Thinking about a shotgun

[buick455]

i never thought about the practice issue with a shotgun. i use my 1187 even for clay pigeons, and would say that knocking out several moving targets fleeing from you in several direction is good practice... i always tell people that they have to practice with their handguns if they expect to use them in a time of crisis... so, the same should also go for a shotgun. i'll just have to remember to roll the bodies over and make sure there is some buckshot in the front of them, too. it would look suspicious to LE if all the bad guys on had buckshot in their backs...

guess I never really thought about what shooting clays was practice for in regards to home defence but now that you mention it if some meth head junkie sprouts wings and tries to fly away they'd be in serious trouble

 

[punchinpaper]

I have an 870 tactical set up an have it with me every time I go shooting. I always try and run about twenty- thirty rounds through it just to be well practiced with the action as well as being comfortable shooting it. I put an eotech on it for kicks and the thing just sort of stayed on it. In a rapid fire drill I am hitting 50-60 yds with a 5rnd group of about 6 inches with slugs and I have hit sillouette targets out to 100yds. (no replacement for an AR but if thats what you have at the time....go with it)
I do that to practice with it so that up close its a no brainer we have a drill where I put a paper plate in a hostage taker position on a sillouette and at fifty yards hit the plate and try not to hit the "hostage". We also try loading dummy shells in the chamber to simulate something not going right so you have to clear the action. I have tried to hit clays with a slug just fooling around, but thats really difficult. Doing these things might or might not qualify me for mall ninja status but I dont really care we do these things to make it fun to shoot the gun so that it gets shot often. That is what counts.

Here is my last fifty yard rapid fire attempt. The patches were from earlier pistol shooting with the family.


This is the set up. Once you get comfortable with it the gun is actually fun to shoot. One of my friends has a saiga and thats pretty dang tempting too. He brought it out full mag with bird shot and completly vaporized a sillouette target which reminded me of those carnival games where you had to hit and remove all the little star target with the bb gun to win the prize. good times.


The moral of the story is get what you want, balanced by what you can afford to shoot often.

 

[Gunner3456]

The Model 12 and 1200 are two different shotguns. The Winchester Model 1200, predecessor to the 1300, was introduced in 1964 as a low-cost replacement for the Model 1912, commonly called the Model 12 (as it was changed to in 1919) was the next step from John Browning's hammer-fired Winchester Model 1897. The Model 12, like the Model 1897, had no trigger disconnector and could be fired each time the action closed with the trigger depressed, a practice known as slam-fire. The more modern 1200 did not have this feature. There was also a plain jane version of the Model 1200 called the Model 120.

So which one do you have?

True. The Winchester Defender is a 1300. I have one and it's a fine gun and lightweight. Winchester quit making them due to expense. The receiver is alloy. If I was in the market for a home defense shotgun, I'd hunt one down. Forget all the plastic in the new basic Rem 870, or the cost of the 870 Police.

Just the other day I posted on here my Rem 1100 semi-auto with a fully rifled 22" barrel, rifle sights, and some pics and info on the Remington Accutip Premier Sabot slug. It's very accurate at 100 yds, and will hit the kill zone at 200. It will hold ten rounds. I put a round through a 1/4 steel plate. At close range up to 200 yds, it'll make a mess of anyone. The rounds are 385 gr., 570 caliber, JHP and jacketed with cartridge brass, not copper. Speed is 1850 fps in 2 3/4". So, there's an option.

I also have a Rem 1300 (same as the Defender) but also with a 22" fully rifled barrel and rifle sights. It's a pump of course instead of the 1100 semi auto, but it's still a nasty gun with that sabot slug.

Choices, choices, LOL.

Naw, truly, I'd hunt down a nice Defender for about $300.

 

[ta2er]

+1 on the Defender. I have thousands of rounds through mine and it's still the one I sleep next to. Very underrated shotgun, and there are plenty of aftermarket goodies if that's what you're into.

 

[buick455]

The Model 12 and 1200 are two different shotguns. The Winchester Model 1200, predecessor to the 1300, was introduced in 1964 as a low-cost replacement for the Model 1912, commonly called the Model 12 (as it was changed to in 1919) was the next step from John Browning's hammer-fired Winchester Model 1897. The Model 12, like the Model 1897, had no trigger disconnector and could be fired each time the action closed with the trigger depressed, a practice known as slam-fire. The more modern 1200 did not have this feature. There was also a plain jane version of the Model 1200 called the Model 120.

So which one do you have?

I did not know that they were different. Thanks for the info. I have a mid 50's model 12 my brother has a 1962 model 12 with a rib on top and some custom stock for skeet and my father has a 1200 that he picked up some time in the 70's

I have shot all three and never noticed much difference but then again I never tried to slam fire them

 

[deen_ad]

A shotgun with slugs is a poor substitute for a rifle when it comes to anything beyond 25 yards or so.

Check out the VangComp conversion. Very accurate at long distances with slugs.

 

[deen_ad]

True. The Winchester Defender is a 1300. I have one and it's a fine gun and lightweight. Winchester quit making them due to expense. The receiver is alloy. If I was in the market for a home defense shotgun, I'd hunt one down. Forget all the plastic in the new basic Rem 870, or the cost of the 870 Police.

I have two of the 1300's, one with two barrels (the short one is a rifled slug barrel) and the other has a long barrel. They are about the only pump gun that will easily handle the ½ size Aguila rounds. I can stuff 13 of them into the standard tube and they are great for HD. NO, neither is for sale!!

 

[gnarl]

I just picked up some HD ammo I had not seen before, I plan on going uphill today and trying it out at a pit.
It's called PDX1.12 and contains a 1-ounce slug and three plated pellets of 00 buck. It is a Winchester product
an the price isn't bad...about $13.00 for a box of ten @ Mal-Wart.

 

[Bon Sauvage]

If I was ever limited to a single shotgun be it for fighting, sport or hunting it would be a Remington 870P: hands down. I can use it well and I'm trained in it's repair.

Having said that, my HD shotgun is a thirty year old, "coach gun." The exposed hammers and double triggers give me, in effect, two separate weapon systems in a single package.

For me it works very well indeed.

 

[Gunner3456]

I did not know that they were different. Thanks for the info. I have a mid 50's model 12 my brother has a 1962 model 12 with a rib on top and some custom stock for skeet and my father has a 1200 that he picked up some time in the 70's

I have shot all three and never noticed much difference but then again I never tried to slam fire them

The 1300 looks almost identical (at a glance) to a 1200 on the outside. The difference is that the internals in the 1300 are a complete redesign, using lighter weight alloy parts and a shorter stroke. The 1300 is truly a "fast action" shotgun. The Defender is just the 18 1/2" version. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a 12 or a 1200, though. A lot of Special Ops carried 1200's in 'Nam.

Personally, I wouldn't buy a plastic Remington Express or a very expensive Police or other high end new gun, when I could get a nice 1300 Defender for $300. It was the high end gun in the 1980's, and IMHO there is nothing better made now. As mentioned, Winchester quit making them due to cost of manufacture.

$.02

 

[Boats]

Here is a pretty good primer of my views on the fighting shotgun.

MilCopp Tactical: Ohio based Training

Speaking of myths, that piece is full of them. Then again, carbine fans have little or no use for thinking that combat shotgunnery is a discipline in its own right. It doesn't sell carbine class slots.

The disdain for shotguns among the hardcore black rifle crowd reminds me of how traditional martial artists look down upon the grappling based combat disciplines. Shotguns are too down and dirty for most of them to respect.

I agree that the "racking of a shotgun clears off the bad guys" is Hollywood BS and that yes, shotguns need to be aimed, but from there I mostly part ways with Mr. Copp.

He is dismissive of the shotgun's versatility and I think he is wrong to do so. For folks who don't want to dedicate themselves to a black rifle, riflemanship, or even to a Mini-14 and missing everything like an A-Teamer from NBC, the shotgun is a far better choice not only because it is not as much of a cash outlay, but because it is versatile. One can take even a "defensive" shotgun upland bird hunting, or slug deer or elk with a smooth bore cylinder choked shotgun. To dismiss out of hand the versatility of the pump action shotgun is just as absurd as ignoring that the AR is easily converted to shoot inexpensive .22lr and can be modded out like a Tinkertoy. He sells short the 18-20 inch barreled shotgun as a hunting tool, thinking that it would not remain just as dedicated a defensive weapon or something, and he's wrong about that.

Yes, it won't swing as well as a dedicated bird gun, and yes, the O/U crowd will sneer at you shooting skeet with a 870P, though it is really just a black "Wingmaster." As with anything, success at such things is amenable to practice. And practice is what a dedicated "fighting" shotgunner does.

Mr. Copp's treatment of cylinder choked non rifled shotguns using non-sabot slug rounds is frankly ignorant. A "defensive shotgun" using rifle sights, ghost ring, or even red dot sighting systems, are capable of ruining man sized targets at any distance that would still likely be called "self-defense" in the aftermath. Smooth bore shotguns with any sights better than a simple front bead can tag 8-12 inch diameter steel at 100m using plain slugs all day long. Though I haven't done it myself, people have filmed themselves using unmodified 590A1 shotguns to hit torso sized targets repeatedly at 200m with plain old off the shelf slug rounds.

And really, who is going to hang around if you are splashing dirt or concrete chips with an entire ounce of lead? Only a fire team you aren't going to beat is going to hang out and see if you can return fire from two football fields away. The 200-500m "battle space" is way too overemphasized by riflemen of all stripes, but even the M4orgery fans get into that while their ballistics are dropping to 9mm power out there. In well over half of Oregon, one would be hard pressed to have a clear field of fire that stretched out to over 50m, let alone 500.

Is a shotgun "capacity compromised?" I wouldn't think so. While 30+1 gives AR/AK fans the warm and fuzzies like 17+1 gives the 9mm fans happy thoughts, there is another school of thought out there that says accurately delivering the most devastating firepower one can manage trumps capacity concerns. Is one round of 00 Buck an instant fight stopper? Not necessarily, but neither is one 55-123 grain intermediate power rifle bullet. One hit from 00 Buck or a 12ga slug is probably going to end a fight psychologically in a way that only full power .30 caliber rounds can mimic on non-COM shots because non fatal wounds inflicted by shotguns are spectacularly bloody for being "failures." If the shotgun is a bad choice for having 6+1 or 8+1 capacity, then revolvers and single stack automatics are piss poor self defense choices too. Never mind that the most popular .45ACP pistol is routinely "stuck" at 7 or 8+1 and that lots of people are totally fine relying upon 6 round .357 magnum revolvers.

The "weight" of shotgun is not problematic either. Note how the author makes a fighting shotgun "heavy" by throwing together a full ammo load, a full side saddle, and a full butt cuff of 12 gauge. Why not throw on a bayonet for good measure? I can make an AR heavy by putting a heavier barrel on it, aluminum quad rails, a vertical foregrip, an optic, et cetera. I view this as a real non issue. Neither a fully loaded defensive shotgun nor a heavily festooned AR/AK is going to appreciably outstrip the weight of a Garand, M1, FAL, or other main line rifle from the past, whom generally scrawnier men of yesteryear carried to **** and back. If it's really a problem a workout regimen is probably the answer.

I guess at the end I once again agree with Mr. Copp on his last item. The fighting shotgun is not for everyone. You can't be a sissy. You have to ignore or actually enjoy the noise, blast, and recoil. I do. You can't complain about the apparently excessive weight of the weapon, knowing as you will that if you have to butt stroke someone with it you aren't going to make it inoperable by bending a buffer tube that isn't there. You have to give up the false security of high capacity and learn to hit what you are aiming at, especially against moving targets, which most black rifle fans and pistoleros do not practice against because they can't as at the typical range it would be far too dangerous to the general public to shoot at moving targets that shotgunners take for granted. Riflemen and pistoleros practice against static targets and call it good.

I have gone on long enough and I could have kept going, trust me.

The shotgun is not the ideal SD longarm for the untrained. Then again, neither is the rifle. However, if one dedicates themselves to it, the shotgun is the queen of CQB, and can be suitably pressed into service as a ranged weapon at any distance that would be sanely justifiable as self-defense rather than making one the aggressor, and with a simple wooden dowel as a magazine capacity reducer can be used to take all game birds and every species of big game legal to hunt in Oregon.

If you can only afford, or only want to "trick out" one long arm as the centerpiece of your home defense, you could do a lot worse than a 18-20" barreled cylinder choked shotgun.

 

[chemist]

There are some excellent insights on this thread, from people who have obviously done their homework.

Please don't let all this fascinating technical detail distract you from the fact that a 12 ga. is a stunningly effective HD weapon, whether it's filled with slugs or birdshot or anything in between.
I've chosen #4 buck, but it doesn't matter all that much. Put the tritium bead on the target and press the trigger. Wash, rinse, repeat as necessary. The 'black rifle' advantage is being able to do so thirty times without reloading, which is utterly irrelevant for HD - just like the rifle's hundred-yard-accuracy.

My choice was the Mossberg 500; the Rem 870 is indistinguishable. Get whichever one Big 5 has on sale this month - and practice with it until you can shoot without flinching. Your mindset will have a greater influence on your probability of survival than your weapon anyway.