12 gauge strength

[shooter43]

how powerful is a 12 gauge loaded with high brass buckshot or slugs?

[sirsloop]

Depends on whats inside the shell High brass can mean its a higher power load, or it could just mean the manufacturer decided to use high brass on their wussy birdshot loads.

[GDCooper]

Some "samples" from Federal's ballistics charts:

12 gauge
2 3/4" with 1 oz sabot slug: 1859 foot pounds of energy @ 25 yds, 1423 at 100

Rifle
223 55 grain 990 ftlb at 100 yards
270 150 grain: 2320 ftlb at 100

Pistol
380 auto 90 grain: 182 ftlb at 25 yards, 143 ftlb at 100
357 mag 158 grain:511 ftlb at 25 yards, 373 ftlb at 100
40 S & W 165 grains: 401 ftlb at 25 yards, 313 ftlb at 100
45 auto 230 grains: 355 ftlb at 25 yard, 319 at 100

So, .270 rifle has considerably more "power", slug hits harder than .223, absolutely kicks the snot out of pistol rounds.

And there's debates over instant knock-down's of BG's of .45 auto etal vs. .380 auto?? Hard to imagine that ever happens with any pistol caliber if the BG doesn't THINK he should fall down after being shot, when a deer never does with a slug through both lungs and heart. They'll sometimes run 100's of yards on pure adrenalin, at least haven't knowingly shot any crack-head deer, hard to imagine how far they would run.

[jmortimer]

The power is insane - not so much in ft lbs but in the crazy destructive penetration of a .73" caliber freight train. Some slugs get 3,000 plus ft lbs of "energy" but so does a .300 Winchester mag and the 12 guage slug is four times as much gun. One area the Taylor K.O. scale is useful is for dangerous game and consider that the Dixie Dangerous Game Slug is 870 grains of hard cast and goes 1,200 fps from a 20" smoothbore for a Taylor K.O. of 109 - it will smoke anything on earth. A winchester .300 mag comes in around 24 taylor K.O. Dixie also makes a Tri-Ball which is three .60" caliber hard cast balls weighing 315 grains each which will go at 1,100 fps out of a smoothbore - that is over 900 grains of hard cast lead - consider that #4 buck shot will go 3" in wet news paper and OO buck shot will go around 6" and the Tri-Ball will penetrate 29" which should put the "power" in perspective. The "high brass" or "low brass" is not the issue as both can function at the high end of the "power range."

[RoscoeC]

From another perspective, consider volume. A proficient operator can put a round down range every 3 seconds or so given a good pump gun and a pile of ammo. That's 20 rounds a minute. With 9 pellet 00 buck that is 180 .32 caliber projectiles downrange every minute. In 5 minutes, that is 900 projectiles downrange. You are in the same territory as a submachine gun.

The shotgun is an incredibly powerful weapon from any perspective. Certainly most effective at closer ranges, but very powerful.

[Fifth Wheel]

Has anyone quantified the muzzle energy of, say, a standard 2.75" 00? How about 000? I've looked for stats on this, but I cannot find anything. I realize that each individual pellet is far less than a standard rifle caliber. But I would think that, collectively, 8 pellets of 000 give far greater muzzle energy than, say, a .308. You can feel it in the recoil.

[jmortimer]

Not necessarily more energy - i.e. ft lbs but again its more about the bullet/slug/shot. A .223 has about three times as much energy as a .45 Colt shooting a standard pressure 255 grain SWC which will shoot through most any creature on a broadside at only 450 ft lbs. The .45 Colt is more "gun" at 1/3 of the energy at close range. It is easy to calculate the energy of the OO buckshot - just multiply the weight of nine .33" caliber round balls at 1,400 fps - should be around 2,500 ft lbs which is similar to the .308 but at close range the 12 guage is "more gun"

[microman]

12 gauge
2 3/4" with 1 oz sabot slug: 1859 foot pounds of energy @ 25 yds, 1423 at 100

Thats pretty impressive to say the least.

[zippy13]

Determining the strength of a gun doesn't depend on the nature of the load but the nature of the gun. Simple mechanics, (Force=Pressure(Area)), tells us that a gun's maximum "power" is as simple as multiplying it's maximum allowable pressure by the area of the bore.

For a 12-ga shotgun, the cross sectional ares is: π(0.729/2)^2, or 1.15-si
The SAAMI maximum pressure for a 2-2/4 or 3-inch 12-ga is 11,500-psi. So its F(max) is 1.15(11,500) or 13,225-pounds
A 3-1/2" 12-ga has a max pressure of 14,000psi. So its F(max) is 1.15(14,000) or 16,100-pounds. IINM, in the UK, the max allow pressure is 15,000-psi which would yield a F(max) of 17,240-pounds.

Out of curiosity, let's have a look at a .30-'06 Springfield cartridge: rather than calculate the cross-sectional area of the bore and grooves, I'll use SAAMI's area of 0.0737-si with a pressure of 60,000-psi. The 30-06's F(max) is 0.0737(60,000) or 4,422-pounds. Significantly less than a 12-ga shotgun.

These are a scalar quantities of the maximum allowable forces. How the gun performs within the max pressure limits is up to the cartridge loader not the gun maker.

Depends on whats inside the shell High brass can mean its a higher power load, or it could just mean the manufacturer decided to use high brass on their wussy birdshot loads.

Sirslope is correct. At one time, in the days of paper shells, high and low base shells were an indication if the shell's power (not the gun's). With modern plastic shells (some of which have no brass), the bass height is just for tradition and identification purposes.