20 gauge for home defense

[shamus005]

Would #3 buckshot, 2 3/4" shells work pretty well for home defense? Or are slugs a better option?

[mathman]

For most home defense scenarios, buckshot is a better choice than slugs.

Slugs penetrate too much and can hurt people that you don't want to hurt.

[tlm225]

I think that the twenty with either slugs or buck would be just fine though I'd lead towards buckshot.

[SeekHer]

#3 or #4 buck would be superb...slugs go through too much stuff and will hurt bystanders...also a single, large, devastating pellet defeats the purpose of the shotgun...read my posting in Home Defence Weapon on this shotgun forum.

[brgr]

I agree with seekher. sure if you hit them with a slug they would for sure have a really bad day but if you miss

with buck shot just firing in the general direction you have a good chance of hitting the object.

[Dave McC]

Seeker and brgr, what is the spread of your load of choice at the longest distance possible in your dwellings? Have you patterned at all?

Do not depend on spread to make up for bad form and technique.....

[Paintballer]

Well, I use #6 steel bird shot in my 20 gauge pistol grip Mossy.
Here is a pair of jeans shot at maybe 20 feet, which is about 2 times the maximum distance of any shot I would have to make inside my home.

Two quick shots from the "mid level" just pointing not aiming.

I feel pretty comfortable with 6 of these in my shotgun inside the house.

[losangeles]

Nice visuals, paintballer! Thanks for the pics.

[SeekHer]

Dave McC Seeker and brgr, what is the spread of your load of choice at the longest distance possible in your dwellings? Have you patterned at all?

Do not depend on spread to make up for bad form and technique.....

My house is 32' x 42' (1,344 ft²) with an attached 20' garage on the 32' side which would give me a 52' length...for argument's sake, lets put the measurements at 10 yds x 15 yds x 20 yds, OK. If I stand at the end of the hallway and open the 2 doors I can see the far side of the garage wall, between the garage and the kitchen there is a small hallway in front of the laundry/mud room...if I stand in the breakfast nook I can see through the kitchen and dining room the far wall of the living room on the 42' side...open concept, T shape design.

For me to hit the garage wall, I would loose 20 to 25 per cent of the load to my hallway walls, as they are less than 4' wide and the doorways are 36"...the spread at 10 yds was about 10" to 14", the spread at 15 yds was about 15" to 20" and at 20 yards about 18" to 24".

These were fired from an 18½" mod barrel and based on 5 different loads of shot--#2 (.270/12.5 per oz), #4 (.240/20.3 per oz), #F (.220/39 per oz), #T (.200/52 per oz) buck & BB (.180/73 per oz) bird--with 2¾" shells of light magnum, magnum and field loads of powder; measured from the most extreme pellet on each side of the spread on a 5' square target comprised of sheets of newsprint stapled to a wooden frame.

Only 15 shots were fired at each range--one of each pellet and powder--for a total of 45...what would have been better would have been 5 shots of each load/pellet combination and an average of the spreads taken...I had the loads, the time, didn't have the paper or the physical ability to complete the task (recovering from back surgery).

The best pattern over the entire range and in all powder classes was #4 Buck ...the tightest patterns achieved: at 10 yards was #F with a light magnum load, at 15 yards #2 with a light magnum load, at 20 yards #F with a magnum load...I took shots with just magnum loads at 40 yards just for fun, have no idea of spread as we saw puffs of dirt on either side of the targets, but the best (tightest) pattern of the remaining pellets was again #4 buck...surprisingly, the second tightest patterns were with field loads of #2 at 10 & 15 yards and #F at 20 yards.

Spread will not compensate for accuracy, but it does give you a greater margin of error and that is the most important thing...especially in building confidence in a [new] shooter...I will either aim low COM (center of mass), about the area of the belly button or high about the bottom of the neck...at 10 yards I'd pattern about shoulder to shoulder, they would have to move about two complete body widths for me to achieve a complete miss-- anything less and I'd probably get a hit with at least one pellet, hopefully of sufficient mass and advantageous placement to incapacitate...hence my love of the #4 which has about 3 times the pellets of 00 (.330/8.13 per oz).

Eventually, I would like to try penetration tests of the different pellets against a box of 1" boards from different ranges, but that will have to wait till summer...I'll maybe build the holding box over the winter...although there isn't any real hurry for me to do it...from experience I would say that they would follow the sequence with the heaviest going deepest--only logical--but I'd like to know HOW deep.

There is a neat site showing examples of various bullet penetration tests at The Box of Truth

I'd really like to do this again, but with more pellet variety (12=BB to 0000), I've never really tried #1 or #0000 buck, and with a greater number of shots, five (5) shots per powder/pellet combination and at 5, 10, 15, 20 yards and only two (2) shots per at 40 yards...that would make a total of 792 shots...will have to get some buddies together and make it a week-end project...now if we did that with cyl, imp cyl, mod, imp mod, full, xtra full and maybe skeet...MY that would be 5,544 rounds...maybe I'll let the ammunition makers do it.

I wonder how much barrel length would effect spread...let's see, if we used the most common defence/police/IDPA lengths of 16", 18", 20", 22" and 24" barrels. that would bring our total up to 27,720 rounds...we would have to devise a holder for a complete roll of newsprint on a loop system similar to competitive shooters use behind their targets...and definitely have to have sponsors...to make matters worse, we would have to do it for all the major and custom shotshell manufacturers, Remington, Winchester, Federal etc...this could develop into a business, shooting shotguns for a living and after firing more than 300,000 rounds...OH WELL...wishful thinking...what can I say but hope this helped.



LINK: http://www.theboxotruth.com/

[Paintballer]

No worries. I wanted to see for myself what the effects of the loads would do to real world objects that a naughty person might have on them if they broke into my house.
I used the 20 for a few shots with the bird shot, then my buddy had some new Winchester Tactical shells. Those were neato, but they only had 8 pellets in them and made 8 smaller holes, the 20 made one big hole.
We used .45 , .223 and 9mm to to see the effects and they all were about the same - small holes and went right through.
Im not sure of the number of #6 pellets in the 2 3/4" 20 guage shells, but at a close range inside a home, I feel they will shred what you hit and not exit the target only to hit something or some one else.

[brgr]

I have fired a 20 ga with #8 shot from about 15 feet away from a target that was 2' x 4' piece of plastic. I took one shot and checked the target, it had been hit with more shot than I could count, they did not however go thru the plastic which was about a 1/4 inch thick.

[Al Thompson]

To answer the original question, I've helped clean several deer that were killed by 20 guage loads, not sure if it was #2 or #3 buck. Deer didn't seem to care.

Nice thing about a 20 is that no matter how good you are with a 12, your better with a 20. And a 20 is a great SD/HD shotgun IMHO.

[SeekHer]

I forgot to mention, I have an old Rossi Coach Gun, exposed hammers, 18½" barrels in 12G as a Cowboy Action and bedside home defence gun, my wife and daughter both have similar shotguns for identical purposes but in 20G...nice thing about the exposed hammers is that you have an immediate idea if the gun is safe or not...so I really think that the 20G is a more than adequate round--FYI they are loaded with #4 buck.

Until we had a leather hand grip/barrel protector made that would house a tactical flashlight, we firstly had them duck taped to the barrels and then found a nylon strap that closed around the barrel with Velcro and held the light...the light is as important as the weapon in a defensive position, if you can't see and/or identify the threat then you truly are blind.

[gdeal]

Buck shot would work much better. Also a 20 guage is fine.