Would you trust your life to #4 buck shot?

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Super-Dave

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Suppose your house was being invaded, would you trust your life to using #4 buck shot?

At what distance is #4 buck shot unlikely to penetrate deep enough?
15, yards 20 yards?
 
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If I recall correctly, No. 4 buckshot is a .24 caliber pellet and each round contains about 27 pellets and they all leave the barrel at 1325fps. Yes, I'd trust it.
 
If it patterned well in my shotgun and that was all I had avaliable...yes. My main problem is that I prefer low recoil buck and low recoil #4 buck is hard to find locally. My HD shotgun is loaded with fiocchi low recoil 00 buck.
 
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I forgot the site but, I think I Googled Defence Shotshells. So, this guy claims only 00 buck has adequate penetration that satisfy's the FBI standards. He shows various loads shot into balistic geliten. Hope this helps.
 
Lets remeber this is a shotgun we're talking about and at HD ranges any load should pattern well enough to be effective. I know I'm going to get flamed huge for this but I have no dedicated HD shotgun. My 16 ga sxs bird gun loaded with high brass #6 is all I've got in my closet. Having seen what the full choke barrel puts out for patterns at HD ranges I am more than satisfied that it will incapacitate any intruder in a hurry.
 
At what distance is #4 buck shot unlikely to penetrate deep enough?
15, yards 20 yards?
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Depends mostly on the gun; 18" cylinder bore, down the hall should be fine. In my 28" 835 with extra-full choke, it can reach out a lot farther.
 
Borch I have a 16ga SxS w/ 18.5" barrels as well. I tried to use it as part of a trade a few years ago...and my wife told me absolutely not! Her position is that the SxS was "idiot proof" where as my maverick 88 required more thought/training. I have mine loaded with #1 buck. A dozen .30 cal pellets will get some goblins attention:D
 
I'd prefer #1 buckshot, but #4 will certainly work well for home defense. In a standard shell you get 27 pellets and you get 41 in a 3-inch shell. Your choice.
 
Absolutely. My sd shotgun (A Benelli Nova with ghost ring sights and extended mag) is stuffed full with # 4 Buck.
 
Sure I would and have a 4 rounder Saiga S12 mag loaded with the #4 buckshot.But I do prefer the Fiocchi low recoil 00 Buck for a good replacement.I have a mossberg 500a tactical and a Rem 870 loaded with these as a back up too.So the answer is yes to the original question and id trust it about 25 'in house'.
 
Well, I always said any shotgun shell was good enough for across the room home defence. Now Gunsite is saying almost the same thing, the only difference is they say 7&1/2 is the smallest shot size to use.
 
against an unarmored person at less than 30 feet you are going to mess them up with almost anything you can load. Even nickels. I use a break action single shot for HD, so I use 00 buck to be sure, but I am thinking about switching to my 11-87 which I think I could throw sporting clay shells out of it and still disable one or two people without any problem. It would probably also look better in court.

What I am going to start working on is patterning OO buck out of a rifled choke to look at riot control. Centrifuge those things out into a large patters and that would really be a crowd stopper.
 
My Winchester 1400 has 3 rounds of 2 3/4 number 4 turkey loads. There is no where in my house that I would have shoot more than 12 feet. I have killed turkeys at 55 yards, 12 foot should be no problem.
 
It wouldn't be my first choice, but if that is what I had, yes I would trust my life with it. Especially in the circumstances you give: inside my home.
I wouldn't trust my life to birdshot.

I am certainly no expert on the subject but unlike most who discuss this subject online, I have seen several people who have been shot with shotguns. Both bird and buckshot.
 
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