TrueBlue711
New member
I know exactly what you mean about budget being a married man. Thankfully, I bought most of my guns before getting married, so I own both. Everybody above is pretty much hitting it on the nail. A big factor is we need to know what state you live in (namely, what firearm/hunting restrictions do you face if any). Here's my breakdown into 3 categories of use:
-Hunting: Shotgun is more versatile. Can hunt any bird and many 4 leggers too. AR is kind of restricted to medium to small 4 leggers.
-Home defense: Personally, I keep a shotgun by the bed. The AR is a great home defense gun too, but the 5.56/.223 has a lot of penetration power vs the shotgun. Don't want stray bullets going into other rooms of the house or even a neighbors house (even if it is unlikely).
-Target shooting: Kind of a tie here. I love shooting my AR at the range, but I equally love shooting skeet/trap with my shotgun. Both are not only fun, but good practice for the hunting seasons.
Ammo is also a consideration. Both have "cheap" ammo and more expensive quality ammo. You can probably find "cheap" 5.56/.223 (usually steel cased) for as low as 25 cents per round online. For shotgun, you can get cheap skeet rounds at Walmart for about the same price. The big difference between the two is you will shoot up shotgun slower when shooting skeet/trap than with an AR. It's pretty easy to rapid fire 30 rounds in an AR without reloading just for fun when it can take about 15-30 min to go through 25 rounds in skeet/trap.
-Hunting: Shotgun is more versatile. Can hunt any bird and many 4 leggers too. AR is kind of restricted to medium to small 4 leggers.
-Home defense: Personally, I keep a shotgun by the bed. The AR is a great home defense gun too, but the 5.56/.223 has a lot of penetration power vs the shotgun. Don't want stray bullets going into other rooms of the house or even a neighbors house (even if it is unlikely).
-Target shooting: Kind of a tie here. I love shooting my AR at the range, but I equally love shooting skeet/trap with my shotgun. Both are not only fun, but good practice for the hunting seasons.
Ammo is also a consideration. Both have "cheap" ammo and more expensive quality ammo. You can probably find "cheap" 5.56/.223 (usually steel cased) for as low as 25 cents per round online. For shotgun, you can get cheap skeet rounds at Walmart for about the same price. The big difference between the two is you will shoot up shotgun slower when shooting skeet/trap than with an AR. It's pretty easy to rapid fire 30 rounds in an AR without reloading just for fun when it can take about 15-30 min to go through 25 rounds in skeet/trap.