshot.

A far cry from six buckshot and a sprinkling of #4 birdshot!

If Rhodesian Jungle loads were safer & more effective, every cops shotgun in America would be loaded with them.
But they aren't.

Best stick with a nine-pellet load of 00 buck!

rc

 

[stillaftermath]

To clarify, the original link I posted states "#4 shot" as the backfill. To me, that reads buckshot, as the "#" indicates buck, semantically. Further research discovered it was either 4 birdshot or BB shot, which is indeed pretty damn useless and pointless.

#4's penetration ability was certainly questionable to me, but nowhere in my home would I be firing further than 20 feet or so - and that'd be down the hallway, most situations would be much closer - and I'm not a hunter with any real-world experience versus anything heftier than cardboard, so I figured it would probably get the job done. Sebastian the Ibis' post about a 90lb white taking a solid hit from 30 feet without a vital strike has me questioning that and leaning solidly to 00, now, however.

orphanedcowboy's post about load duplexing among turkey and duck hunters has me interested in the subject as a curiosity, now, however.

 

[oneounceload]

Remington used to market a duplex load for sporting clays - the patterns sucked and the shells were a flop. Shot strings were lousy with two different pellet weights

 

[HorseSoldier]

Eh... maybe. But worse than HPs? Worse than full on 00-buck? If anything I'd think you could argue that you were trying to use the minimum effective round for the safety of others.

Most anything can be overblown by an attorney with time to run his mouth, but I'd think that something in regular use by local law enforcement would be harder to hype up than something more exotic (though perhaps not -- i.e. New Jersey).

And no, it won't do anything 00 won't do. It's the stray pellet or two that concerns me (Say I fire high and left and catch him mostly in the shoulder, etc,) from a liability standpoint, and if I've got better than even odds that the strays are #4, with less penetration potential when they go pounding into my exterior walls, that might be worth it to me.

At home defense ranges I'd think you're pretty safe, realistically. At seven yards my department issue shotgun patterns 3" groups with 00 buck, which would make slinging a couple pellets unlikely except on a truly marginal hit.

 

[Jack2427]

I like shotguns for social work. Please mark these words; " birdshot is for the birds". For HD loads do not get fancy, get real, use what the pros use, and that is almost always buckshot, military buck is almost always 00, as are most police loads. Slugs have a little spot on the side for specialized use. For HD buckshot is the name of the game, 000, 00, 0, 4,3,2,and 1 are all acceptable, I prefer #4 buck as it patterns well in the guns I use for serious social discourse. I does not have the range of the 0 series buck, but is only a couple of yards short. It also has almost no over penetration issues. With #4 buck I own the real estate to 40 yards, and if you are within 25 yards you are in real deep dodo. #2 and #3 buck are hard to come by, but #1 is usually available most places.
As far as legal libability is concerned, it is the image that might hurt the citizen shooter, rather than the actual load used. This is why most authorities discourage using reloaded ammo, even if it duplicates factory loads. "Mr X, was the ammunition that was available to the military and the police not lethal enough for you?"
I have never heard of someone being prosecuted on the sole basis of the ammo used in an otherwise "good" shooting. But I have heard of folks losing a civil suit (after being cleared criminally) due to the so called "esoteric" nature of the ammo used. It is an emotional issue with uninformed jurors and judges.
Personally, I use #4 or 00 buck in the SG. In my handguns I use either a HP, JHP or JSP ammo if it is used buy LE personnel locally. Otherwise I use SWC ammo, a big blunt square nosed slug, gets the penetration I want(and penetration is your number one requirement) and does plenty of tissue disruption. Over the years, I have seen people hit with 9mm and .45ACP ball ammo, none of them got up(after a solid body hit). Anyone hit in the pelvis with buckshot or the 9 or 45 went down and stayed there.
That is why the pelvic bone is my preferred aiming point-it also can do some really interesting other body damage. Remember you are shooting to stop, not necessarily kill, however every pelvic hit I have seen left the BG DOA-lots of big blood vessels down there.

 

[tactikel]

Please define Home defense, do you live in an apartment, single family home in the 'burbs, or a farm house? Urban HD mandates a shotgun with 00 or smaller (#4 buck is safest), Burbs means 00 buck, and a farm-use slugs or a .30-30. It is increasingly difficult to justify a SD shooting much beyond 30 feet so be sure to use all caution before you pull the trigger.

 

[chudykGT]

My freind cleared a bunch of wood from his nieghbors yard, and there was a large tree stump (don't know what kind of tree) and it had those brass numbers you put on your house (so the pizza guy can find it).

We decided, hey, why not see the effects of 2-3/4"#4 bird, 3"#2 bird (steel), and 3" 00 buck. We were about 10 yards away, using my 870 express open choke 18" barrel

Well. The #4 bird went about 1/8" in the wood, and just flattened over the brass numbers, the #2 steel bird went about 1/2" in and dented, often remained wedged into the brass, and the #00 went about 1"+ into the wood, and bashed any brass it hit about 1/2" into the wood. I was actually able to pry one of the pellets that hit metal out of the wood. I'll try to load the pic of the pellet afterwards.

Anyways, I realize solid wood will stop alot, but I am guessing a blast of bird, or small buck won't penatrate too many walls. Thus, it will not penatrate too far into a person at range, so its 00 buck for indoor defense, and slugs in the bush against bears or moose (and I pray to not face either upset)

 

[Antihero]

Honestly the only 2 different kinds of shot loads i like is this one:

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/12-ga-2-3-4-multi-defense-buckshot-shells.aspx?a=377126

Probably irrelevant to your question, but its a good duplex load.

 

[HorseSoldier]

That load looks like it's pretty much a modern version of the buck and ball load mentioned up thread. Bit more compelling than the buck and bird shot mix.