nikto

especially the range at which it's effective. With 00 buck and a riot barrel, it's pretty much worthless at 30 yds and some aint worth much at 25 yds, on fully exposed men. On cover using men, some barrels and loads, it won't reliably hit a head, exposed around cover at a mere 20 yds.

In combat, ranges are routinely misjudged by 1/3rd, so it's common to use buckshot beyond it's effective range, or go to slugs (and miss) when buckshot would have worked.

How many rds of each to carry, slugs, birdshot, buckshot, hmm? Say you pick 25 rds of each. would you be happy with just 25 rds of rifle ammo? At 40 yds+, that's what you'll have, given a 12 ga, and you'll have little skill with it, cause 12 ga slugs are $1 each and shotgun trigger pulls SUCK. If you don't have rifle sights on your 12 ga, it's limited to 50 yds, even with slugs, for reliably hitting a man. Shoot up a car body, enough to reasonbly expect to hit a man hiding behind it, and you'll be out of slugs.

nikto

what I suggest is that you forget about #7.5 birdshot AND about buckshot and just load up with #2 birdshot. Aim at the head/neck, just as you would on turkeys. Then you wont be trying to take rabbits with buck or men/deer with # 7.5 birdshot. Better mostly carry slugs and mostly take small game/fish with traps, nets, trotlines, snares, and a silenced .22 hg. Cause if you get into a fight with 2-3 guys who have rifles, and who know to stay 50 yds away and use cover, you're going to lose, when all you have is a shotgun and a handgun

nikto

ballistics charts prove that 12 ga slug is drifting in the wind like a balloon and dropping like a rock, at a mere 150 yds. Would you be happy with a rifle rd that did no better? Garand claims 223 's will bounce off of him at 300 yds, but even if so, that's still 2x the range at which 12 ga is at all likel to get a hit. 12 ga slugs, due to lack of practice, are going to mean LOTS of misses of heads at 50 yds, popping around cover. Ditto helmet-wearing men, head on prone to you, at 100 yds.

nikto

#2 is 120 or more pellets in a high base 2 3/4" shell. That might miss the occasional dove at 25 yds, given a riot barrel, but it will take deer with head shots to 50 ft, mess up a man's face/neck to 30 yds or more, and it will reliably take rabbits and such to 25-30 yds. You won't have so shuffle your pump thru so many rds to get to the "right" load, either The penetration of #2 is adequate on the face and head of a man,( and the pattern is dense enough) to 30 yds. when you realize what all these limitations mean, you'll carry a silenced .22lr auto rifle over a 12 ga, any day, for shtf.

nikto

different load of buck pattern differently from different 12 ga barrels and the center of the buck pattern is not going to be where your slugs group, either. So the 12 is nowhere NEAR as being as effective and versatile as people "think" that it is.

inside the home, the range will be 5 yds and less, and so the pattern will be at most 5" wide. you can easily miss with it, especially on cover users, especially if you are too dumb to be using ear protection.

Garand

Narrow minded thinking at its best! The modern shotgun has been used in every major conflict since the beginning of the 20th century. When I was serving in the Middle East we used them for predator control. There is no experience like standing with a partner, also equipped with a shotgun when you come upon a pack of 20+ feral dogs.

When used within its limitations, it is quite a useful item.

nikto

just TRY, no earprotection and in the dark, no NVD's, reacting to a signal, finding 5 enemies in a dark area, varying spacing and heights, and ranges and hitting all 5 in 2 seconds, from first shot to last, 5-15 yds, with 00 buck and pump 12, as can easily be done with NVDs, luminous sights and canned shorty AR. :-) Wasting your money on levers, bolts, 308's revolvers, shotguns and the like mean you wont have the armor, NVD's, luminous sights or silencer.

So favoring such crap is an ADMISSION that you are just a plinker. Nothing wrong with being a plinker, as long as you don't make yourself out to be a survivalist or fighter, cause you AINT.

Garand

Read my last post, o' narrow minded one! The 2 of us took out 12 dogs without reloading and the remainder disappeared into the sunset at the high port. And no neither of us were wearing ear protection. What happens in your fantasy when your suppressor gets bent, or your night vision gets broken, or you have gotten tired after walking 100 yards with your body armor?

Garand

BigEd63

All shotguns are not the same patterning wise even with the same make, model and choke. Plus using the same ammunition.

It behooves anyone with a shotgun to test pattern it with different brands if ammo at different distances. Poster board or cardboard works the best.

Garand

By the way, that day we took on the dog pack, it was somewhere around midnight and no back in those days we didn't have individual night vision.

nikto

"we", and the dogs weren't starving and you had no kids to worry about and you were not exhausted, dysenteric, etc, as you WILL be when shtf and dogs aint shooting at you, either. Under realistic conditions, you'll have nobody and it will be PEOPLE, dumbass. shooting 1-2 dogs wouild probably have run off a pack in normal times. A pistol could handle that. Every time I shot ONE dog, the rest fled as fast as they could run and did so instantly.

Garand

Well in this case the dogs were hungry and we did take out 12 of them between the 2 of us before the remainder got away, and those were "realistic" conditions not one of your fantasies!

.45 COLT

Another sign of the neophyte. Better learn what you pretend to be an expert on before you spout off.

DC