4+1: Enough?

[westernrover]

There's that video of the armed alleged robber where the police confront him on the city bus (Dundalk, MD). During the gunfight, an officer runs five out spraying the bus with buckshot and tosses the gun because its empty. He resorts to his pistol (which he runs out also, but reloads with another magazine) and later downs the suspect at something like 35 yards.

I bring it up because five wasn't enough for that situation and tactic. Obviously, this wasn't HD, but it's not inconceivable that someone could choose a similar tactic in a HD scenario where they want to "spray" an adversary that is concealed. Some people think a "modern sporting" carbine with a 30 round magazine is better. Even if you don't have any better chance of scoring a hit, you could keep your adversary pinned down for longer.

I have noticed that extended magazine tubes full of shotshells change the swing on a gun, especially with 9. 7 in a 590 is not as bad as 9 in a 590A1 with the heavier barrel. A good alternative to those are the side saddle carriers or speed feed stocks. Those will give you 4 to 6 more.

I think it would be harder to be convinced you will need more than 5 without a few seconds here and there to add a couple to the magazine. A common tactic is: shoot two, load two. More than 5 on the gun seems reasonable, but they don't all have to be in the tube magazine.

As for the 35-yard shot, it would have been easier with a load of buckshot with a Flight Control wad than it was with a pistol. A saddle or speed feed stock can hold slugs too, but you'd have to have the forsight to load them before they're needed. The officer's duty gun had a large light on the lower rail. It seems like a red-dot sight would be a viable option for a duty or HD gun since they're not needing to be concealed, but a long gun has all the advantages.

For a gunfight through a bus from outside, a 5.56 carbine seems like a better tool, but if the fight was on the bus, the 12 ga. all the way.

 

[Wyosmith]

I do not wish to be inflammatory here, but the fact will lead to truth only if someone is will be learn.

5 misses is never enough. In Vietnam the DOD figured that it took 820,000 MILLION rounds for every confirmed kill from all guns combined. From water, air and land.

So is a 820,000 not enough either?

The truth is that one round is enough per enemy, if you keep your cool.

 

[stagpanther]

820,000 MILLION rounds for every confirmed kill from all guns combined

With that many I imagine you wouldn't even need to hit him as they would likely be buried alive and suffocate.

Sorry Wyo--couldn't help myself. Just kidding. I put an ATI extension on my 870--I think I can get a total of 8 or 9 2.75 inch magnums in.

 

[cslinger]

In Vietnam the DOD figured that it took 820,000 MILLION rounds for every confirmed kill from all guns combined.

Yeah but there is a marked difference between grabbing cover and returning fire at random muzzle flashes or puffs of smoke in the tree line 100 yards away using fire and maneuver techniques vs the tweaker and his buddy who kicked in your door and are 5 yards away.

More ammo is only bad if you are swimming or on fire but honestly 5 rounds of 12 gauge should be more then adequate for the VAST majority of real world confrontations.

(NOTE- This is in no way saying if you choose an AR with 30 round mag or a Glock 17 or a or a or a etc. that you are wrong, stupid, paranoid or anything remotely like that as folks tend to infer sometimes with these answers. It is ONLY to say that 5 rounds of 12 gauge is likely to be perfectly adequate if needed for self defense.........ok if you use a beltfed you might be a weeeee bit paranoid....I will call out using a GPMG as being overkill. )

 

[Wyosmith]

I agree with Cslinger, but these threads often ignore the basic truth.

100% of all rounds fired hit.

Something.

I have been to war and I know a lot about the subject of fighting. In a war zone it's not uncommon to assume that all rounds you fire that miss may hit something that is bad for the enemy and good for you.

In the civilian world (and in police work too) the opposite is true.

In the world we live in you are responsible for EVERY round you fire, so the idea of "firepower" is often misunderstood.

I have never thought I had too much ammo. But I have also been on missions that took weeks, and when we came back in we all still had some ammo left.

Only hits count. In war and in civilian life.

If you put a hole in a hut in a war zone you don't get sued. In the Vietnam war and all wars before that, if the enemy was fighting from a village and you open fire on that village you didn't get imprisoned for it. (Sadly you may today, but that's the fault of idiot or corrupt politicians)

Just remember All round do hit. It's up to the shooter what they hit.

 

[cslinger]

Ohh yeah then totally agree you simply cannot assume all hits no matter what. Way more so on war/Combat.

A shotgun/any long Gun at bad breath range will however give an edge over a handgun in this regard and a shotgun will give you a “tiny” bit more margin of error as you have a palm/babies fist sized projectile mass vs a single 9mm/.223 sized one.

As far as skill in putting rounds on target go under stress..........well I imagine it would be very difficult for me to do as I haven’t explicitly practiced shooting backwards as I run away screaming like a seven year old girl.

 

[fastbolt]

I'm one of the folks who finds the standard 4-rd mag tube on a standard 870 to be fine for my anticipated needs. I also own a Winchester 1200 defender with a longer mag tube, but that was a gift from my father many years ago (after he'd previously given me a Mossberg with a long mag tube, which I eventually gave back).

I carried a late 70's vintage 870 in my unmarked car for several years before retirement. It had been rotated out of regular Patrol service when we replaced the older shotguns with newer LE models with extended tubes. It was cleaned up a bit by the former head armorer, and I used it as the "student gun" in an 870 armorer class I attended a few years before I retired.

It had a short forend (I hate having a sweaty hand slip and getting pinched/cut by the rear of the standard wood furniture when it finds the front edge of the lower receiver). The head armorer also equipped it with a Side Saddle (since he had an extra one, and he wanted me to have the extra shells closer at hand than in a suit coat pocket).

As a LE firearms trainer I spent a lot of time (and burned up what I was told was a significant amount of our 12GA budget) learning to run the shotgun fairly quickly and reasonably accurately.

On my better days I could put 6 rounds of low recoil 00B in the inner scoring zone of a standard silhouette at 7yds in 1.5 secs. On an average day I was satisfied to be able to put 3 rounds of 00B or 1oz slugs on target in less than a second. (Riding the recoil and timing the pump operation is the limiting factor for me, and when it gets above 3 rounds the timing can more easily become "off".)

When I had to go up against some guys from other agencies running autos, during an instructor update class, I set the fast time using that old 870. It was 5 rounds of 00B in 1.23 secs, but that score got bumped because 1 of the rounds slipped outside the smallest scoring zone box and into the second zone. It still gave the guys running autos something to think about, though.

I'm not a shotgun hunter (or any kind of a hunter anymore), so my only shotgun usage was limited to the LE range when I was working as a trainer at our range, or taking an outside class.

Bottom line? One those rare occasions when I think I have reason to reach for and prep a personal shotgun at home ... it's the 4-rd Remington 870 I reach for first (with the longer tubed defender remaining in the safe).

If I have reason to expect an attacker with body armor, or more than a couple threats, then I'll forgo the 12GA in favor of my HBAR, or maybe my .30-30.

 

[agtman]

The real question isn't whether 4+1 capacity in the shotty is 'enough.' Nope, the real question is: once you've exhausted all those shells in the gunfight, what's the capacity of your back-up pistol or revolver?

Remember, at the O.K. Corral, once Doc Holiday emptied his double-barrel shotgun (as in 2+0) into a deserving Clanton, did he attempt some sort of 'John Wick' 'speed reload'? Hell no. He immediately went to his 6-shot Peacemaker to finish his share of the fight.

Word to the wise.

 

[MoArk Willy]

I thought about the question and the only answer I can come up with is "it depends".
If it's a bump in the night situation, a shotgun is a perfect response gun....small holes in the wall, less likely to kill a neighbor and the point and shoot ability of a shotgun is priceless.
4 + 1 is more than adequate. That being said, you situation will determine how much firepower you need. Personally I like a gun with a laser for home protection. At the very least it may buy you time to get to your shotgun.

 

[jaguarxk120]

This is enough for Pancho, should be just right for
home defence.

 

[cslinger]

If I thought George Patton was trying to kill me I would carry that much ammo or more as well.

 

[drobs]

I don't have any neighbors, I use AK47 for home defense.
30rds of 7.62x39 ought to do the trick.

 

[WV_gunner]

The gun being present is enough sometimes. What do you expect? No one to break in or an entire gang. If you want to prepare yourself with a shotgun for help you have to realize what you need. I used to keep an O/U 12 gauge with 000. I felt satisfied with it. I also kept .410 with 3 inch 000 (5 ball) with a full 5 shot cylinder. I felt more than satisfied with it. But now with kids I keep a pistol kept high up and out of reach. Once they are older I might go back to my Circuit Judge or use my Hi-point rifle. For me, carbine sized guns are perfect. Steadiness of a long gun, slightly more power than a pistol, and yet not big like a full sized long gun. Try to walk through your house with a shouldered gun and imagine an intruder. I’d rather be less clumsy.

 

[Model12Win]

The gun being present is enough sometimes. What do you expect? No one to break in or an entire gang. If you want to prepare yourself with a shotgun for help you have to realize what you need. I used to keep an O/U 12 gauge with 000. I felt satisfied with it. I also kept .410 with 3 inch 000 (5 ball) with a full 5 shot cylinder. I felt more than satisfied with it. But now with kids I keep a pistol kept high up and out of reach. Once they are older I might go back to my Circuit Judge or use my Hi-point rifle. For me, carbine sized guns are perfect. Steadiness of a long gun, slightly more power than a pistol, and yet not big like a full sized long gun. Try to walk through your house with a shouldered gun and imagine an intruder. I’d rather be less clumsy.

WV, I definitely get what you're saying. However for my needs I have no reason to walk through my house with a long gun unless I'm attacked during waking hours. If I'm awoken by noises from outside the bedroom, all training I've read on from many tops in the field say the worst thing one can do is go barge out. The only exception to this is if you have kids or wives in other rooms. I do not so it simplifies things. I keep the shotgun as a "barricade gun" if the perps feel the need to beat down the bedroom wall, and I've got a pistol nearby as backup in case there's no time to prepare the shotgun or as an auxiliary when the shotgun runs dry.

 

[stagpanther]

What do you expect? No one to break in or an entire gang.

If you live in an urban area with drug gangs established territories--then the gang-hit on your house is very possible--seen it several times as well as had a gang setting my house up for a hit but they had second thoughts upon seeing me with an XD in my hands through my window. They probably left only because they felt a killing wasn't worth whatever cheap electronics they had in mind reselling is my guess. The common tactic is to know what they are after and where it is, and have up to 6 gang members do a quick scan of front and side of house to ensure nobody is there if possible--then smash through a rear entry run and grab as quickly as they can and take off. They know if they can pull it off in a matter seconds they don't mind if they are seen and the police called if they have a good get-away plan.

 

[WV_gunner]

Here we typically only have drug related crime. And theft is by a drug addict looking for drugs or things to trade for drugs. Two people tops usually, and it’s rare. We don’t have what one would call a gang, but some travel in groups. Those groups are usually to scream at other similar groups and they try to fight each other. Typically welfare bums calling each other lazy. We do have crime coming in from larger areas, there’s actually a drug trade between a few near by cities and Detroit here, but violent crime from the Detroit area here seems to be toward local dealers owing money to them. I’ve never had issues at my current house. My neighbor did have trespassers refuse to leave the other day, he pulled a gun on them and shot at the ground hoping to scare them. Still wouldn’t leave. State police came and made them leave. Arrests should’ve been made I believe. But surprisingly those people haven’t been back. When I lived in town things were sketchier, small town but crime is higher. A meth lab was found a block from where I was living, probably 10 houses down. I do have children so my priority is keeping them safe. Honestly there’s a guy that’s a Vietnam vet, I’m told, that keeps walking up and down the road. He doesn’t seem to be quite all there so I feel bad but I don’t know if he’s just a confused old man trying to find some sort of joy in his or if he’s a pervert. Some odd situations have happened and they are border line. I don’t know how to handle it. When we come home there’s sometimes a cigarette butt placed dead center of the sidewalk in front of the gate that I now keep shut because he was wondering in our yard.

 

[stagpanther]

Drug gangs will usually set up for business in dense urban communities where business is good--and the supply of young recruits readily available, like single-parent families where the (usually mother) must spend time working. Bloods and Crypts being notable examples. They often pop in areas readily serviced by major transportation routes such as major shipping interstates; major feed conduits by cartels outside our borders. Gangs provide a social network for kids and a sense of belonging--they often recruit children even when they are not yet even teenagers. There is a hierarchy based in part on "street cred" and what you have done, so break-ins, theft etc are part of the graduation of up-ward mobility, which includes, at higher levels, shootings and murder.

In the last ten years or so the reach of drug gangs has started making it's way into rural areas like New Hampshire and Maine; they have among the highest rates of opiod fatalities per capita of all the US. These areas do not have the ideal demographics for recruitment so gang turf warfare is pretty rare, at least for now--but they are still succeeding in getting "local representatives" to enlist in their distribution schemes, they know that law enforcement is not nearly as concentrated or equipped to deal with their activities as in larger urban areas.

I've seen actual gang shootings and been shot at myself--these are kids most of the time 20 years old or younger; they often have no concept of living any kind of meaningful life outside the gang and death at young age or life imprisonment is accepted as natural.

"Honor shootings" happen a lot--it could be something as simple as one teenager insulting the color of another's shoes in a high school classroom--or perhaps insulting one's sister or girlfriend. Drive-by shootings is a favored technique.

 

[ATN082268]

I've seen actual gang shootings and been shot at myself--these are kids most of the time 20 years old or younger; they often have no concept of living any kind of meaningful life outside the gang and death at young age or life imprisonment is accepted as natural.

I don't know how criminals react in a typical home defense (HD) situation but I'd say shooting at them, especially if one or more is hit, will definitely get their attention and most likely have them head for the nearest avenue of escape. If you are unfortunate enough to be robbed in the first place, have multiple criminals who are unphased by being shot at/hit and determined to kill you at any cost, you will be in trouble with a 4+1 capacity weapon but you'd probably be in trouble regardless of the weapon and capacity...

 

[stephen426]

Dude... If you're trying to justify buying a Keltec KSG, then no, 4+1 isn't enough. There. LOL

 

[stagpanther]

I've seen the aftermath of a gang "drive up house hit" windows go down and AK's/ARs empty several magazines into a house--they are usually after someone specifically but don't really care if anyone else home is hit or killed. Impressive Swiss cheese approach. That's why I'll always have a loaded AR within reach in addition to a high capacity pistol. Shotguns are good too. It all depends on where you live I guess.