Really off topic, but I read somewhere of a guy who loaded some shotgun shells with dimes! He said it turned his shotgun into a real scattergun.
I’m trying to imagine the sound of 20 or 25 dimes flying through the air at 1340fps.
Depends on the bore’s choke, especially for hunting. There might not be enough left of Tweety to make it worthwhile to fire up the grill!
It would probably be enough to discourage a perp, but would it be enough deterrent if the perp was on meth?
Shot deformation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At the Academy we were taught an alley sweeping technique of pointing low so the Buck would flatten out on the pavement at the feet of the perp, then travelling at an angle to the target like a swarm of little buzz saws.
With the price of ammo this might even be cost effective some day.
Thank you for that. I had not heard of that before. Very interesting.
The same technique can be utilized when your intended target is shooting around the corner of a brick wall. Target the wall a foot or two before the corner and the shot will disintegrate, peppering them with hot lead. If you use a heavy enough load (slugs, 000, etc…) you could also disintegrate the wall.
In my HD shotty (Remy 870 Tactical, 18.5 cylinder bore, 6 round 1 piece mag tube) I use Fiocchi 2 3/4 high brass 00. It patterns at about 6 inches at 30 feet - the longest straight line sight distance in my house. My Wifes shotty (Remy 870 Express Youth model 20 gauge 20 inch barrel with cylinder bore choke, +6 mag extension) is loaded with Remington 2 3/4 high brass #4 Buck. It patterns a little wider at the same range.
We practice with the same rounds we will shoot in an HD situation. If you practice with light loads because they are cheaper, you could be in for a nasty surprise when that day comes.
We have been dutifully chastised many times over our choice of defensive ammunition with everyone harping on over penetration of the heavier loads. The only weapons in our arsenal that will not over penetrate are the Nerf guns. We live in a little house so we must use exceptional marksmanship when we go to war inside.
I say rock on with the 00, it’s the standard for shotguns used to stop violent attackers (#1 might be better, but 00 is what everybody makes and sells)
A couple years ago I bought a Rock Island Armory VRBP100 semiauto shotgun.
I began buying a variety of ammo to try on it.
I’d done a fair amount of reading, watching videos, etc…
I liked the bullpup because it is a semi.
I then began buying magazines.
It comes with two 5 rd mags, but you can buy 9rd, 19rd, and a 21rd drum.
I decided to get the 9rd mags, because the price is really reasonable.
With this, I’ve found that certain shells do not work in it.
I’m told that the brass casing/cap is the problem.
There are apparently 2 different types of caps.
One is a low cap, and works well on regular shotguns. But for semi’s, it was getting stuck upon ejection.
Now i have 3-1/2 twenty-five round boxes i can’t use…
I also bought a 250 rd case of federal 12700 LE 00. I was told it’s the best for personal defense.
My shotgun handles 2-3/4" and 3" shells.
So far, I’ve only shot 2-3/4" in it.
I then bought a 250rd case of 7-1/2 shot shells by Venom. They seem pretty good.
After last week’s shooting practice, I’m thinking that as nice as a semi is, I’m going to need a hunting shotgun. I was told our laws here limit shell count to 3.
While I could easily do that it just seems weird so far…
So… self-defense… i bought the 12700 LE 00, by Federal explicitly because everything i read says it’s the best.
Wow…
200 yards, 5000°,
Sounds great if you are a rancher with several acres.
You should check that rule further, usually the 3 shot plug rule is for migratory waterfowl and some other migratory birds.
I think that was the context of the discussion. I did check it out afterwards. It was 3 rounds.
Yup, that’s a Federal Migratory rule, U.S. and Canada.
With my upcoming acquisition I have been going through my shotgun ammo research again. From what I can find and talking to the couple of shotgun folks I know with real experience - the few LEO agencies that haven’t converted to semi auto rifles seem to favor LE13200 and LE13300. These are lighter recoiling rounds using the same Flight Control wads as the LE127. The lighter recoil allows for faster follow up shots and the patterns from the lower velocity shells tend to be a little tighter. Several prefer # 1 buck for indoor use since it is less likely to over penetrate people and walls but Federal no longer makes #1 with their flight control wad. But rumor has it they might bring it back. I have read these low recoil loads work well in many modern semi auto shotguns but some semi autos may need the higher recoil of LE127 to function reliably.
Some argue that wider patterns are better from shotguns. But most of the professionals seem to prefer the tighter patterns. Both because at indoor ranges the targets are close enough and the groups not sufficiently wide enough to aid all that much with hitting a moving target and at slightly longer ranges wider patterns and flyers can lead to pellets missing the target and traveling on to hit unintended targets. That is why many prefer LE133 with 8 pellets instead of 9. For some reason 8 pellet loads are less likely to have flyers so the patterns are tighter.
Hornady also makes 8 pellet loads with a similar wad. Though I saw some patterns of the high velocity Hornady that were pretty wide. The lower velocity seems to pattern tighter. Which brings up the point that all shotguns pattern differently with different shells so everyone needs to test their own gun’s patterns at different ranges to see how they behave.
The argument that wide patterns do more damage doesn’t seem very strong since when you look at gel tests even the tightest patterns fan out considerably once they hit soft tissue.
As I think I mentioned earlier in this thread I have also heard from a couple of well experienced SD shotgun folks that don’t like buckshot because it can deflect off walls and even through people in unpredictable directions. They prefer slugs because they tend to keep going in the direction you fire them regardless of what they hit. But that only works if you live in a rural area or have specific shooting lanes where you know the slugs won’t be going through your walls and neighbor’s walls and hitting unintended targets.
I am definitely not a shotgun expert. Aside from shooting some skeet I have very little experience with them. But the above is what I learned by reading and talking to folks with solid experience. Based on that research my choice for home defense would be Federal low recoil # 1 buck flight control. But since that is no longer being made my number two choice would be Federal LE133 which is low recoil 8 pellet 00 buck. Unfortunately LE133 seems unfindable at the moment though I have a couple boxes I picked up when I bought my skeet gun. So I just purchased some LE132 as well as some less expensive but fairly well regarded Fiocchi Defense Dynamics buckshot. When my shotgun arrives I will pattern all the shells from 10 to 50 yards to see how they compare. I also bought some Federal TruBall low recoil slugs to try as well. They seem to be the most popular LEO choice for SD slugs at the moment.
Also forgot to add that based on my research the LE127 is also an excellent choice and likely the best choice if your shotgun likes it and can’t reliably feed the lower recoil rounds. Your shoulder just has to deal with a little more thumping and you get the slightly slower follow up shots.
Interesting. People use semi autos for trap shooting all the time and there’s no issue with low wall brass–which isn’t even brass but steel. For waterfowl, btw you’ll also need to launch steel or Bi$muth shot.
Premium target (R-P Premier & Winchester “AA”) loads will have honest brass “brass” but I don’t believe any manufacturers currently make honest brass “brass” loaded buckshot for defense.
Local agencies in my corner of the world swear by Federal Flite Control, btw.
Posted this link over in the federal flight control thread and cheap ammo threads as well:
Affordable defensive buckshot on a very good Black Friday deal.
Buy 250 rounds for $120.
$149 with shipping. $0.48 each total cost to door
https://palmettostatearmory.com/fiocchi-defense-dynamics-12-gauge-00-buckshot-250-rounds.html
So finally got out to test my new shotgun and pattern some of the different buckshot I got for it. Also played around with the push/pull recoil mitigation technique. I need to work on the technique more but it made a noticeable difference in felt recoil and speed of followup shots.
Here are my 00 buckshot observations. All shotguns behave differently so your results may differ. The only spot I could get to today was limited to 30 meters so I patterned at 10, 20 and 30 meters on 22”x28” pieces of paper.
Winchester Mil Spec 9 pellet - pattern was already opening up to soccer ball size at 10m. 20m was spread all over the paper and 30m only 5 pellets were on the paper, a couple just barely, and only one of those was close to the middle. I wouldn’t use this for anything beyond inside the home ranges and think there a probably a whole lot of cheaper and better options.
Federal Flight Control 8 Pellet - nice tight 2 to 3 inch pattern at 10m. Volley ball at 20 and basketball at 30. Would probably feel comfortable using this out to 40m though there is a chance for some of the pellets not being on the target by then if the aim is a little off.
Federal flight Control 9 pellet - very similar patterns to the 8 pellet but at 20 and 30 m the one pellet flier issue showed itself with one of the pellets barely staying on the paper at 30m. If I needed to make sure all the pellets stayed on target I probably wouldn’t use this past 25m.
Fiocchi Defense Dynamics 9 pellet - reasonably tight cantaloupe size group at 10m. Soccer ball sized group at 20m with one flier bringing the group to a little bigger than a basketball. Small beach ball at 30m with one flier off the paper. Would feel comfortable with this out to 20m. Would like to try the 8 pellet version if I can get my hands on some for cheap.
The Fiocchi was the cheapest of the bunch but seems like a solid choice for in home and slightly longer distances at least in my shotgun.