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Originally Posted by charleskieffner
not to flame higgy, #6 is great for first shot to the eyes, to blind bears/zombeez on a charge with follow up buck and then slugs.
i use federal low recoils cuz the cops do here. i live a distance from my neighbors so i dont have a overpenetration problem.
my folding stock is for packability only. its great for that, but as stated they suck also. threw the ramline folder away.
the 870 is a throw down in the dirt mud rocks sand snow rain camp gun and sometimes home defense.
my fave is the M-2. very lil recoil from standard stock and vang waving his magic wand over it.
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If I lived out where you live, I would not use light bird shot either. I would definitely want the punch at longer shotgun ranges provided by buckshot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by m21sniper
There's some merit to what Jeff is saying, but here i'm actually a fan of the deep penetrating 00 buck and not the shallow penetrating light shot. This is interesting because in handgun ammo me and Jeff are in disagreement, as he favors deep penetrating solid loads, and i penetrate high speed light hollowpoints that violently expand and fragment to bits on impact.
Go figure.
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I wouldn't want to get hit by either one of our choices.
Here is my reasoning for my seemingly contradicting choices in handgun vs. shotgun ammo. First, with a handgun, we only get to make one hole for every pull of the trigger. I want that hole to go all the way through and have an exit wound. I want to ventilate whatever it is on both sides, from any angle. In my experience out hunting, an exit wound drops big animals faster than just an entrance wound. Frangible bullets that will not make an exit wound will still only make about the same entrance wound. Granted, they tear things up on the inside, but if they only do so at a shallow depth, I have found they do not drop game as quickly as a hole all the way through, even if it is a much smaller hole.
Even the most powerful hanguns would make for pretty underpowered rifle rounds. With a rifle, we have the power to do both - penetrate completely and expand violently. We do not have that kind of power with a handgun, so we must choose one or the other. I choose deep penetration and an exit wound, based on actual field experience with both. I carry that prejudice over to self-defense ammo as well.
Shotguns are a different breed of cat. Power-wise, they land between handguns and rifles. That whole multiple projectile thing changes the game, however. When they are all spread apart (at typical bird hunting ranges), the light pellets won't penetrate anything tougher than a dove. They won't even go all the way through one of those. Buckshot will go all the way through, if you are lucky enough for one of the 9 to 12 pellets to actually hit it. Therein lies the tradeoff - penetration vs. pattern density. Hundreds of #9's are far more likely to find one hitting a dove at hunting ranges.
But we are not talking hunting ranges, we are talking self defense ranges. Out to 10-15 yards, all those #9's are still together in a tightly clustered little mass. So is buckshot or any other shotgun shot. They work as a group, and penetrate as a group. Even individually, they retain a great deal more energy than they have at 20-30 yards. What this all adds up to is essentially individual pellets working together as one mass, providing a great deal more penetration than one would expect. That solid mass of #9's will go right through a man, a wall, a car windshield, your floor, whatever - provided it is close enough. Inside the house is "close enough". Your neighbors' houses are not.
The other huge advantage to hundreds of little #9's is that they provide more cutting edges. They make one hell of a lot nastier wound than buckshot or slugs. They will make absolute hamburger out of any soft tissue or bone in about a fist sized hole. No one gets up from that.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on self defense loads with handguns and shotguns. They seem contradictory at first, but the key I am looking for is enough penetration. The shotgun achieves enough penetration, at least at defensive ranges, with light bird shot. It achieves as much penetration as my hard cast handgun bullets. That's all I'm looking for.