Shotgun Defensive Ammunition

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Paraphrased from: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

For a load to stop bad guys they have to also be able to penetrate the walls of your home. So either dont shoot if the wall beyond the attacker is where your little bundle of joy is, or for the love of Pete hit the attacker and make sure that the load you are using wont go through both the attacker and the wall.
 
boxotruth is a great web site, but - they tend to worse case everything and enjoy drinking their own kool-aid. Ever notice that they never test large diameter bird shot? Always low brass 8s at 5 yards or so. Try # 4 shot at 10 feet and you'll see a difference.
 
"And also, What other shotgun loads are good for defense or crowd(looters) control? The state of our economy has me pretty worried."

Crowd control! I am loving this! Many many years ago my platoon was trained in riot control; it was not a one-man job, it was violent, and there were enough of us with SLR's to be darned sure the mob was not going to rush us.

Basically it involved a snatch squad charging into the brick-throwing mob to grab the 'ringleaders', who would be given a severe battering with pick-handles and boots. If the mob was still there the platoon commander would start pointing out people to be shot, and if there was any return fire - well, you guess what would happen.

You're going to tackle a mob on your own? With a shotgun?
 
I don't advise taking on a mob if there's a good alternative. Then again, I can look back at events in our nation's history, as recently as Reginald Denny's beating 16 years ago, where I would have felt obligated to attempt to protect someone against a mob. If faced with such a situation, I must believe distance and accuracy would be my friend.

John
 
In planning for home defense I am not expecting a planned attack by professionals. I expect that my target will be within 30' when I fire and even 1.25 ounces of #8 shot will be very effective close in. If the BG is running away, you could be on shaky legal grounds if you pursue and keep firing to put him down. My sole purpose is to end the threat to myself and my family. I can not visualize a BG continuing to advance after taking four or five rounds of 12 ga bird shot at increasingly decreasing ranges. I guess you could load a 3" 00 mag as your last round just in case.
 
My dept uses Federal low recoil 00 buck for our shotguns. When shooting it in training (still have to take a full class to get qualified though...) ,aiming COM, all the pellets would usually stay on a standard silhouette target at about 25 yards. Now I dont own the smallest house out there but at no point in my house am I shooting past maybe 10 yards.
 
In planning for home defense I am not expecting a planned attack by professionals. I expect that my target will be within 30' when I fire and even 1.25 ounces of #8 shot will be very effective close in. If the BG is running away, you could be on shaky legal grounds if you pursue and keep firing to put him down. My sole purpose is to end the threat to myself and my family. I can not visualize a BG continuing to advance after taking four or five rounds of 12 ga bird shot at increasingly decreasing ranges. I guess you could load a 3" 00 mag as your last round just in case.
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considering that the bg could be armed and have the ability to shoot back there is no way that I would use number 8 birdshot thats way to light even at 10 yards, number 4 birdshot would be the lightest I would consider using.
 
Rubber Buckshot. I'd follow them with lead incase the rubber isn't enough warning.

They also make rubber slugs, but I've only seen those for people running off predators from their sheep/cattle/etc.

I think the rubber they use is hard to keep from gumming up the barrel and losing velocity because of the lighter weight, not something soft with high elasticity like a bouncy ball.

Not sure if these are the right compound, but might be worth looking at if you're a reloader who likes to experiment:
Rubber Balls at Rubbermill.com
 
I really like the Winchester Supreme 00 buck loads, specifically the 2.75" 9 pellet and 3" 12 pellet, both at a crispy 1450 fps. It's not Federal FlightControl or Hornady TAP in terms of patterning but it seems to hold its own with just about anything else.
 
I just picked up some dual diameter buckshot loads. One pellet at .60 in and 6 pellets of #1. Some 20 yd testing when I get the chance will be in order. I figure as long as that .60 pellet hits the body at 20 yds it should be good enough for me. These are 2 3/4 loads too.

I hope these are some straight up Zombie destroyers.
 
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I just picked up some dual diameter buckshot loads. One pellet at .60 in and 6 pellets of #1. Some 20 yd testing when I get the chance will be in order. I figure as long as that .60 pellet hits the body at 20 yds it should be good enough for me. These are 2 3/4 loads too.

I hope these are some straight up Zombie destroyers.
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I've used a load like that and was fairly impressed, they were handloads given to me that consisted of 1 .65 ball and 6 #1 buck. I saw it as a best-of-both-worlds combination of a slug and a typical 00 buck load.

The only issues seemed to be that the ball went from being reasonably accurate to increasingly erratic over 50 yards {this was the main reason slugs replaced ball rounds originally} and also the ball seemed to penetrate like a Foster slug, which could be good or bad depending.
 
Youngster;5046360they were handloads given to me that consisted of 1 .65 ball and 6 #1 buck. I saw it as a best-of-both-worlds combination of a slug and a typical 00 buck load.[/QUOTE said:
Years ago when I was handloading 12g we made up a bunch of stuff like that and used it for woodchucks. We called it "Party Mix" :evil: ... worked pretty good I recall when you got close enough.
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Birdshot is for birds fellas:banghead: I've killed lots of birds.

00 buck and slug are for folks. Any buck is ok, but hey, I'm comfortable with 00 buck since they issue it to me. Thankfully, I haven't had to kill lots of folks:scrutiny:

I've put a few thousand rounds of Remington Law Enforcement low recoil 00 and slug downrange. Works great.

For the "home" shotty, I used Federal LE. Very effective and more accurate/tighter patterns than any other defense ammo I've used.

You can buy the Federal stuff here:

www.ammunitiontogo.com
 
Dog is right. Use birdshot at your peril. Anyone using birdshot for defense deserves the problems that will arise. Birdshot wounds are quite surviveable, and also very savagely disfiguring-read big time litigation. You can always justify 00 Buck or any other Buck as it is what the cops and military use. Slugs fall into the same territory. Birdshot has all of the disadvantages and none of the advantages of a BB gun.
If you are going to arm yourself for HD or any other reason, you had better get your mind right and use the proper weapon/ammo, AND be prepared for the consequences of your actions, emotional and legal. Some folks feel that using birdshot is more "humane", it isn't, not for you at least. Of course to gain the benefits of being "humane" you have to survive. Using birdshot is a good way to insure that won't happen.
 
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