Shotguns and Overpenetration of Lethal Ammunition

[earlthegoat2]

There is quite a bit of opinions on the use of a shotgun in the home defense arena and the ammunition you should use. For the most part I believe that everyone understands the advantage that adequately sized shot (buckshot) and slugs over birdshot for stopping power. The main question that comes up though is fear of overpenetration with children in the house or if you are in an apartment or mobile home and the possibity of collateral damage.

Couldn't this debate be naegated with tactics? For instance a homeowner can asses the layout of the home and train themselves to shoot only down certain lanes so they dont endanger others. This may be more idealism than anything.

However what about if you train to move and shoot from the kneeling position. This way if a shot has to be made at a standing the target the projectiles will go upaward making the loved ones safe from your blast. If your in an apt complex with multiple floors it would also have more walls/flooring to go through as well probably slowing buckshot sufficiently down. If the shot is made at a kneeling or low target you could stand up yourself as you fire to make yourself shoot downward.

I suppose the key point in this is "training" and that will always be the deciding factor in lethal force confrontations. This tactic could be used with handguns and rifles as well.

What are others opinions on this. Maybe my logic is flawed.

 

[PaladinX13]

Couldn't this debate be naegated with tactics [and training]?

If one is willing to spend the resources and has the talent, sure, but that's a considerable "if"... we don't let the machines to everything, but they certainly do "correct" for a lot of human endeavor. That's why they're great equalizers.

The caliber debate could be negated with tactics and training... everyone can just put .22s though the eye of an attacker, caliber ceases to be a factor.

The revolver/auto debate can be negated with tactics and training... everyone can handload their ammo and rigorously test it to prevent many auto reliability issues... or master quick reloads to negate the magazine change advantage.

Heck, if you bring your kung-fu far enough, you can dispense with guns all together! Humans are adaptable, sure, but if there's a purpose-built tool to handle the job, why not let the tool do its thing?

 

[Hungry Seagull]

We have identified specific hazards in our home. Also identified the distances to all of our neighboring houses. We also identified "no shoot" paths because maybe one wall covers a neighbor's house with children or contains a electrical panel for example.

We use Brenneke ammuntion that is good from 35 to 50 yards, they will make it all the way to the end of the 100 yard range wall with a few feet drop and smack it solid. But these rounds should expand and stop inside the BG. But if not, they will not travel too far before hitting the ground.

We have acreage to do this.

Now for urban apartment type shooting, I would go down to the 20 gauge or even .410 and fire the slowest heavy ammuntion I can find. Or even a string of bean bag ammo if necessary. Hammer the BG into submission.

There is one area of the home designated as the killzone. It is a free fire zone and it is hoped that the engagement will be made at that point. The Alamo or the safe room (Not really, but you work with what you have) is also specifically used by the spouse and she has her own engagement rules. That makes me the hunter or hammer while she is the anvil.

Mobile homes are horrible from a shoot point of view. We owned one for a time until we managed to restore and sell it at a good price and got rid of the thing. The thin-ness of the total construction of said mobile home with all that framing down below that potentially can re-direct bullets or slugs/buck back up into the house.... ugh.

A trailer park will be the worst case self defense situation and almost untenable because of the danger to others. I think handgun and large dog will have to do it in that situation.

Single family homes in a subdivision are not so bad, but if I was to think about engagement in such a home like the one I lived in all 4 walls contain a neighbor when the rounds go through. Not a good picture. We would have to fall back to the basement and do our defense down there.

And finally, much older homes with several stories are much more attractive to me as a defense sitaution. I lived in one as a child where you could turn a staircase from the second floor into a absolute butcher house zone and all the rounds will go straight through into the basement below. In those days they had coal bunkers down there. Perfect.

If necessary even fall back to third or forth floors (They built em big and strong in those war years) and keep it going.

My thoughts from my own experiences.

Ammuntion Ive tried varied from the Magnum Super X which is wonderful but will hit the next 4 houses and take trees down on the way carrying the bad guy's spine. It's just nutz.

Laser dot on bad guy will ensure that the round will hit there. Not to rely on technology but to KISS iron bead sights we can use any of the guns the old way and still hit the bad guy at the distances we expect to fight at.

We already had laser failure from time to time on the range for a variety of educational reasons. The most common is too heavy a round/huge pressure blast or recoil. Other reason is the tighten of the bolts from time to time to keep it strong hold on the gun itself.

Many more things to think about but I leave it here.

 

[tyesai]

Overpenetration unless your in the adult movie buisness is way overrated IMHO. First what are the chances you actually have to use a gun in self/home defense? Then what are the chances that if you miss you go through walls or floors or doors or whatever and at that exact moment that you actually had to use a weapon someone else is on the other side and gets shot? Then what are the chances it has enough energy to be fatal, AND accidentally hits someone in a fatal area?

Well, I'll tell ya what the chances are, 50/50 either it will or it won't happen but I'm taking the won't bet everytime and I promise I'd be rich if I could find enough suckers to take the bet.

 

[Dr. Fresh]

The way I look at it, you should just try not to miss, and don't shoot when the guy is in front of your childrens' bedroom or whatnot.

Anything that can be relied on to stop someone will overpenetrate. That's just the way it is.

 

[drjoker]

Just shoot down so that the bullet trajectory is down into the ground and not into the neighbors' home. Do crotch shots. This comes naturally for women. Men may have to relearn....

 

[CWL]

Just shoot down so that the bullet trajectory is down into the ground and not into the neighbors' home. Do crotch shots.

drjoker, it may seem like I'm hounding you, but you are giving seriously bad advice, not really the right thing to do on a responsible gun forum.

The purpose of responsible firearms self defense discussion is to pass along accepted means to stop an assault, this means incapacitating a BG in the fastest manner possible. Aimed COM shots followed by head shot failure drills is the commonly accepted "norm" taught worldwide. Nowhere has "crotch shots" ever been advocated or used -even similar shots into the pelvic girdle/hip joint has been largely dropped by the greater shooting community as not immediately effective.

Please stick around and read a lot, hopefully you will learn proper training strategies and techniques.

 

[BCPerry]

Interesting...

A while back I saw on PDTV where they explored just this topic. Type of shotgun ammo to use for self defense IN the home. After watching the show, I tried it myself.

For my test, I took two sheets of 5/8 sheetrock and put one up on either side of some 2 X 4's , making a wall so to speak. And yes, I did put some house insulation in between the wall.

At 20 ft, which in MOST typical houses is the farthest distance between two walls, high brass bird shot entered one side of the wall, but did not go all the way out the other wall.

Double 00 buck shot was a clean pass through.

Slugs, well you can imagine.

So then I decided to see how far the buckshot and slugs would go. I set up 2 wall sections 10 ft apart and then I sepped back to 15 ft. The buckshot past through both walls. Need less to say what the slugs did.

So what I determined that afternoon in February was this, in my home, bird shot is all I need for shooting inside. I keep slugs and buckshot close in case of a tactical reload and the heavier stuff is needed.

But hey, my test was in no way scientific, and only serves as info here. You guys should try it, it was actually lots of fun.

 

[chuckusaret]

I have done similar testing and also reviewed the recommendations by the HD experts. I must agree to a statement that one made and I will load my shotgun accordingly. "Birdshot is for the birds, Buckshot is for the buck and and Slugs are for the thugs" Walls are easy to repair my wifes life is not.

 

[Fred Fuller]

earl,

The FIRST thing anyone needs to cover a home defense situation IMHO is a plan. Granted, it's an old military axiom that 'no plan suvives contact with the enemy intact,' but still that's no excuse for not having a home defense plan. Well, actually, more than one- more than a decade hanging around Special Forces soldiers taught me that you have a Plan A, a Plan B, and an 'OS' Plan at minimum for anything critical. Naturally you should have plans and preparations in place to cover any reasonable family emergency- fire drills, since fire in the home is a more likely emergency, or evacuation plans in case of bad weather if you're in a hurricane zone, etc.

It's my sincere opinion that the best place for kids when anything goes down that might require active defense is in a safe place with the armed parent between them and the threat. If that means having to move through part of the house to either gather or secure the little people, so be it. If that means the secure room is one of the kid's bedrooms and not the parent's, so be it. Plans and preparations are the name of the game. Plans require rehersal and practice.

Naturally, security starts as far away from the saferoom as you can push back the boundaries. The more warning you have that anyone is coming, and the more barriers there are for them to overcome, the more discouragements you can put in place (fences, motion activated lights, alarms, dogs, good solid doors, good locks, etc) between them and your loved ones, the more time you will have to put your plans in operation- AND the less likely you are to ever have to use your home defense plans.

Back when I used to work for Uncle Sam, the S-2 guys had an acronym they used- IPB, which stood for Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield. See http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ioac/ipb.htm for some detail on the subject. Now this will certainly be more material than you will want to try to embrace in your home defense plan, and some of it simply won't apply- but it will give you some insight into some of the things you need to be looking at as you survey your home and grounds from the standpoint of the bad guys as you formulate your plans.

Or for a slightly different take on this, see Marc MacYoung's site at http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pyramid.html . Consider the pyramid approach he outlines there- it's worth while also.

You mention training- and you no doubt know that training is something I particularly encourage, when it's relevant. I'd suggest you look at http://www.nrahq.org/education/training/basictraining.asp and see if you can find an instructor near you who is teaching the NRA's Personal Protection In The Home class. If not, the class is available on video from the NRA's Bookstore at http://materials.nrahq.org/go/product.aspx?productid=ES 26840 , and the textbook at http://www.nrastore.com/nra/Product.aspx?productid=PB+01781 . Those are good starting points in your plans and preparations.

Any structure is a maze of what are known as 'fatal funnels'- narrow areas where anyone transiting is forced to go by structural features- such as hallways, doorways, stairways etc. Your house is no different. Your home defense plan needs to be set up to maximize your advantages in this regard, and minimize your disadvantages as a defender.

It's also possible to prepare these fatal funnels in advance to contain any misses or overpenetration from your weapon. Heavy furniture, bookshelves loaded full, decorative brick or stone interior walls, filing cabinets and all manner of things can serve this purpose. The same things can also serve to help you prepare genuine cover for your loved ones in their saferoom.

You will want to use lighting in the home to your advantage. Back in the day the motto of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, then known as Task Force 160 [ http://www.globalspecialoperations.com/soar.html ], was "Death waits in the dark." That is pretty much a description of what you will want to achieve. Your safe room and your position as defender should be in the dark, while the approaches to it should be lighted. You can use night lights, interior motion activated lights, remote control lighting (X-10 system, etc) that plug into existing outlets and use your home's existing wiring to accomplish this. There are night lights that have a power failure mode if you want to be prepared for those cases when intruders pull the power in preparation to making entry into the home, or you can have commercial type area power failure lighting installed.

You'll want to have reliable telephone communication from your safe room as well. With luck your spouse wll be there to call the cavalry while your cover the approach to the saferoom. In order for that to happen you'll want both landline and cell phone capability in place. It's been known that intruders ripped out phone lines before making entry, or simply take a downstairs phone extension off the hook to disable the landline. Having a cell phone helps make sure your ability to call for help won't be compromised.

Those are some things you will want to think about in planning and preparing your home defense plan. Not everything, of course, but some things at least. Hope it helps,

lpl

 

[chuckusaret]

I have a primary plan and a backup plan that my wife and I have rehearsed many times and no kids to worry about. The walls of the house don't mean a thing to me and are very easy to repair. The BG that breaks in or invades my house is in for a rude awakening. I have no hang ups about using deadly force, I have done it in the past and will gladly use deadly force again.

 

[Tropical Buzz]

Gladly?

 

[chuckusaret]

Gladly?

Yes. If someone has the balls to break into or invade my house I will gladly, WITHOUT HESITATION, do whatever it takes to protect my wife and myself. Yes, I have used deadly force in combat and at home. In both cases deadly force was justified.

 

[Tropical Buzz]

We're likely on the same page chuck, just expressing ourselves differently I suppose. I, too have used firearms in situations requiring the defense of myself and/or my property. Thankfully though, each time I was able to resolve the situation without actually having to shoot the other person (held one for arrest at gunpoint, sent two running for their lives through the bushes, and blasted another's illegal charcoal-making operation on my property to bits with a shotgun). I used my weapons without hesitation and am prepared to again if ever warranted. Readily, yes - but "gladly" , no.

 

[LightningCrash]

Did somebody say firing lanes? I think so, so I made this model of my apartment in about 10 minutes.

My plan has always been:
If we hear something, my wife grabs the kids (they sleep in our bedroom) and gets in the Master Bathroom while I grab the shotgun. I set up at the foot of our bed. (Rack the slide, kick the safety off, point at the door.)
If that door moves, I pull the trigger. If there's still someone there, I send more rounds out.

With the layout of our apartment complex, this is the safest firing lane of all because it puts the rounds into my laundry room. If it were to over penetrate, it would hit the neighbor's laundry rooms.
In addition, me being away from the bathroom door puts my family out of the BG's firing lane if there should be any return fire.

Seems simple enough for me, anyway.

edit: If I really think someone has broken into my house, I don't give a rat's foot about my possessions in the rest of the house. Have at em. But if you think you're coming into my bedroom, you're probably going to go visit the Lord God almighty.

 

[Hungry Seagull]

Our home is even simpler than that.

One hallway to the Alamo. Even better, the spouse and I form a two man fireteam if they invade when we both are home.

None can get through the windows very well.

What really bothers is none have to smash the door at all. All they have to do is be quiet, listen for which room is occupied and blast through the wall.

 

[earlthegoat2]

I started this more as a way of getting around all the darn posts about using birdshot or some bad idea to negate the use of buckshot because of penetration through walls. I do not doubt my abilities and the time for training has already come and gone.

I simply wonder if shooting up at a target by kneeling down would be a viable option to protecting the loved ones in a given home or the neighbors.

I dont worry about it too much in my home although I really dont want to shoot my dog. I have no loved ones living with me. Im trying to get the buckshot woes calmed down a bit.

 

[LightningCrash]

Maybe you should stand on a chair and aim down?

 

[Hungry Seagull]

Get a hold of a 00 or 000 buck ammo, go to the range and draw up a big peice of paper of a human target. Run it out to about 10 yards, load and fire that shot at the paper. The pattern will tell you what to expect.

Walls are easy fix.

 

[Fred Fuller]

I set up at the foot of our bed. (Rack the slide, kick the safety off, point at the door.)
If that door moves, I pull the trigger.

LC,

It's just me, but I'd not take off the safety until an instant before I pulled the trigger. And I'd be issuing verbal challenges loudly (they'd have to be loud, to be heard of the bellowing of the two Filas) as long as possible before I did that as well.


earl,

Shooting from a kneeling position might improve things as far as safety is concerned, long as there are no people upstairs in your place or next door to be concerned about. As with so many situations, it depends...

lpl

 

[PT1911]

"It's just me, but I'd not take off the safety until an instant before I pulled the trigger."
although I agree with this in principle, I have to respectfully disagree in the situation specified... that is because in a moment where a bg kicks in your bedroom door, every split second matters, being ready for his entrance you are at an advantage, but if in that moment, being shaky with adrenaline, you havent yet taken your gun off safety, you have given up that advantage... the immediate reflex would be to pull the trigger, not to disengage the safety then pull the trigger..

this is a series of events I would rather avoid.. bad guy kicks in the door, good guy pulls the trigger in his excited state... click... good guy, adrenaline clouding his judgement, takes his eyes off the bad guy to examine his "faulty" weapon, bad guy shoots good guy.

 

[AKElroy]

If the goal is to get the bad guy to STOP an advance inside the very close ranges in a home, then 00 or 000, even 4 buck, are not necessary and will in fact waist valuable stopping energy beyond your target. For potential shots of 15' or less, I am completely confident in HEAVY magnum birdshot; 3", 2 oz loads of copper plated 4 or 6 shot. 100% energy transfer, absolutely devastating at very close range. NOBODY is going to continue an advance with a chest or face full of it. OK--Bring the "required" FBI penetration figures---Bad guy in my house is not going to agree with balistics gel on this one. Take any human analogue you like, blast it with a 2 oz magnum load @ 10'-15'. Bring a change of clothes because you will be wearing it.

 

[Fred Fuller]

I don't want this to turn into an argument, but likewise I respectfully disagree:

#1, I am NOT gonna shoot at an unidentified target without at least attempting a verbal challenge,

#2, my 'reflex' is to release whatever mechanical safety the weapon I am holding has (if any) before I so much as put a finger on the trigger. That comes from training, experience and long practice. Training CAN replace reflex with a better response, even under pressure- that is why we train.

I am not saying my way is the right way, or the only way, of course. YMMV.

lpl

 

[LibShooter]

I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole "birdshot vs. buckshot" debate. It all comes down to a risk-benefit analysis.

My wife and I have no children, live WAY out in the country and have either a mountain or hundreds of yards of trees between our home and the neighbors. We could use an RPG and not worry about much over-penetration. Risk is low. Benefit from a possible quick stop is high. I use a rifle and/or buckshot for home defense.

If we had children behind drywall or nearby neighbors I would not hesitate to switch to birdshot. The risk of injuring an innocent is higher. As for the benefit of birdshot in a home defense situation: I just don't expect to ever have to deal with a bad guy who would not be dissuaded by a face full of #4 lead shot. Everything is a compromise.

 

[AKElroy]

#1, I am NOT gonna shoot at an unidentified target without at least attempting a verbal challenge,

#2, my 'reflex' is to release whatever mechanical safety the weapon I am holding has (if any) before I so much as put a finger on the trigger. That comes from training, experience and long practice. Training CAN replace reflex with a better response, even under pressure- that is why we train.

Amen---Shooting through a door, or unloading on an unidentified target is a bad call. KNOW the bad guy isn't the neighbor checking because he saw a stranger breaking into your house. KNOW your weapon--Not being able to use the features of a tool you stake your life on is a bad call.