Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Shotguns are a weird piece of gear. Everyone admits theyre nasty business at close range yet they are usually the last class of firearm to be restricted by a government. Even in places where gun laws are tight you can still own a shotgun even if you cant own a handgun or a rifle. (And, yes, Im aware that in some places shotguns per se are not prohibited but pumps or semi autos are.)
For me shotguns have two purposes. Primarily as a close-in defensive weapon and then secondarily as a game getter.
Why anyone would choose a shotgun for defense is a little bit of a mystery. An M4-style AR is no bigger, holds more ammo, and is more accurate at any distance than the common 12 ga. room broom. “But I just have to point it in the general direction and the pellets will hit the bad guy!”..eh, not really true at short range. Maybe at thirty yards but the inside of my house is a bit shorter than that. And at longer distances, say 50 yards, Im going to get more energy on target with an AR or AK.
I remember reading somewhere about a fella in Iraq, I think he was a military prison guard or somesuch, who carried a shotgun and large quantity of shells figuring it would be just the ticket in that environ. The prison, I believe, was assaulted and in the firefight he came to very quickly realize that when everyone is running around with Ak’s and M4’s the guy with the 8-shot shotgun is at something of a disadvantage. “Curled up in a ball” is what I read but maybe that was just stretching it. Then theres the stories from WW1 (or was it WW2?) about the troops with shotguns shooting German grenades out of the air when the grenades were lobbed at them. Shotguns have a very colorful history in the armed forces.
There used to be some more interesting guns – the USAS12 (a 12 ga. AR styled gun) and the dramatic-looking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armsel_Striker. Both were reclassified by the goons at ATFE as ‘destructive devices’ making them a bit of a headache to own. Lately the 12 ga. AK’s have been getting popular, esp. now that drums are available for them. For sheer volume of pellets one of those AK’s would be tough to top. (Although YouTube has a video of a fella with a belt fed 12 ga. And the Chinese apparently have a belt fed .410.)
Shotguns do have some unique attributes though that make them worthwhile. First and foremost, they evoke a pretty visceral reaction from whomever theyre pointed at. While having any gun pointed at you is pretty unnerving theres something about the gaping maw of a shotgun muzzle that lets the target know its entering into a new dimension of trouble. Shotguns have the ability to shoot ‘specialty’ rounds such as blanks, rubber buckshot, bean bags, Taser rounds, flares and a handful of other marginally useful ammo. The shotgun is getting mileage overseas as a door breacher using special shells. Police departments usually have some rubber buckshot around for breaking up crowds. Someone somewhere makes whatever exotic shell youre looking for.
I keep the shotgun around because it’s a cheap gun to relegate to dedicated house duty, has a bit of authority, and is quite reliable.
For the average pump shotgun theres two names to know – Remington and Mossberg. There are other pump guns out there but either of these two will be your best choice. Autoloaders are out there as are single-shots, side by sides and even lever-action shotguns but for simplicity, reliability, durability, capability and versatility the pump gun is the way to go. While there are some very respectable autos out there the pump gun has the advantage of being able to shoot virtually any shell that fits the chamber…some specialty ammo (tear gas, blanks, etc) may not have enough power to work an auto but they’ll shoot just fine out of a pump gun.
Remington makes their classic 870 and Mossberg offers a dazzling number of variations of their rugged 500-series. Either brand is a winner. The Mossberg is less money, the Remington is easier to find accessories for. Mossberg has a bigger selection of ‘tactical’ shotguns, Remington has a bigger aftermarket base. Personal preference. We went with the Remingtons because of their ubiquity…theyre everywhere. However, I don’t pass up any bargain Mossbergs that cross my path. They can sometimes be found for $125-150 which makes them pretty hard to let go by.
Mossberg usually offers a package that comes with a short ‘riot’ barrel as well as a longer hunting barrel. Like the Remington, the Mossberg barrels are easily and quickly changed out. Winchester used to have some decent pumpguns but for one reason or another I never really cared for them. The old Model 97 and Model 12 guns are great but good luck with parts and accessories. Remington offered their Model 10 pump for a number of years and while it’s a nice gun as well but like, the older Winchesters, parts can be a problem. None of those mentioned, as far as I know, take 3” shells. Browning ran off some copies of the Model 12 and perhaps theyre a better choice…I have no experience with the Browning copy.
Once in a while someone asks my opinion on a shotgun and I pretty much tell them to get the Rem 870 or the Mossberg 500…either one will serve very well in tough times. I like Mossbergs tang-mounted safety, but I like Remingtons magazine tubes that accept extensions. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
Shotgun ammo is pretty straightforward. Buckshot and slugs have their adherents and, quite honestly, at inside-the-house ranges pretty much any shotgun load will put the hurt on the bad guys. At across-the-room and down-the-hall ranges even birdshot doesn’t spread out very much. Excellent ‘mythbusting’ about shotgun ammo performance can be had at The Box O’ Truth…a website that I recommend to anyone who wants to know “Will [gun/caliber/bullet] really do that?” (Especially telling is the performance of the .410 pistols that seem to be the rage these days. Watch the videos and…judge…for yourself their effectiveness or lack of it.)
What about outside the home? What if youre in Katrina-land and youre defending your business or your neighborhood from angry mobs and looters? Well, we do see shotguns in the hands of the cops at these sorts of events more than we see them with rifles so maybe there’s something to that. Still, I think that if I were stuck in some sort of Haitian earthquake scenario I would be better served with my AK or AR than with the shotgun. The only real advantage I see is if I wanted to break up a crowd by skipping pellets across the pavement or shooting non-lethal shells.
I stick with the 12 ga. simply because it is the most common shotgun shell gauge around. Sure 20 and 16 gauge are lighter and more pleasant to shoot. And, yes, anything a 12 will do a 10 will do better, further, harder and heavier. However if you walk into a hardware store, Walmart, gun shop, police armory, or wrecked pickup truck I’m pretty sure you’ll find 12 ga. ammo to be more common than all the other ones. Additionally, many guns and specialty rounds are only available in 12 ga. If you just cant handle the 12 ga. the 20 seems a reasonable alternative. The 16 ga. isn’t nearly as widely represented as the 20 ga., and although the 16 ga. gives better performance than the 20 ga. The availability of ammo for these guns is a factor.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I want a shotgun and some ammo for defense. Skip the theory. Tell me what to buy.” Okay, head down to the local GunMart and get either a Mossberg 500 or a Rem 870 in 12 ga. with the shortest barrel they offer (18-20”). Buy a few boxes of Remington buckshot and slugs (2 ¾” is fine, get 3” if you feel like being a stud). Pick up a case of the cheapest hunting loads they have…usually its #7 shot or something. Go to the range and use the cheap stuff for practicing loading, gun handling, and getting a feel for shooting the gun. When that’s done try your hand with the buckshot and slugs to get an idea of how they feel and where they shoot. Clean your gun, go home, stuff a half dozen rounds of buckshot in the magazine, call it a day. Accessories like a SideSaddle ammo carrier are nice to have as is a mounted tactical light. The usual gold bead front sight is pretty adequate but if you can get a gun with rifle sights you’ll find them more familiar to use.
If you want to take the plunge and go for the undeniably combative, Mossbergs 590-series military style shotguns are the epitome of brutal, gritty encounter-stopping shotguns. The 590’s have parkerized finishes, protected sights, hold plenty of ammo, and even have a bayonet lug…they are the street brawler of shotguns.
What about those pistol grip shotguns with no stock? Well, they cant really be aimed, and firing one from the hip can be done just as easily on one with a stock. For storage they save some space but think about this – when you hold one the distance between the pistol grip and your elbow is where the stock would normally be, right? So when you shoot one, how is it any more compact than if the stock was on it? They look pretty butch and maybe, maybe, maybe theyre the ticket for really tight quarters but otherwise they take away from accurate fire and effective recoil control. The old style top-folding Remington stocks wobble and develop quite a bit of play after a while. The Butler Creek side folding stocks seem to work quite well, though.
Single and double-barrel shotguns are fine guns for sport and can be used defensively as well. They are, however, not my first choice and while inexpensive, simple and light they suffer from the obvious limitation of shell capacity. Maybe you’d never need to fire more than one or two shells in anger but if you did need to youre definitely going to wish you had a different gun. Most pumps hold 5+1 and the more dedicated guns hold 6,7,8+1 depending on barrel length. Contrast this with firing barrel one, firing barrel two, break open gun, pull two shells from pocket, drop one in each chamber, close gun, repeat two more times versus pull trigger, pump action, repeat six times. If the single or double is the only gun you’ve got, well, you dance with the one that brung ya….
Gimmicky stuff of marginal value: those slings that have shell loops on them. They look cool but when you have twenty rounds of buckshot hanging off your sling its going to make shooting accurately a bit more challenging….all that weight swinging around pulling at the gun as you come to stop to take a quick aimed shot. Better off with a belt pouch full of shells or some other convenient carry method.
Bandoleers hold a lot of ammo and theres no doubt they look pretty cool but Im not convinced of their utility. It’s a classic look but I think I’d be embarrassed to show up at a shootout looking like Pancho Villa. If youre going to carry fifty shotgun shells pack them loose in a satchel or one of the large belt pouches.
SpeedFeed stocks hold a couple extra shells in the buttstock and Ive read mixed things about them. After a while they seem to wear a bit and the shells come flying out of the stock under recoil or they don’t come out at all except with lots of annoying fiddling. A stock cuff with a few shell loops would probably serve better.
Flechette rounds seem like a cool idea and when used in something like an artillery round they really are pretty cool…a thousand steel darts whipping through the air shredding everything in their path. Scaled down for a shotgun shell you have a small amount of lightweight projectiles providing minimal shocking power with unreliable accuracy. Looks cool, sounds cool, probably not really cool.
But, like everything else I post, these are subjective opinions. I’ve got a bit of experience with pretty much everything here and I’ve given more than a little thought to the topic. My final opinion, and your mileage may vary, is that if youre looking for a shotgun for defensive purposes you could wrap it all up in an hour at your local gunhsop with a Rem 870 or a Mossberg 500. If you have an old Ithaca 37, Browning A5, or Benelli M3 and they work for you, keep them. For my own needs I’ve found the Rem/Mossy pump guns to be an affordable, rugged way to go and have no problem recommending them.
