2 inch Shotshells for 12g

[vladar33]

Finally got married to a great gal, but alas, she is tiny.

I've been taking her to the range and teaching her the basics of gun safety, and getting her familiar with a variety of handguns.

She finally asked to shoot my Winchester Defender - which is kept loaded in the house as a two-legged varmint deterrent - so I unloaded the magnum shot (knowing it would knock her over) and put in bird shot. It still had some serious kick for her....even though she thought it was fun to shoot a "hand cannon".

The first two shells I keep in the shotgun are rubber-00 buckshot. Living in CA - I want to make sure that if I ever have to go to court for maiming/killing an intruder, I have the argument that my initial rounds were "disabling" rounds not meant to be fatal.

Plus, there is ample reason to be merely persuasive at first rather than just blowing someone's leg off. ("you're a bad man, let me hit you with the equivalent of a virtual baseball bat first to see if you can be persuaded to make nice")

The rubber shot is nice due to the low recoil - but the magnum buckshot rounds after are a bit much for the wife should she ever have to fire it.

I was ordering some ammo from CheaperThanDirt and noticed that they had 2" Shells with 6 pellet 00 shot and before my brain knew what my finger was doing, I ordered a couple boxes to test out.

I thought, hey, the kick on this should be less, and I can put more shells in .... and sure enough, when they came, I found I could put 10 rounds into my shotgun.

Mondo LIKE!

Then the brain actually kicked in, and I thought...hey, I ain't never heard of 2" shells and will they shoot right in the gun? So before pulling the trigger, and making a mess of things, I thought I'd put out the question: Does anyone see a problem with shooting these in my Winchester?

Cheers.

[zippy13]

Congratulations, and welcome aboard, vladar33

Yep, short shells shells are around; but, I'm not sure they will cycle reliably in your specific gun. How about introducing your new wife to your Defender with some super light target loads of standard length?

[OLNfan]

Great idea, I didnt know they made 2'' cartridges, learn something new everyday on these forums. I also suggest maybe find her a .410 or a 20 gage? nothing fancy something around 200 bucks unless shes in the mood for a nice gun lol. But I defeintly see where your coming from, its probobly easier to test the 2'' catridges oppose to buying a brand new gun lol. But I cant seem to get my lady to shoot my pursader, she will plink a clip of my .22 remmington but wont touch anything else. Iv suggested that I could get a shotgun for her to use but she just wasnt that intrested but it was worth a try. This way you can find out if shes really intrested or she just likes comin out their with yeah.

[Old Guard Dog]

I have tried short shells in a Mossburg pump, and they don't feed reliably. I tried the Aquila 1 1/2". They flip around unless you are very precise with your pumping action. Nice to have more in the tube, but no good if they don't feed.

I have all the components to load some sub-sonic 12 ga loads in 2 3/4" length, 930 fps. (I am away on a project until April, so won't have time till then.) I got the recipe from Ballistic Products. They seem to be an answer for HD. Not loud and low recoil. (The loud noise when a shell is fired is from the shot breaking the speed of sound, not the powder going off.) I'm told these loads sound more like a "pfftt" than a "bang". I'll be loading them with one oz. of #4 buckshot. Should be lethal at short distances, but not over-penetrate. I will do ballistic tests in several length guns after loading. I'll post the results.

Will report back with results.

[rantingredneck]

A few things...........

1) Less lethal loads could actually cause you legal trouble.

Prosecuting attorney: Mr. _____ why did you first shoot Mr. ______ with rubber buckshot? Obviously if you are using rubber buckshot you didn't feel deadly force was required.........

Search less lethal ammunition and you'll find many hours worth of reading on the subject, from folks way more learned than me on these matters.

2) The 2" Shells (Centurion?) may or may not work in your specific gun. Trouble is you'll need to run quite a few of them through to make sure. Probably more than the 2 boxes you bought. They may or may not feed reliably. The 1 1/2" Aquilas are famous for going so far as flipping around backward on shell carriers. Neat trick till you actually need the gun.

3) Look at getting your HD gun fitted to your wife. If she's short and small she probably needs a shorter LOP stock to comfortably shoot the gun. You can shoot fine with a stock that's a little short (with some practice). She, on the other hand, will be punished by a stock that's too long for her. It will make a big difference in handling the recoil. Search for a Youth model stock for your gun. Also possibly a Limbsaver or Decelerator recoil pad.

4) There are quite a few reduced recoil 2 3/4" loads out there that you won't have the reliability questions with. I'm partial to the Remington Managed Recoil 8 pellet 00 buckshot loads for the gun that stays out for my wife when I'm not home. She handles them fine and they pattern well out to 25 yds. Way longer than she'd need to shoot inside our home.

Welcome to TFL. Lots of info here......