Best 12ga HD Ammo for the wife / 00 or #4 12 Gauge?

[KeithCross]

I'm about to pick up a 12g pump for the wife to use for home defense should she ever need it when the pistol and I are not home. What would be the best round to have in the tube? Buckshot? Slugs? We do have kids and multiple rooms in our home so over-penetration is a concern.

Thanks in advance for the knowledge!

 

[KeithCross]

http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/7ADUPO1228-1.html


This looks cool...what do you think?

 

[Adam Striegel]

Low recoil 00 buck was what was recommended to me and mine many times over...

 

[jtischauser]

Federal flight control 1145fps low recoil buckshot

 

[dennishoddy]

I'll agree with Jesse. Slugs pass right through a deer.

 

[DoctorJJ]

I'll be different and suggest #4 buckshot. Still plenty big to penetrate the bad guy, but not so big that it overpenetrates. You get a lot more pellets too.

 

[Iggie]

I'll be different and suggest #4 buckshot. Still plenty big to penetrate the bad guy, but not so big that it overpenetrates. You get a lot more pellets too.

This plus chain shotgun or maybe an AA12 and your good to go.

 

[jtischauser]

Federal makes a #4 flight control shot as well. That would give somebody a severe case of the red ass!

 

[mike cyrwus]

This plus chain shotgun or maybe an AA12 and your good to go.

great contribution to a serious thread.

 

[mike cyrwus]

4 buck is not a bad idea. I use LR slugs in HD guns cause I have no childrens and Ill be aiming if Im shooting.

 

[Wall]

low recoil 00 buck for me, but I'm going to look into #4 buck.

 

[technetium-99m]

The federal flight control 00 buck will pattern into the upper A/B zone of a USPSA target at 10-15 yards. Its really great stuff.

 

[poopgiggle]

We do have kids and multiple rooms in our home so over-penetration is a concern.

Anything that goes through a person well enough to be worthwhile will go through drywall. The only way for your kids to not get hit by stray shots is to not shoot in their direction.

 

[McGuire]

I use flight control LR 00 and I have 2 slugs in the side saddle. I know it seems like overkill, but imho, more is more...Id rather have too much than not enough, and I dont have kids, just the dogs. If someone is coming after my wife I want a one shot stop, I dont want her to have to work about winging someone and not killing him and him hurting her or getting away and sueing us...like I have said before, if its an HD/SD weapon, its not getting loaded to instigate a tickling competition, whoever is on the receiving end is going down hard.

 

[KeithCross]

Anything that goes through a person well enough to be worthwhile will go through drywall. The only way for your kids to not get hit by stray shots is to not shoot in their direction.

I don't necessarily want it to go through a person, I just want it to go into a person...multiple times.

I dont want her to have to work about winging someone and not killing him and him hurting her or getting away and sueing us...

How do you "wing" someone 6 times in a row... *shoot till its dead*

 

[KeithCross]

I've also heard good things about #1 buck - only slightly smaller shot, but nearly double the amount of shot = more surface area coverage. Any one else ever heard this?

 

[Scott Hearn]

I'm loaded up with LR 00 buck, but I'm not so sure that's the way to go since I saw on DRTV some ballistic gel tests. 00 buck was just sailing all the way through the gel block and just kept on going. But a 1oz slug was stopping in about 8 or 9 inches due to the extreme expansion. Can you envision radical expansion from a 12ga slug? Ouch... It was pretty much rolling the block off the table too. Damned if I can find the video or remember the specific load but it was a foster type slug.

 

[Dieseltech09]

Im going to go against the grain on this one. I bought my wife a semi-auto 20ga for home defense. Its light weight, easy to handle less recoil and loaded with #3 buck has plenty of stopping power and less chance of over penatration with little kids in the house.

From and article by Massad Ayoob

In a buckshot load, the standard for 20 gauge is #3 buck, which consists of twenty pellets, each a quarter inch in diameter. Among common 12-gauge shells, the closest would be the so called "urban police load," #4 buck. This consists of 27 pellets, each .23 caliber. Velocity is roughly the same, whether twelve or twenty gauge.
For home defense purposes, let's say two evil twin men are kicking down the front door, announcing their intent to murder every man, woman, and child in the house. Spouse A fires a round of 12-gauge #4 buckshot and sends 27 .23'' diameter pellets into the chest of the first evil twin. Spouse B unleashes a single round of 20 gauge #3 buckshot, blasting 20 .25" diameter pellets at approximately the same velocity into the thorax of the second evil twin, with all the projectiles penetrating to approximately the same depth.
Who's going to know the difference? Only the medical examiner, and then only after he meticulously counts the white spots on the X-rays, or tallies the number of pellets removed from each corpse.

 

[poopgiggle]

I don't necessarily want it to go through a person, I just want it to go into a person...multiple times.

I meant that if something is going to hit a person hard enough to reliably stop them, it's going to go through Sheetrock like paper.

I'm no tactic00l high speed low drag expert, but it seems to me that priority #1 should be to get the kids into the wife's bedroom so that she can be sure she's not shooting in their direction.

 

[Mitch Rapp]

#1 buck is my pick, but you already knew that.