5 Defensive Shotgun Myths

Posted by Mostly Genius – November 24, 2008

chinck...1. Attackers will run in fear of the sound of a racking shotgun.

Not necessarily. This makes a lot assumptions like you are going to have time to change the state of your shotgun when you need it. If you are racking a shotgun at the start of your encounter then you were starting with an unloaded gun (or ejecting unspent ammunition.) If you want to use to sound to reliably intimidate people you ether need to issue verbals commands (“I am armed and I will shoot you…”) or begin shooting them.

2. Shotguns don’t need to be aimed.

Depending upon the distance and the load the shot will strike in a small cluster a few inches across. Shortening the barrel or increasing the distance will cause the pattern to spread out more, but will also reduce the penetration of each pellet. Realistically you need to get as many pellets into the vitals as possible so wider spreads of shot are less likely to produce stops in human targets.

3. Shotguns will knock a bad guy into the air.

Nope. Physics tells us that if the shotgun had enough power to lift the target it would also have enough recoil to lift the shooter. Shooting people who are off balance might get knocked over, but nobody is going to go flying though windows.

4. Shotguns are more deadly than rifles.

A trigger press of .00 buckshot is like shooting a lot of little handguns. Assuming all the pellets are on target you generally produce a number of low velocity wound tracts. This means that any tissue that is actually touched by a pellet dies, but the surrounding tissue is undamaged. Rifles fire one bullet at higher velocity creating a larger permanent cavity. The subjective “deadliness” has more to do with the circumstances of the shot (distance and shot placement) rather than a hard fast rule. Both shotguns and rifles are more than capable of killing people.

5. Shotguns require less training to operate effectively.

Because of the higher weight, recoil, limited ammo capacity, and manual controls shotguns require more training to operate. People that are new to shotguns frequently “short stroke” inducing stoppages. Less critically things like reloading and ammunition selection (select slug drills) do require a fair bit of practice to master.

I would not argue that shotguns are not effective self-defense weapons, but they do not live up to the hype and in most circumstances are not as good as having a semi-automatic rifle. Despite the informal training supplied by Hollywood and video games, they do no live up to their billing.

  • Reid

    Pete is correct: barrel length has nothing to do with the spread of shot; that is up to the choke. It doesn't have much to do with velocity, either (very different from rifles or handguns.) The shot (or slug) reaches its max velocity just a few inches from the chamber. The only reason you see longer barrels on bird guns is so that the gun swings properly when you are leading game; the barrel length changes the balance point and inertia of the gun. Since this is obviously not the object with a defensive weapon, get the shortest barrel available to you--which is normally going to be 18".

  • Arod

    I want to talk about the first myth the sound of the racking of a shotgun, you assume the shot gun is unload, not necessarily, I keep my defensive shotgun loaded, do not keep a shell in the chamber of obvious reasons. I would bet " the farm" if you yelled out to an intruder that " I'm armed, and will shoot you" and you back it up with a noise of racking of a shotgun, 98% of untruders will scram, and the other 2% you should be prepared to use your shotgun.

    Something that everyone reading this should think about, if you are going to buy any type of gun for defensive purposes :

    1) get trained in the proper use of that weapon

    2) most importantly before you purchase a weapon, be very sure that you have made up your mind that you will defend yourself or family, using whatever reasonable force needed to repel an attack or home intrusion including the use of deadly force. If you cannot make this decision before hand you have no business with a gun

  • This shotgun racking cliché just refuses to die.

    The racking of a shotgun is superfluous if you have already given a verbal warning, which itself is a generous luxury that home invaders are not generally entitled to.

    I am not fond of the idea of announcing myself to intruders. Depending on the circumstances, illumination is probably the closest thing to a warning they are likely to get. Unlike the ostentatious gesture of racking the shotgun, using a light actually has some tangible benefits.

    Since you mentioned training, I have to say that I am unaware of any reputable trainer that recommends condition 3 for any weapon.

    I strongly suspect that the origin of the “Cruiser Ready” concept was primarily as an attempt to keep police from having negligent discharges. Bureaucrats often come up with solutions like that. The military uses a similar rationale as justification for their even worse policy of mandating condition 4 weapons when not “outside the wire”.

    If you have poor weapons handling skills and have no intention of actually training to correct your deficiencies, then perhaps “cruiser ready” is just the solution you were looking for.

    I rarely see anyone endorsing condition 3 for a pistol or rifle that is being used for home defense. The sound of working the action on a pump shotgun apparently has a unique magical power of striking terror in the hearts of evil-doers.

  • If the shotgun was 'loaded' it would have a round in the chamber. 'Cruiser Ready' is not actually loaded. Unless your statistical probabilities have some basis in fact I don't actually care. 99% of total made up nonsense remains total made up nonsense.

    Your reasons for not keeping a round in the chamber are not 'obvious' (nor safe) My defensive guns are loaded (that means a round in the chamber) and inaccessible to those without explicit access. I don't assume that I will have the luxury of playing challenge and password with my intruders.

    I am betting that if I yelled "I am armed and I will shoot you" then I have all of the legal justification to not bluff on my opener. If you are unconvinced by my statement than you will be convinced by lots of feeble, little, handgun-like rounds ripping through your meat. (I'm lying a bit here, my shotgun is loaded with slugs and it's a backup to my AR)

    If you choose to defend yourself with unloaded guns then knock yourself out. If you want to assume that the threat is rooms away and you have time to get your gun loaded then knock yourself out. If you want to believe that you have time to yell at them AND they are going to care, then knock yourself out.

  • Pete

    I am surprised that the misconception that pattern size is dependent on barrel length was stated on this blog. Shot pattern and the size of that pattern is contingent upon choke. If you have a short barreled shotgun it is probably "cylinder bore," but who is to say you can not install a "modified" or "full" choke tube? Thus, velocity is the only thing that would decrease with such a gun.

  • TheGunGeek

    I would even change "A trigger press of .00 buckshot is like shooting a lot of little handguns." to something more along the lines of "A trigger press of .00 buckshot is like shooting a lot of little black powder handguns." since the bullet type (round lead ball) and velocity are much more similar to that than a modern handgun.

    Back in my goofy college years I was quite surprised to find out how small a "pattern" a shotgun makes at fairly close ranges. Also, how big a hole a load of 12ga birdshot makes in a car door. Well, in the steel exterior of a car door anyway, since that's what we had handy.

  • I guess I would summarize that advantage as "false confidence" and it might be much of an advantage. Hollywood has taught people how to chamber a round, but not manipulate the safety or unlock the action. Having confidence in a weapon is worth something, but probably not all that much in the grand scheme of things when it is time to put shots on target.

  • Fergus

    I think one advantage that the shotgun may have is the misconception by some (thanks again to Hollywood, no doubt) that it is easier to use than other firearms. While that certainly isn't true, it would lend a certain amount of confidence in the ability to wield the shotgun should the need arise. Although this confidence won't overcome the deficiencies of the shotgun as a defensive weapon, it most certainly would help the person wielding it.

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