Shot size for Home Defense use.

Your IDEAL shot size for Home defense.

  • 000 Buck

    Votes: 5 4.4%

  • 00 Buck

    Votes: 60 53.1%

  • 0 Buck

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • #1 Buck

    Votes: 29 25.7%

  • #2 Buck

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • Other... Please elaborate.

    Votes: 18 15.9%
  • Total voters
    113
00 gets my vote...

With the invention of the flight control wad, I get extremely tight patterns with 00 buck. Being an LEO, I use Speer Lawman 00 buck (made by ATK) same as the Federal, so my Imp cyl throws out some really tight patterns all the way out to 25 yards. The managed recoil helps with the over penetration. Just my .02 cents.:)
 
jmortimer - the ordinance gelatine tests that were referenced in the article you cite may be a little off. Someone else pointed out that the calibration bb seemed to penetrate too far into the blocks - meaning either the blocks were too warm or not mixed right.

But here is my interpretation of that... probably makes #2 Buck and smaller shot look better than it probably actually is. In this test the #4 was on average penetrating to 14.5 inches - which I am guessing you wouldn't see repeated in cooled 10% gelatin - with the test conducted at the right temperature.

Even so, they found it superior to #00 Buck.
 
"Inside of 20 feet with a 12 gauge, it doesn't really matter much."

My house is a 22.5' x 32' multi-story. I use 00, but feel fine if the guns are loaded with 2.75" or 3" Hevi-Shot #2. That's my reload = more guns.
 
Inside of 20 feet with a 12 gauge, it does matter.

It's not about pattern size it's about how the shot behaves once it enters flesh.

Shot smaller than #4 Buck just doesn't penetrate, so while it might make a ghastly surface wound - generally speaking it would not stop an attacker by damaging vital tissue. Yes the the attacker might stop due to pain or fear, but in other circumstances - an attacker might not.

At 20 feet if you shoot a big boar in the shoulder - the wound size is going to look bigger than that will be created by #00 Buck - but you probably will not kill that hog with birdshot.

At 20 feet if you shoot a big boar in the shoulder with #00 Buck - you will proably take out the heart and drop the boar instantly.

The same analogy holds true for humans.

Looking at the gelatin tests , it seems like some #2 and #4 Buck penetrate 10 - 12" (might be some problems with the gelatin that I viewed). #0 and #1 Buck do penetrate reliably to 14"
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Just curious, how many animals have you killed? How many gelatin blocks? You read a lot of magazines and theorize much? Or did you learn this from the shotgun episode of Lock N' Load?

At 20 ft in most instances the shot pattern is all but homogeneous and would be lethal against soft flesh if it were #9 shot. Would you honestly want to be gut shot at close range with a shell that had 9 pellets or 500 pellets. I choose neither but I'm not a criminal and don't daydream away these situations.

I bolded your hog analogy because you are far from the truth. You see, I've actually been there, done that. I shot a 250+ lb sow 2 years ago on a duck hunt at that range with a 3" #5 Kent Tungsten Matrix and it was grusome the carnage it left. She dropped like she'd been pole-axed, bone, blood and brains were everywhere. As I stated in an earlier thread I used a boat paddle on the piglets.

Stop believing everything you read or theorize about. Sometimes things work a lot differently in real life situations.
 
Hey Saltydog - you bring up an interesting point and that is that the Tungsten seemed to penetrate more than standard lead, although the testers admitted that the block may not have been quite right:

Designed as a better performing alternative to steel wetland bird loads, Tungsten Matrix is an exotic shotgun projectile material that has an even higher density than lead. It’s high density was what interested us in it’s possible application as a tactical shotgun load.

While this load’s penetration looks impressive as compared with the much larger #1 shot tungsten matrix load, it needs to be interpreted in the context of the calibration bb’s greater penetration. Temperature outside was a little warmer than it should have been when we shot this block and it was the last block of a relatively long string. As a result, this gelatin block exhibits slightly more elasticity than our standard blocks and consequently deeper penetration.

Small sized birdshot such as this #5 Tungsten Matrix load is a poor choice for deployment with a tactical shotgun. Wounds inflicted from birdshot tend to be gruesome yet shallow as they lack the penetration required to reach vital cardiovascular or central nervous system structures.
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As for the hog analogy - which I was using to make a point on penetration... the sow that you took was evidently a head shot, so I am not sure how your example correlates... People on this forum have reported taking hogs with .22LR - with head shots. I used the shoulder in my analogy because of the need for penetration through the sheild, and bones to reach the heart.

It was an analogy to illustrate that the patterning of any particular shot & choke combination at any given range should not be confused with a load's penetration characteristics. Just because both birdshot and buckshot hit the target as a "column" of lead at a given distance - doesn't mean both loads penetrate the target the same.
 
I used the shoulder in my analogy because of the need for penetration through the sheild, and bones to reach the heart.
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But your analogy has weak spots too, count, You get a sho-nuff warrior hog and that 00 or even 000 isn't going very deep into the shield let alone reach vitals and will likely not even break the shoulder bones.

To reliably penetrate this shield with round balls would require hair singeing point blank distance. Anything beyond that is luck and luck alone.

You find the derndest things embedded in this material. I have found .30 cal (approx) bullets, buck shot pellets and even a long bladed 4 blade razor arrow head.

The buck shot balls were shallowest. The rifle bullets would be deeper. And the arrow head was located fore and aft but fully encased in the material and in nearly perfect condition.

If you want to poke a hog with the intentions of actually wounding it, and it is sizable, it requires a head/neck shot or right behind the shoulder area in the lower 1/3rd of torso region.

But it is not a high likelihood that a marauding boar is going to kick in your door to force you into deploying the HD shotgun.

As for ballistics gel... it is NOT THE SAME as human body material. It is, however, similar to flesh in resistance. The real purpose of it is in the fact that it is a quite stable, consistent material that can be used for testing so as to have a repeatable medium to shoot into.

Brent
 
And one more error... The heart is no where behind the shield or bones of the shoulder... it is behind the leg nearer the bottom than the top...;)

I been inside just a few hogs...
Brent
 
Ya, I see you're right hogdogs about the hog analogy, it was a bad analogy to use to illustrate a point about penetration.
 
You missed the point, my hog analogy is that I completely evacuated and disassembled the sows head at 20ft or so with birdshot. The tungsten matrix has very similar properties and size to a high brass lead shell. At 20 ft a load of #5 shot or smaller is still extremely lethal. At 20ft a head shot with #5's isn't going to leave much more than an empty brain pan.

The plate on a hog is tough. I shot one last year with a 3.5" 00 in the shoulder and he kept on going. I unloaded the SBE then and dropped him. I shot another one with a 30'06 165grn BT handload over 58grns of IMR4350 at about 2950MV, he was hit at 70 yards right in the boiler room, no exit wound.

With all due respect, a gelatin test means jack s$^* where bullet/shot performance encouters real living flesh and bone.
 
"jmortimer - the ordinance gelatine tests that were referenced in the article you cite may be a little off."
COuntZerO you are correct as the penetration is more than properly calibrated ballistic gelatin should produce in these well known loads. I most often agree with Firearms Tactical and the article you reference is consistent with the popular belief that for HD #1 Buckshot is the "best" of all worlds.
 
They admitted in their results that some of the blocks sat out too long.

I think it highlights how expensive, labor intensive and time consuming these tests are...

To be done properly you need refrigeration units, really good timing, and people shuffling these blocks out to the line when they are ready to do the next test...

I'm grateful for the time and effort these people put into it to make the information available to everyone else.
 
Well Saltydog - I realize that the hog analogy was a bad one. As far as tests in ordinace gelatin not being meaningful... as you an hogdogs have pointed out - it's not meaningful for a should shot on a hog. The shot hits the sheild or hits bone and stops - and that doesn't matter if it is birdshot or buckshot up to #00. Those loads are all going to pretty much perform the same in a hog shoulder shot scenario - they are going to stop at the gristle or bone.

I wish I hadn't used the hog analogy becasue the OP was for HD. The idea behind ordinance gelatin is that there is a correlation between how projectiles behave or perform in gelatin and how they will generally behave when hitting a human body.

Yes, sometimes a pellet or number of pellets might hit bone, or a belt buckle, or an object that a perpetrator is carrying (lots of variables) and the shot will not perform the same way it did in gelatin. But generally ordinance gelatin is a good predictor.
 
At 20 ft a load of #5 shot or smaller is still extremely lethal. At 20ft a head shot with #5's isn't going to leave much more than an empty brain pan.
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I'd ask why you were using #5s when #7 1/2s are plenty to penatrate the head of ducks and geese. but I know the answer.

Sure if I get to pick the scenaro where the BG is going to stand there and let me shoot him in the head or maybe if he promises to stop if he gets a nasty flesh wound birdshot would work every time. Hopefully your real life will match the scenaro you've planned for.

Since some of the knoledgeable folk on this forum have schooled me on flightcontrol wads OO buck will take care of my shotgun SD/HD needs.
 
I can understand your comparisons. Personally I believe that in most instances just about any load used in a shotgun within the confines of a dwelling coupled with the limited ranges of normal residences will produce results to either dispatch or incapacitate an intruder, that is the basis for choosing a #5 pellet. I'd be more worried about the over-penetration of heavier projectiles such as buckshot and the collateral damage or injury they may cause a family member. 2 layers of 1/2" drywall or a wood/masonite door will degrade the effects of smaller shot sizes than the buckshot while still maintaining lethality to soft targets in the direct path. 5/8" offers even more of a barrier/sheild. Or if you have the money, high abuse and bullet resistant drywall might be your choice, but you better be ready to fork over the coin for that.

I reckon its a to each his own preference thing. I hope that I'm never in an instance where the scenario comes into play. At present the community that I reside in is a quiet, small vacation destination. My new home will be in the country where people will have to get through a security gate, past the dogs, through the security system and up a very long driveway over relatively open ground. Lots of fields of fire there, the AR's and bolt guns will hopefully come into play long before I'd have to resort to pistols and scatterguns. Might even get a pet gator out of the swamp to guard the outside.:D
 
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The tone here seems to be that, if it's an ideal shot, anything will work...and that on non ideal shots, 00 is easily foiled. I don't have much faith in 00, or buckshot in general. I know it works just fine (on ideal shots) but there's less ideal shots nowadays so it seems to me that slugs are your ultimate versatility as far as a SG goes.

Yeah, I have 00 Buck in the gun. The first two rounds. After that is whole lotta slugs. It's hard to not have confidence in slugs.
 
LOL, yeah we got one too. Life's tough when you wear shorts and flip flops most of the year and can't remember the last time you wore socks. Heck until late November/December I was in a Bug-Tamer and shorts with snake boots to hunt in.
 
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