Wrote this post for another forum and an oft-tread discussion on shotguns. Part II is just the end results, or a bunch of pictures of cardboard with holes in it. Figured it had been a while since I was on NMA, and some folks might like to see a shorty shotgun:
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PART 1: PREPARATION
About once a month, someone on *********net asks what kind of gun they should buy for home protection. Inevitably, the Weight of *********net Wisdom settles on a pump action shotgun. I vehemently disagree. My arguments, short version, are that a shotgun is a.) unweildy, b.) requires the user to perform a lot of mechanical actions under stress, and c.) is not a magic wand of death. I think this makes for a bad combination in nervous / novice hands of your typical (sub)/urbanite user. I am usually ignored.
A friend of mine followed my recommendation on a first gun, and settled on a Sig 226. He was pretty happy with it for that purpose until some cop friends convinced him of the same old tripe regarding the magic sound of a pump action shotgun. Now he wants one for home defense. So we are going to try a couple out on Thursday afternoon.
I have a couple shotguns, including a Franchi O/U with which I discovered that I suck at trap, and a Remington 870 Super Mag with a 28" barrel, with which I discovered turkeys are far more inclined to get up early than I am. I have a couple of competition shotguns that are pretty specialized. That leaves me with three shotguns that would fit the bill for the typical 'home defense' scenario.
They are an FN SLP (original version, not Mark I or II) and an FN SPS, which are derivations on the Winchester Super X2 and 1300 Defender, respectively. Both of them have 18" barrels and are fitted for chokes. The SPS is running a cylinder choke, which provides no restriction. The SLP has an improved cylinder choke, which provides a very modest restriction of the barrel. I also have my trusty 870 Police SBS, which has a 12.5" unchoked barrel.
FN also makes an SLP Mk I and Mk II, both of which are comp guns, and at 22" and 24" barrel lengths, a little too long to fit the bill. I have a Mk I and think it is an awesome shotgun. The last time I ran 3-gun, they were fairly popular along with the Benelli M4 amongst the high dollar crowd.
But I digress. Pre-Shoot prep & commentary:
The 'home defense' shotguns:
The SPS holds 8+1 rounds, the SLP 7+1 rounds, and the 870 holds 4+1 rounds.
Home Defense Alternatives:
Even the shorty shotgun is pretty long. About a Springfield XD Tactical, Glock 19, and Kimber TLE's worth of long.
Which hold 16+1, 15+1, and 10+1 respectively. None are going to hit as hard as a 12 gauge, but they give you a lot of capacity in a much more compact package.
What do you want in your hands?
You have two of them. You can effectively hold and fire any of the above shotguns. Or a handgun and something else.
Guess which I prefer.
It is awfully hard to open doors with a shotgun in the ready position. My preference for weapon mounted lights is a topic for another post.
Back to the topic at hand, though. My shorty 870 is actually very comfortable to fire with low recoil 00 Buck. However, I am going to be shooting slug and standard velocity #00 through it, and don't really feel like letting my wrists take a beating for 15 rounds. Also, since my friend has very little shotgun experience, I'd like to make things a little safer.
To do that, I will need to make some changes:
Going to go with a Magpul SGA 870 stock. They are nice because you can adjust the Length of Pull by spacers for a more traditional feel, or you can leave it unspaced, which gives it the LOP of a youth stock.
In order to keep hands safely behind the barrel, I am going to use a small segment of rail and a Magpul handstop off of one of my ARs.
This is what I need to do:
So I take everything apart:
About this time, Daddy's little helper wanders into the garage.
Rail segment mounted to the handguard:
And all back together again:
The handstop sits too high off the handguard to comfortably serve as a leverage point. If I wanted it to be a levarege point, I'd use a long rail segment and a ladder cover over the unused portion. In this case, it suits my purposes the way it is. I really just want it to keep hands on the grippy part of the guard, and not have them accidentally or excitedly move forward of the barrel.
Back with it's peers:
The business end:
On to the load-out. I had amusing stencil time with 9 IDPA cardboard targets.
Three per each gun:
The plan is to put them out at 15 feet or so, and test the patterning of the three shells I use most commonly at 'home defense' distances.
I am going to try and separate the shot into different segments of the target at least twice per. I don't want to shoot all center of mass, because that will confuse my patterning. My friend will be shooting at these as well. I'll let him shoot first, then I will look for some empty space for the follow-up shots.
At least that is the plan.
The rounds:
I've been shooting a lot of Federal lately, because it is what has been most available in bulk.
I like the Federal LE132 00 quite a bit. It has the lowest rated muzzle velocity of any of the commonly available shells at 1145 FPS. It is very comfortable to shoot out of my shorty 870, and even softer in the full-sized FN SPS. It is the load of choice for the one time a year my wife begrudgingly agrees to shoot three rounds out of a shotgun, because it is so soft.
I haven't tried it out of my semi-auto SLP. I am thinking it might be too soft to cycle the action. I've lubed the SLP up and put in the light piston, so we shall see.
For the SLP, we have the standard velocity Federal XM127 00 loading, also 9 pellets of #00 Buck. It has a muzzle velocity rated at 1325 FPS. Not brutal by any means, but enough oomph to reliably cycle the SLP. This round doesn't have the flight control wad, and is probably about as generically standard a 12 guage round as one is likely to find. It will shoot fine out of all three guns.
Finally, I have the Federal LE127 RS rifled slug. It is a low recoil slug at 1300 FPS rated muzzle velocity. Slugs need a little extra oomph out the barrel, but it is very soft shooting for a slug. Should work fine in all guns, and is safe for the improved cylinder of the SLP.
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The purpose of all of this is to give my friend some experience with a shotgun and common ammo before he makes purchase. I'll do an after report as time allows me to process pictures. This is by no means scientific, but I'd like to hope it will be illustrative. Thanks for reading such a long post.
