No choice but Birdshot?

[Narcoleptic Warrior]

I come from an Asian country where buckshot/slugs are sold only to LEOs/military. The best that we civilians can get for home/property defense is #4 birdshot in a 12 gauge 2 3/4" shell with 32g shot loading. With such a load, what barrel length and choke combination should I use for maximum home/property protection at distances of 25 yards or less? What penetration can I expect in ballistic geletine?

[Rimrod]

I would go with the tightest choke I could get. As for barrel length, while a longer barrel may give slightly higher velocities shorter barrels are better suited in confined areas such as a home. While many people use an 18" or 20" slug barrel, you might be better off with something like a 24" with choke tubes.

Game loads at close range can be devastating, causing massive shallow damage. However at longer distances the shot spreads out and the pellets loose velocity. This is what makes them ideal for shooting fast or flying game and leaving enough for you to eat.

[LSU12ga]

i soppose you could always make hand loads.

there is plenty of material on this site about hand loading.

[shamus005]

Forget the birdshot, you'll have better luck using the shotgun as a club and beating them to death.

But if you want to use birdshot, aim for their face.

[Northern Sod Breaker]

What are your local laws on "waterfowl loads?" i.e. BB shot or the like?

[mikejonestkd]

At a close range the bird shot will still be a big lump of lead, travelling at the same velocity as buckshot or most slugs. It will be devastating on impact.

Do an experiment: Buy a watermelon and shoot it at 20 feet with a 12ga load of #4 bird shot. it is quite impressive and far more powerful than what any SD handgun is capable of ( .454, .475, .460, .500 excluded )

The only thing you lose with bird shot is the ability to peretrate multiple layers of clothing and penetrate through a person. It will still strike the attacker with the same energy as buckshot or reduced recoil slugs of the same mass.

Yes, it will do the job but it is not ideal, as it won't reliably penetrate to the vitals in every situation. But, dang!!! It will leave one heck of a wound which will make it for easy tracking by the police...

[~kev~]

The club idea sounds good to me - either a head or gut shot is what I suggest. Why a gut shot? Will the #4 shot have enough energy to break through the ribs of a human and get to the heart or lungs? I do not know either - at least with a gut shot you are promised some kind of severe damage to the otehr person.

[GLK]

I defy anyone to allow me to shoot them with a 12ga 2-3/4 #4 shot round at 25 yards. Is it the best choice for self defense, of course not. Is it better than a club of course it is. With todays advanced technology in hardened shot a hit from the above mentioned round will do plenty of damage. Additionally what home protection scenario would call for shots at 25 yards, twentyfive feet or less would be a lot more likely. At close range it will knock the bad out of a bad guy real well.

[liliysdad]

#4 is a very good defense load at short ranges, believe it or not. While I do not feel it is anywhere close to #00 or #1, it is a very viable round. As a matter of fact, many federal agencise, such as the Secret Service, mandated nothing but #4 for ma

[shamus005]

The Box of Truth covered this topic, conclusion: birdshot is for little birds. read it yourself:

birdshot briefly mentioned near the end:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm


my personal choice, the 20 gauge, and birdshot is tested along with buckshot: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot22.htm

[guntotin_fool]

Well shamus, I have shot numerous feral dogs and a few feral pigs with a load a "birdshot" and not one has lived. I am talking about inside the bard ranges.

Have you ever shot something with a load of BB or T shot? at five or ten yards out of a full choke shot gun? This Malarky that is going around that a ounce and a quarter or ounce and three eights of lead somehow is nonfatal at any distance simply becuase it is small pellets has to stop.

I will tell you that at 35 yards, one #6 pellet has enough power to penetrate a canvas vest, a fleece jacket, a heavy shirt, and a tshirt and still go three or four inches under the skin. I have the x rays to prove it. had I been closer I am quite sure I would have been killed as many of the pellets hit me in the arm and back at an angle instead of boring straight in.

Instead of a soft target like a water melon, get something hard, like a coconut or get a old football helmet and stick a cantalope in it. Then shoot it at 5 yards with a 12 gauge. remember to bring a broom to clean up the mess. At five yards a load of BB is still flying as if it were a single lump. it might have spread out to an inch or maybe two, Do you want a ounce and three/eights of lead two inches wide hitting your face at 1200 FPS?

I am disgusted with the lack of practical knowledge that keeps appearing here with people saying things like a 12 gauge is no better than a club unless it has 000000 buck or superslugs loaded in it.

[Zorro]

Up close a load of #6 shot or better is quite fatal.

I have killed many wild dogs and coyotes with a #6 shot and it will go through the ribcage of a big dog at 30 yards or so. Add to that the problems a surgeon has repairing 100 wound channels.

Individually no they won't penetrate a skull but they will shred lungs and other soft organs.

[ITEOTWAWKI]

Has anyone ever heard of an 'emergency' slug or otherwise improvising a slug from a birdshot shell? My crazy uncle (who I thought was rather knowledgeable when it comes to firearms) whipped out his pocket knife oneday while we were out in the woods plinking with a 12Ga and proceded to just barely cut into the shell (almost as if in half) while explaining that if while out with only birdshot when the biggest baddest will-never-see-again sized buck steps into view, that they could sometimes be used sparingly as a 'mergency slug. After having played around once or twice I've found that you've got to get it just so...But I have reservations as to the safety or (mostly) reliability of doing so. Has anyone else ever heard of doing that? (Or know how bad this is on a shotgun? I'm thinking it should be no worse than a sabot round)

[ribbonstone]

Cut shells...at least that's what the old timers call them. But that was back in the time of paper shells, no shot cups, and fiber wads. They'd cut the case somewhere near the end of the last fiber wad...leaving at least 1/2 the fiber wad and the over powder wad still in the rear (powder) end. Can't use them in manual repeaters (semi's and pumps...proably not the old bolt actions either).

Read some NRA pressure tests from the 1950's...pressure was a lot lower than they expected, but that's partly explained by gas leaking past the stumpy base in the chamber.

How it would work with today's shotcups, plastic hulls, and modern powders is anyone's guess....and this "anyone" is guessing it won't work real well at all.
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Birdshot. A lot depends on how far your typical house shot would be...small house or large one, have to figure what the real-world distance in inside YOUR house. For mine, the longest shot I'd have to take would be 18yards, with 12 being much more likely. Inside 12 or 18yards, bird shot will do the job...even #4 or #2 (if that's all you can get).

By prefence and by TESTING, keep the shotgun loaded with basic "BB" shot for inside the huse...and just becasue this barrel patterns so well with #1 buckshot, that's it's go-to load for buckshot.
--------
Papeer shells...man I miss them...the small of a pocket full of fired paper cases while wlaking the woods on a cold December morning is something every shotgunner owes to himself.

[Zorro]

You can turn a bird shot shell in to a "unstabilized Slug" by filling the shot cup with hard wax. The kind of wax sold at art shops for sculpting into rings and jewelery to create a mold for bronze.

Hits HARD but it will tumble and has no accuracy at all.

[guntotin_fool]

adding wax can also lead to dangerous over pressure issues as the weight and drag from the wax to the hull can cause serious issues. May not seem like much, but over pressures can develop incredibly easily when you start messing with non standard loads.

Inside the house, at the ranges most people can expect to need to use a shotgun, BB or similar is more than adequate. Just ask Greg LeMond.
No2 shot at 40 yards nearly killed him

[Doggieman]

Ya can't shoot birdshot through doors or the backs of couches. get as close as you can to the f*&ker before firing.

[Double Naught Spy]

Narcoleptic Warrior, would it be legal for you to own these?

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/cb/cb.asp?a=147269
http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/i...p/t-55433.html

With 2 - 1 oz. shot cups, it is about like having both shot and a slug out to 50 yards or so as the second cup stays together until beyond that on a fairly consistent basis. Recoil is fairly significant, but then so is the amount of power and lead thrown down range.

[MTMilitiaman]

Do an experiment: Buy a watermelon and shoot it at 20 feet with a 12ga load of #4 bird shot. it is quite impressive and far more powerful than what any SD handgun is capable of ( .454, .475, .460, .500 excluded )

Great, next time fruit riots in the street, he'll know he's prepared

This is a pic of #4 birdshot shot into callibrated ballistic geletin at 3 meters with an 18" barreled Improved Cylinder bore shotgun:



Not impressive. The FBI asks for 12 inches of penetration to reliably reach vitals from any angle. Some other agencies ask for only 9 inches. Just about everyone kinda hopes for more than this. Massive, shallow, ugly, and painful--yes. But not deep enough to be depended on to reach vitals and actually put a guy down. Consider that on adrenaline, or some drugs, pain reception is altered and delayed. Barring CNS hits, just about anyone who relies on a firearm for a living knows you have to destroy vital organs and vessels to put a man down. The testers had this to say about birdshot for "tactical" or defensive operations:

Small sized birdshot such as this #4 heavy dove 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.

A tighter choke might help, but while the shot hits in one solid clump, each individual pellet is round and very lightweight, which means it loses momentum very fast. Ballistic geletin is scientifically proven to simulate flesh and more often than not, street results back its results. Humans aren't homogenus, but striking bones isn't going to help penetration any.

I've shot a whole lot of birdshot. A whole lot. I've shot hundreds of ground squirrels, if not thousands, with my trusty Rem 870 Wingmaster loaded with 7 1/2 shot. This is smaller than #4, but not by a too much. My shotgun has an extra full turkey choke. At 25 yards, the vast majority of the shot lands in a pattern I can put my hand over. But I've seen plenty of ground squirrels flop over and squirm down their holes taking centered patterns at that range. And having shot fail to penetrate a 1 or 2 pound varmint is the rule, rather than the exception. I've seen birdshot fail to stop varmints enough times at distances I have in my house, say 30 feet from my bed to the living room, to trust it against anything bigger than a rabbit...er...ah...watermellon

Of course, I guess it is better than nothing.

[Narcoleptic Warrior]

Anyone here ever heard of Italian shotgun ammo with the product names/codes of RC1 and RC4?

[Jeff Mulliken]

7 1/2's are nothing like 4's, the penetration is going to be much greater. Hell I can tell them from 6's just looking at the wounds on game.

And who cares about pellet size at the ranges you shoot indoors. How many of you own a house where you can grt more than 15-18 feet away from someone in the same room?

Pellet size aside the impact of 1 1/4 oz of lead going at least 1250 fps is going to create the kind of shock that will make a real difference. Deep penetration to a vital is not as important as that hydrostatic shot. And look at the width of the wound channel. None of that energy went to waste. Nothing blew out the other side to expend its energy on your flat screen TV. Even given a less than perfect shot I'd much rather use a shotgun.

Regarding penetration we already had a poster (with xrays to prove it) demonstrate the penetration of individual pellets. But if you want another source Dick Cheny who personally tested 7 1/2's on a well dressed lawyer in heavy shooting clothes and the pellets ended up in his heart, and you know how tough a Texas lawyers heart is.

If the old men at my local skeet club ever get in a shoot out with the local pistol club in my house, I'm betting on the old guys. I'll use my winnings the to pay the sheet rock guys to patch things up.

[suemarkp]

They didn't penetrate to the heart, they penetrated his neck area and a pellet eventually followed an artery to the heart. I believe he was 30+ yards away, and that seems consistent with the diameter of the pattern. The penetration was rather shallow, and perhaps 0 where there was clothing.

[MTMilitiaman]

Deep penetration to a vital is not as important as that hydrostatic shot.

This assertion is laughable. First of all, shotguns operate at pistol velocities, or slightly higher. Therefore, penetration and expansion is all that most agree matters, as the current doctrine dictates that most vital organs are too elastic to be damaged by shock produced at those velocities. Secondly, even those experts in the field that still suggest hydrostatic shock matters at those velocities will admit that it still has to be put where it belongs, and does best when it is deposited deep in the body where most of the crucial organs and arteries are. To suggest that penetration is not as important as shock with any projectile shows an incredible lack of understanding of how both projectiles and the human body operates.

The energy deposit theory has the same problems. Energy is just the capacity to do work. The work we need done is to destroy vital tissues. The primary methods a projectile does this is first and foremost through penetration. Bullets poke holes in things. So that is the most important thing energy does. Secondly, they can expand, deform, or fragment. This allows them to destroy tissue in a wider or more lateral path from that of the penetration being achieved. Energy causes bullets to expand. This has to do with equal and opposite...you know, that guy named Newton. Given two identical bullets, the one with the most energy is most likely to expand. But bullets that completely penetrate do not waste energy. A living target is unlikely to be able to tell the difference between a bullet with 500 foot pounds of energy that stops in its chest and a bullet with 700 foot pounds of energy that blows an inch wide hole out its back and lodges in a tree/wall/TV/ect as long as both bullets expand and make it at least to the vitals. This is esp true at handgun/shotgun velocities, where, as previously mentioned, most evidence suggests any shock forces are too weak to damage most organs and arteries. The only difference is that the one with the exit wound bleeds out faster.

This why the FBI requires 12 inches of penetration from any weapon it issues through a variety of common barriers. Regardless of expansion, fragmentation, shock, and all those other things that are nice to have, if a bullet or projectile doesn't make it to a vital organ or blood vessel with enough energy to poke a hole in it, everything else is pretty much useless. Penetration is more important than anything else you can have, save for accurate shot placement.

[mikejonestkd]

>>The only difference is that the one with the exit wound bleeds out faster.

Or the one with the 3" diameter entrance wound.......A shotgun with #4 shot may not penetrate deeply ( over 5-6" ) but it will make it easier to track them after you shoot them.

[Otto Mattik]

I've always considered #4 to be optimal for home defense. It is NO slouch.