Guns

Shotgun chokes for home defense

/ hsoi

While a shotgun is not my #1 choice for home defense, it certainly can be used in that capacity. One thing that came out of the KR Training Defensive Long Gun class was the realities of using a shotgun in a home-defense situation.

Home defensive shooting is likely to go from 3 to 25 yards, or rather, very close range to the longest distance across your house. Measure it if you’re not sure, but most houses won’t be more than 25 yards. By nature, a shotgun shooting pellets will have those pellets spread. Just how much those pellets spread depends upon the shotgun’s choke and the load, even being different across manufacturers and brands.

Old_Painless over at the Box O’ Truth has BOT #44 discussing this very topic. He takes a look at how chokes affect patterns and how different brands of buckshot affect patterns. Conclusion? In general full choke does tighten groups up, but the actual load seems to matter a lot more. The take-home is that you shouldn’t just buy any old buckshot and expect it to behave like you want it to. You need to try different loads in your particular gun until you find the load and gun (and perhaps choke) “pairing” that works to give you your desired results. This is consistent with what came out of the KR Training class. Bottom line is you have to know how your tools will perform.

One nice thing that came out of BOT #44 was seeing that the Remington low-recoil buckshot worked so well. I believe Old_Painless used this product, but I can’t tell (his website doesn’t say exactly, and his box picture doesn’t match the Remington website, but this is likely the same load). Not only is that a tight pattern regardless of choke, but managed recoil is arguably a better choice for home-defense situations. The reduced range of managed/reduced recoil products isn’t an issue in the limited ranges of home-defense situation, it doesn’t beat you up as much, you can manage the recoil and get to follow-up shots faster. Win-win.

Buckshot please

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Here’s a story about a black bear that broke into a home in Boulder, Colorado. Apparently it took 10 rounds to take him down. Why so many? Let’s look at the rounds fired:

  1. First 2 rounds were 12 gauge bird shot.
  2. 3rd round was 12 gauge rubber bullet.
  3. Then 5 .45 ACP rounds
  4. And finally 2 rounds of .223 from the policeman’s rifle.

He shot the .45 rounds into the bear’s head. Seems to disorient the bear a bit, but didn’t have enough oomph to stop the bear. The .223 finally ended it.

Some other things to note:

  • Birdshot is for birds and nothing more. It is not effective at stopping anything more than Tweety. This was a juvenile bear and the birdshot merely disoriented him. It’s evident the homeowner kept the shotgun for self defense, putting birdshot and rubber bullets in there. Folks, less lethal isn’t the way to go. If you’re going to use a shotgun you want buckshot, and probably some slugs in the side-saddle.
  • I’ll continue to keep my AR for home defense, over a shotgun, over a handgun. More power, more versatility, more effective.
  • Sounds like the homeowner did the right thing tho. Got their gun, collected the wife and kids, man of the house put himself between his family and the bear, called the police for backup. Didn’t go looking for trouble, tried to let the bear get out; it’s always good to give a predator an escape route, else they will fight worse because they feel cornered. But when trouble came to him he dealt with it.
  • Cops did eventually show up, but like all things with the cops they are never around when you need them and it takes time for them to show up. It’s good things worked out as well as they did here, but it does show you cannot necessarily count on the police if time is critical.

6.8mm Remington SPC

/ hsoi

Sebastian writes on his 6.8 experience.

More about the 6.8 mm Remington SPC (or 6.8x43mm). Even more.

My buddy Charles that I went on the night hunt with and even one of the guys that ran the night hunt are both into 6.8. I’ve been reading things that suggest 6.8 would make a good replacement for the 5.56x45mm NATO round, because it performs better in short-barrel carbines, has better terminal ballistics, but isn’t quite the load to haul around as the 7.62x51mm NATO rounds — 6.8 is a round somewhere in between attempting to be a purpose-built round that addresses the issues that came along if you trace the evolution of going from 7.62 to 5.56 (from the M14 to the M16, etc.).

Once I get up to speed with reloading, I may have to pick myself up a 6.8 upper and try it out, especially as a hunting round.

Just exactly how much is too much?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Linoge wonders about the same thing I’ve always wondered: just how much is too much?

Whenever someone says “too many” or “too much” or even “too little”, that always brings an implication of “just the right amount.”

So what is that right amount? Someone will say that “oh that’s too much/little” and then I’ll reply asking them “OK, then what’s the right amount?” and no one can ever answer that…. unless it’s a knee jerk “one is too many” sort of reaction, like Linoge mentions.

Give his post a read.

The Kid

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Ever notice how no one expects to have to defend themselves?

There’s that old saying: Shit happens.

Well, during the latter part of my night hunt experience, there was potential for shit to happen. If you care about self-defense, read on.

Continue reading →

Night hunt

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

This past Friday night, my buddy Charles and I went on a night hunt for feral hogs. Charles booked it probably a month ago with a group called “Night Hogs” out of Seguin, Texas run by 2 guys, Randy and Gerald.

Continue reading →

Hornady Critical Defense ammo

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

I posted about my search for the right carry ammo for my snub. Caleb, of Gun Nuts Media, responded to my post and created a post of his own where he responds to me touting the virtues of Hornady Critical Defense ammo.

I must admit I’ve been very curious about this ammo, especially since I like 9mm and now have .38 Special to deal with too, and Critical Defense is made for those calibers (it only comes in .380 ACP, 9mm, .38 Spc, and .38 Spc +P). Plus I do like Hornady products; I use their TAP for the home-defense AR. They make good stuff, and I’ve got a warm spot in my heart for Nebraska. So… I said I wanted to do more research into this ammo, might as well post what I can find.

Continue reading →

My index finger hurts

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Yesterday was a day filled with snubby goodness. 🙂

While sitting at my desk working, if my fingers weren’t typing they were dry firing the new snub to work the trigger in. I will say it’s smoothed out some since I brought her home.

After work I gave the gun a basic cleaning to clean off any preservative from the factory and ensure she was lubricated. I wanted to put some oil in the action. Trouble is, being a “Centennial” frame the action is fully enclosed, so what to do? After much Googling around on the matter, the conclusion I came to is that generally it is not necessary. If however you want to, just take off the grips. When you do that, it will expose the mainspring/hammerspring (see this nice parts diagram) and of course the “hole” in the frame that the spring passes through up into the hammer/action area. One can place a drop of oil down there, work the action, and that should be all you need (in terms of lubricating the trigger/hammer/action). Of course, if you feel a need for deeper cleaning or lubricating there is the side plate that can be removed BUT unless you know what you’re doing you shouldn’t remove it. The warnings I’ve read is that unless you know what you’re doing you risk all sorts of pain and suffering. Either take it to a gunsmith and let them do it, or just be willing to sacrifice the gun and learn. I’m not yet willing to go there, so I just put some oil down the mainspring “hole”.

Actually for this initial run, I have some Break-Free CLP in an aerosol can, so I put the little spray tube on the end, stuck it in the mainspring hole, and gave a couple short blasts of CLP into that entire area. My reasoning was to ensure everything was lubed, plus if I could soak/wear/blow out anything in there (e.g. any powder carbon from the factory test fires, any small metal bits from the trigger/action break-in that I’d been doing), that’d be good. Of course, that meant a lot of lube so I was constantly wiping the gun down… spray, work action, wipe wipe wipe, work action, wipe, work action, wipe. Did that for a while, and given the CLP I was wiping up wasn’t “clear” on the rag (it’d be black) I figure I was getting something out of there OK. In the future I will likely lube it with just a drop of good oil, but I felt I wanted to do something a little different for this initial time.

Note the above isn’t necessarily some recommended practice. It’s just what I personally did to my personal firearm. Based on what I read online coupled with some logical extrapolation, it seemed to be an OK thing to do. I cannot atest if it actually is or not, so if you opt to try the same well.. your mileage may vary.

Furthermore, I do think I’ll take her to a gunsmith in the near future to have her checked out and cleaned up.

Otherwise, cleaning the revolver is like any other.

So, she’s cleaned, I have continued to work the trigger to try to break things in a bit more.

And man… both index fingers are getting sore, a little tender. 🙂