Yoda
Member
While visiting family this past week, one of my relatives related an incident that happened to him about two months ago. This relative just turned 90, and he was credited with several air-to-air kills during the "big one." (A local paper published in the 1940s credited him with 6 1/2 shoot downs in the Mediterranean Theater.)
Anyway, he needed some work done on his small farm, but his daughter urged him not to hire anyone until she was visiting him, so any crew that helped him out would not get the idea that he lives alone. He hired a six-man crew anyway.
The first night after the crew started work, he was up going to the can in the middle of the night, and he heard an odd noise in back of his house. He armed himself with the same 410 shotgun with #4 shot that he uses on Armadillos and started toward the portion of the house where both the front and back doors are. Then he heard someone trying to pry the back door open.
He took up a position in the kitchen where he could see anyone coming through the door and out of the connecting the laundry room. The intruder got the door open, traversed the laundry room, then saw the relative with the shotgun. He did a quick about-face, tripped over some laundry on the floor, and ran outside. The relative followed, thought he saw the bad guy try to hide behind a thick post about 50 feet away, and took a shot. The bad guy then ran off. My relative didn't see any car, but it could have been in a nearby wood.
The relative thought he "winged him." He called another relative who was working in the nearest hospital emergency room and asked her to watch for anyone coming in with shotgun wounds, but by the end of her shift, no one had.
An inspection of the thick post the next morning confirmed that the some of the shot had hit the post, so it is possible the bad guy was included in the pattern. However, I'm wondering what sort of penetration a 410 with #4 shot would have at 50 feet, especially if the bad guy had any sort of jacket on.
The next morning, when the work crew showed up, they were one man short, and they were unusually quiet all day. They watched him replace the lock and latch on the back door.
Today, he says he would have used different tactics. He says he should have used cover/concealment in the living room rather than stand in the middle of the kitchen. He also says he picked up the 410 out of habit, leaving behind the S&W 625 with two full-moon clips of Taurus copper hollowpoints that I've left for his use in cases like this. He also noted that the night light he leaves on would have been behind him, silhouetting him to any intruder while leaving the intruder unilluminated.
My relative never called the cops. He just doesn't think much of the local police, doesn't want the hassle, and figures he resolved the situation himself.
- - - Yoda
Anyway, he needed some work done on his small farm, but his daughter urged him not to hire anyone until she was visiting him, so any crew that helped him out would not get the idea that he lives alone. He hired a six-man crew anyway.
The first night after the crew started work, he was up going to the can in the middle of the night, and he heard an odd noise in back of his house. He armed himself with the same 410 shotgun with #4 shot that he uses on Armadillos and started toward the portion of the house where both the front and back doors are. Then he heard someone trying to pry the back door open.
He took up a position in the kitchen where he could see anyone coming through the door and out of the connecting the laundry room. The intruder got the door open, traversed the laundry room, then saw the relative with the shotgun. He did a quick about-face, tripped over some laundry on the floor, and ran outside. The relative followed, thought he saw the bad guy try to hide behind a thick post about 50 feet away, and took a shot. The bad guy then ran off. My relative didn't see any car, but it could have been in a nearby wood.
The relative thought he "winged him." He called another relative who was working in the nearest hospital emergency room and asked her to watch for anyone coming in with shotgun wounds, but by the end of her shift, no one had.
An inspection of the thick post the next morning confirmed that the some of the shot had hit the post, so it is possible the bad guy was included in the pattern. However, I'm wondering what sort of penetration a 410 with #4 shot would have at 50 feet, especially if the bad guy had any sort of jacket on.
The next morning, when the work crew showed up, they were one man short, and they were unusually quiet all day. They watched him replace the lock and latch on the back door.
Today, he says he would have used different tactics. He says he should have used cover/concealment in the living room rather than stand in the middle of the kitchen. He also says he picked up the 410 out of habit, leaving behind the S&W 625 with two full-moon clips of Taurus copper hollowpoints that I've left for his use in cases like this. He also noted that the night light he leaves on would have been behind him, silhouetting him to any intruder while leaving the intruder unilluminated.
My relative never called the cops. He just doesn't think much of the local police, doesn't want the hassle, and figures he resolved the situation himself.
- - - Yoda
