You'd think it'd be easy to find !

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blarby

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Was discussing HD with the Mrs. and friends last night, when the old standby of "Shotgun and 00 buck" came up.

Its so ubiquitous that its almost muscle memory, or a twitch maybe....this combination being brought up with HD versus 2 legged critters.

Someone brought up the wild idea of comparing a few of these instances- I think 10 was the number, so that we could see what a difference other choices might have made.

After stumbling around the webz for about 20 minutes wading through various ads and threads on the above-mentioned combo, someone found the remnants of the St.Paddys stash :D - and we found other topics to amuse ourselves.

But here we are monday morning.

Either my google-fu is failing me :banghead:, or I'm hampered by the diversion from yesterday:scrutiny:.

Anyone got a handful of links pertaining to actual successful deployment of the above combo in an HD situation layin around ?
 
I don't have the info you require but my HD loads are number 2 shot. At HD ranges, 3-5 yards, the body won't know the difference between number 2 and OO. Besides, it will give the emergency room doc something to do pulling all that shot out of the body.....however, the other barrel has a slug in it.....chris3
 
Most documented shootings with shotguns and 00 buck are LEO-involved, as are most of the shootings in this country where there is any attempt to collect, organize and analyze shooting data at all. One of the problems with trying to draw reliable conclusions about shootings by armed citizens with anything (firearm, caliber etc.) is lack of data.

What exactly is that that you wish to document?

Your problem, and that for all of us, is that every shooting incident is pretty much a law unto itself. There are so many variables involved that it is difficult to draw very many broadly useful conclusions, and it's often hard even to establish what metrics are really relevant. Nothing, including a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot, is a death ray. As with any other firearm, as far as I can tell, what matters is placement and penetration of the projectile(s) involved. Beyond that it's pretty much out of our control.
 
Fred Fuller said:
Most documented shootings with shotguns and 00 buck are LEO-involved, as are most of the shootings in this country where there is any attempt to collect, organize and analyze shooting data at all. One of the problems with trying to draw reliable conclusions about shootings by armed citizens with anything (firearm, caliber etc.) is lack of data.

What exactly is that that you wish to document?

Your problem, and that for all of us, is that every shooting incident is pretty much a law unto itself. There are so many variables involved that it is difficult to draw very many broadly useful conclusions, and it's often hard even to establish what metrics are really relevant. Nothing, including a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot, is a death ray. As with any other firearm, as far as I can tell, what matters is placement and penetration of the projectile(s) involved. Beyond that it's pretty much out of our control.
Click to expand...
I know one instructor who says as far as he is concerned, if it isnt attached and launched from the bottom of an aircraft it may not work. Having said that i prefer a shotgun for home defense.
 
I know one instructor who says as far as he is concerned, if it isnt attached and launched from the bottom of an aircraft it may not work. Having said that i prefer a shotgun for home defense.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the round I saw at the museum the other day would have a pretty decent chance of success. It was about 2/3 my height and weighed 4x what I do.
 
@ fred :

What we were trying to find is some sort of data- even bad news articles- to back up the shotgun/OObuck litany for home defense.

In the 'net era, you can find all sorts of defense shooting info on small arms : pistols and occasionally their ammo choice, "evil black rifles", even knives.... but so far the " Magic Combo" has yet to pop up.


Going with that "Try being informed, not opinionated" mantra.... but there seems to be a gaping hole where the actual documented usefulness of the shotgun/buck combo ( my fav, btw....not trying to be a hater) has been employed.

Either the data doesn't exist because its magically harder to find than other HD shooting news, or it doesn't exist because the magical HD failsafe isn't as magical as I/We first thought.

I haven't made up my mind that its not....but some actual documentation- even vague or by way of news reporting, other than 3rd hand " I know a guy, who knows a guy" would be handy.

We discuss items of much less relevance here frequently and come away with way more useful information than I ever thought possible, on a range of topics that is breathtaking to say the least..... I'd like to be able to let the THR bloodhounds loose on this one, too.
 
One of the best reasons I know for seeking out professional training is the opportunity to hear from people who teach thousands of students in a year's time, and watch millions of rounds go downrange in the course of that training. Not all of the training that professional trainers do is for armed citizens, some of the top tier trainers out there do classes for LEOs and .mil as well. And they get feedback from their students, and in turn, in some cases, can pass that feedback along to other classes.

For instance, Tom Givens at Rangemaster in Memphis had his annual Polite Society Conference a few weeks ago - http://www.rangemaster.com/events/the-tactical-conference.html . You can see John Farnam's brief writeup at http://www.defense-training.com/quips/26Feb12.html , I haven't seen any other AARs out there yet, and I've been too slack and sorry to write my own over in ST&T so far - which reminds me, I need to get that done while the whole thing is still reasonably fresh in my mind and I can still put hands on my notes.

No one that I heard lecture at Polite Society 2012 was talking about shotguns, so I don't have any new and different insights from there to pass along. And it still ranges from difficult to impossible to quantify much of what's known about defensive shootings by armed citizens using shotguns. But in this case I for one am completely satisfied with the conventional wisdom, that shotguns with appropriate ammunition for the gauge are about as good as it gets for defensive use in the home - AS LONG AS the caveats I specified above are applied. Those caveats being that placement and penetration are the critical aspects determining the results of any shot fired by any projectile weapon in self defense.

When time allows I'll see if I can find anything different out on the web that might help from the 'case study' standpoint.

Compilations of stories (not indexed specifically as to firearm used):

http://www.learnaboutguns.com/tag/self-defense-example/

http://thearmedcitizen.com/

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/search/label/DefensiveGunUse
=====================================

Here's this story I recall from NC, though ammunition used was not specified -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-FOUR-men-try-break-house.html#ixzz1ikgnd99V
 
Check out this months American Rifleman. In the Armed Citizen section there is a snippet about a shotgun vs to home invaders. They did not give specifics on ammunition. As I recall it was one dead and one in critical.
 
I have no doubt that superior training, in particular shot placement- are critical in these situations. No doubt whatsoever.

Just seems like a fair amount of the HD choices seem to be merited on past actual experiences as much as marketing hype...something that in this instance seems to be lacking. ( Actual experience, certainly not hype )
 
Before my retirement from The MD Dept of Public Safety and Corrections( Last my job) I could access a govt site I cannot now. One area there dealt with keeping track of shootings, mostly LE but with maybe 20-25% civilian.

The shotgun section had a mess of data, a few thousand incidents. Overall one shot stop rate was over 99%. That was regardless of load, gauge or choke.

If you put anything in the right place, you get a stop. With a shotgun, it still takes the right place. And a 12 gauge with 00 has a larger place and a greater chance of stopping a threat.

IIRC, over 80% of the incidents involved 00.
 
Most of the "street cred" for 00 buck out of a 12 gauge comes from LE, because police shoot more people with shotguns and buckshot than anyone else, and even more because those shootings are generally documented (as Dave indicated above). I've heard a good many serious students of defensive shooting (which number includes some of the top tier trainers in the country) wish we had better data for shootings involving armed citizens that would help us determine what was most likely to happen. But if the data isn't collected, it cannot be analyzed, and so far no one has made serious efforts at collecting data on defensive shootings by armed citizens on a wide scope, in a format that would allow for useful incident analysis.

Anyone out there need to do a criminology/sociology thesis or dissertation? We could suggest a topic...
 
Actually sounds like LE has quite the database, and that its not made usable by the public.

Mebbe FOIA would be a better route :)
 
So in 2010 of 52 officers discharging weapons in 33 separate incidents, firing a total of 236 rounds, and only 16 subjects were shot?

That is only 48% of shooting incidents that lead to someone actually getting shot.

That is much lower than I would have thought. I know that many shots fired in a gunfight miss, but I wouldn't have thought that the people being shot at had a better than 50/50 chance of not being hit at all.
 
Fred Fuller said:
NYPD publishes theirs - http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/268431-2010-nypd-firearms-discharge-report.html

NY Times article - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/nyregion/2010-ny-police-shooting-report-shows-record-lows.html

DOJ has this material available - http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=703
Click to expand...
Very interesting, thanks! I'm surprised at the number of accidental discharges. And at the number of people shot overall. Compare that to the total killed in 1971!
 
Also good info, thanks fred !

I particularly love the first paragraph on p.19 describing use of force per police and per citizen. if you follow that train into the "guidelines and reasonableness" section, their ability to fire on a fleeing subject disappears somewhere.

Still, these are accounts of PD on perp, or vice-versa.

the DOJ website at least has studies pertaining to their own difficulty in assembling use-of-force statistics....partially based on the reluctance of the PD to provide them.

Thats not surprising at all, and massaging of stats- especially UOF ones, has been commonplace for some time.
 
From pistol when unexpected, to shotgun when expecting.

That, is pretty close to the mark :)

Illustrates that "if you are expecting confrontation......anything but a pistol"

Very helpful !
 
There have been a couple of FWAG (felon with a gun) stories from here in NC lately that involved not only shotguns, but a curious NC legal definition. NC calls an illegal sawed-off shotgun a "weapon of mass destruction" for some reason (hey, I'm from AL originally, I don't get it either), and there have been two cases lately that I've seen where WMD charges were levied, as well as various other felony charges.

http://ncguns.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-shoots-his-girlfriend-with-sawed.html
http://fayobserver.com/articles/2012/03/22/1165797?sac=fo.local

The second story would be funny if it weren't so hilarious. Fleeing the scene of a crime naked on a skateboard, making it to the getaway car, and then running out of gas when the blue lights come on behind you? A genuine criminal genius, this one.

http://ncguns.blogspot.com/2012/03/go-to-jail-do-not-pass-go-do-not.html
http://www.jdnews.com/articles/-101810--.html
 
How Relevant is LE Incident Data?

I wonder if LE incident information is truly representative of the majority of HD circumstances...
-Is 00 really the best load, or are the majority of LE incidents citing 00 buck because LE personnel use 00 out of "oral tradition;" i.e., most agencies just assume that it's the right load?

- Aren't the ranges typical of LE encounters statistically longer then what is typical in a HD situation? A perp running away down an alley is a longer shot than a perp in my upstairs hallway.

- A gang incident involving 4-6 bad guys is a different situation than one or two bad guys in a private residence.

I suspect the data available is biased in favor of 00 shot because that's what is issued by the dept., and not necessarily that it's the optimal load. At 6-10 feet, a load of #4's has darn good penetration!
 
I have shot so many animals around my farm with buckshot, I

could not begin to count them. Deer, wild boar, while hunting as well as varmints, such as foxes, coyotes, raccoons,etc and none , in the past 54 years have gotten up an ran off. Death was quick. I am sure that this would happen to a human too if you place the shot properly. It is for this reason I keep all 4 of my short barrelled shotguns loaded with buckshot around the farm in various places. When I was in the Army in Germany (1960-1963) we carried Ithaca shotguns while on Guard duty around our tank perimeter near the East-German border. They were loaded with 00 buckshot for a reason. Snoop
 
Interesting topic. Today at the range I was toying around with my Dad's old 20 gauge 870 Wingmaster and dumping off some old ammo. It was heavy dove shot on the human silohouette target at ten yards, due to the fact that most HD scenarios are going to be in this range or less. Long story short any of the shots would have been major maiming/fatal. Point here is a shot gun is going to stop them from what they are doing, and by the time you pump a couple of rounds into them it will probably be the end. I say make it easier on yourself and pack a lighter load that won't kick like the OO buck does.
 
jduff....

Birdshot works when close enough. SO does buck.

With birdshot, close enough is a few feet. With buck, maybeso 25 yards.

Since we are unable to predict the distance of a firefight, it's best to load up for the worst case scenario.

As for kick, the Reduced Recoil 00 I use kicks less than a 1 1/8 oz bulkpack "Dove load".

It still has lots of moxie in front.

I suggest testing a few loads, including some rapid COFs at varying ranges to see what you and your defensive tool are capable of, then adjusting if needed.
 
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