hd loads

K

kgeter

New member
hey guys, recently added a shotgun to the collection for Home defense. i have some 00 bucj and some slugs, how do ya'll keep your shotguns loaded and in what order. thanks


Kevin
 
Mine is a SxS 12-gauge double, so I don't have a lot of options. My first choice would be a handgun, but if I needed the shotgun, I have some #4 Magnum buckshot that I think would work well.
 
I have a Super Nova Tactical and I use Hornady Tap ammo. It is the low recoil so if my wife has to use it it will not knock the crap out of her. I can put all 9 00 buck shots in the chest of a silhouette at 25 yards with no problem.
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If your looking to slugs a rifle might be better.

Keeping with the "shot" in "shotgun", consider "00" if penetration is no object, or #4 buck if you are worried about it. Both of these have stopped many a fight. That's not to say ''00'' is a great overpenetration risk, it isn't, but if you have multiple loved ones in other rooms...well why risk it. Your call though. I would steer clear of birdshot for defense. If your BG is too far away you set yourself up for a malicious wounding lawsuit

Personally I dote on the Mossberg and Remington youth .20ga pumps stoked with #4 buck. These are a bit easier for my wife to use than a 12ga, but still pack alot of up-close wollop.


...And Sonyman, that is a mighty nice gat!
 
Well, I never worried about home defense until a few months ago when a man running from the law that had tried to kill his girlfriend was hiding in my shed. Yes, I have had a pistol for quiet some time but thought " It will never happen to me!" Well, it came close enough for me. I asked my wife and she said she would rather the shotgun over a pistol. So that is why I got my Super Nova.
 
I'm going to go out and test this one for myself. I've always believed that birdshot would penetrate and create a rat-hole in the BG at inside-the-house ranges.

I'm going to set up some wet phone books (ballistic gel ain't cheap) at typical HD distances and do some testing. I'll report back what I find.

BTW - I have a 20 ga. with #4 buck in the house now.
 
thanks for all the replies, i have a maverick 88 with a ati folding stock and a 18.5 inch barrel, i really liked that sight on that supernove, here do you find those and about how much do they run?
 
The lowest price I could find was $359 and that was at several differint places so I got mine at Cabela's b/c I had a coupon for $20 off anything over $150 so I paid $339. The one I have is M512 ( the one without the night vision ).
 
LockedCJ7

I have done similar tests with birdshot. Up close it would be nasty, nasty, nasty. Your tests will be more formal than mine, so I'd still be interested.

I think they run out of gas at about 30 feet in an IC choke. Still not fun, and shot size would change things, but since buck is easy to come by.
 
bird shot is a bloody (obviously) 'chop meat' type wound, but it dosent go deep. you need to go deep to hit major veins and arteries/heart/lung/CNS ect. Not to say bird shot wouldnt stop someone, but using birdshot is relying on the 'o sh!t i've been shot' reaction to stop the person rather than physically making their body no longer able to go on. even up close #6 shot will not reliably break a grey squirrels leg bone....yes a squirrel. if it cannot fully penetrate through the toughest parts of a 1lb rat i'm not ever relying on it to stop a person. just my opinion/expereince obviously, by all means use what you want.
 
My shotgun is a Mossberg 500, but it's never loaded. The HD gun in our house however is a Remington 870 and it's loaded with 3" Federal 00 buck shot.
 
Banditt,

Up REAL close those same #6s do more damage thatn the sum of their parts, but you have to be REAL close. Like 3-5 feet. Beyond that you couldn't have said it better: Ragged holes, but shallow ones.
 
Knew a man that was shot with Rem 1100 12 ga. with #8 shot at about 6 feet. They picked the wadding off his spine in surgery. I think it penetrates deep enough.
Try shooting that squirrel at 6 feet and see if it breaks any bones!
Bill
 
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Well put, Bill. FWIW, A few years back my brother shot a WT doe at about 5 feet with high brass #4 birdshot. It left an exit wound, er, that is some of the shot exited. A lot of the shot and the wad stayed in the tunnel of gore that was the wound channel.

I figure buck to be more versitile, but if you are quite certain that you will be engaging your target at near contact distances the results should be spectacular.
 
Cutloads

Back in the 1930's my father tells me some poor folks in Northern Minnesota employed something called a cutload to shoot deer while equiped with only birdshot. They were made by cutting nearly all the way through the shotshell hull just behind the wad. This caused the foreward part of the shell, including wad, shot & hull, to fly out and hit more or less like a slug. The down side was that most guns of the day had full chokes, and some folks managed to streach, bulge, crack, and occasionally detonate the ends of their barrels with such loads.

I do not endorse this practice, but in the "Dirty Thirties" some folks "made meat" any way they could.
 
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