Ammo For Beginners: Shotshell Basics

welcome back everybody this is Eric here with Iraq veteran 8888 today I've got a special video for you this is somewhat outside of the norm that we are used to making but we've got a lot of new gun owners and I'm trying to kind of continue down the path of explaining things to newbies we've got a lot of new gun owners in the fold and we want to make sure that everybody is as safe as possible and that they are also using the proper tools for the job that they need to protect their families their communities each other what have you shotguns are a popular firearm and they can they actually are very much a chameleon of a gun in terms of what they can do they can do everything from shooting birds out of the sky to shooting through barriers and anything in between they can even be used for some big-game hunting I mean they are super useful and can carry a wide variety of different payloads and can fill a wide variety of different purposes but it's also important if you're new to firearms to understand that shotgun shells do represent a little bit of a knowledge base that you need to understand what you're getting into and that not every shotgun shell is created equal okay because there are so many different types of payloads in a shotgun it's important to choose the proper tool for the job you know a lot of people are buying shotguns as their first firearm and of course shotguns are awesome and they are available in a lot of different action types everything from single shot pump semi-automatic and anything in between so there's lots you know double barrels obviously Chiappa has their triple threat which is a three barreled shotgun so there's a lot of variety out there each action type is going to sort of prefer certain things that it can and cannot do okay for instance Benelli has the m3 model which can convert between a pump and a semi and allow you to run just about any type of ammunition you may come across some ammunition will not reliably cycle a semi automatic other types of ammunition it doesn't matter it'll run anything so there are different power levels of 12-gauge ammo as well as different payloads and what a one todays video to primarily be about is the different types of pay like what comes out of a shotgun and to explain gauge and shot size that's today's primary focus we have another video on color codes and identifying shotgun shells based on their color code not all shotgun gauges are the same now when we say gauge you know you say 12-gauge well where does 12-gauge come from that sounds kind of random right well 12-gauge comes from the amount of lead round balls it takes to equal a pound for the bore size I know that's confusing but if you take the bore diameter of a 12-gauge shotgun and you take that bore diameter and you cast round balls it takes twelve round balls to equal a pound of lead that's simply how they do it that's why when you have a ten gauge it only takes ten round balls to equal a pound of lead and a 10 gauge that's why 28 gauge you would think logic would tell you well 28 gauge that sounds big well I don't want that little wimpy 12-gauge I want a 28 gauge because that's more gauges it takes 28 round balls to equal a pound of lead and a 28 gauge so these higher the number the smaller the diameter of the bore the smaller the number the higher the diameter so get that out of your mind all right 12-gauge is kind of a medium contender okay 10 gauge is a big boy that's not going to be quite so common in terms of your home defense needs although there are 10 gauges out there 12-gauge is sort of the standard for self-defense so just know that if you're shopping for a shotgun or if you've already purchased a shotgun you should know that 12-gauge is going to be the most common shotgun shell you're going to encounter with the widest variety of different payloads and options available especially in defensive loads all right so let's start with birdshot now there are different sizes of birdshot but for the purposes of today's video we're going to look at seven and a half all right seven and a half is kind of a nice medium size of shot right but you've got essentially birdshot now birdshot you've got a ton of little pellets here inside of this shot Cup I might pour these out in my hand leave this look at all that shot that's a lot of shot okay so what you gain with having birdshot is you have an increased amount of chances of shooting a bird out of the air right birds aren't moving when you shoot em you have to lead them and yeah not every single pellet is gonna hit the bird that you're aiming at but the idea here is that you have a spread okay of shot and that shot spread as long as it encompasses the area that that bird is flying within and as long as the carrying energy you're close enough and have a good enough load the idea is that yes it only takes a small amount of these pellets to take down a bird okay so you're dispersing that energy think about this it's real simple you're dispersing the energy amongst all these pellets okay now if you're at really close range let's say that I shot something at point point-blank range well that shot cup with that birdshot in it it's going to act more like a slug at really close range because that shot has not had a chance to disperse out of the cup and actually take flight right so birdshot generally is not considered a defensive load because it loses so much energy at even a modest range now granted when we hear people say well they got peppered with birdshot you have so much shot that the mass of this little piece of shot is so little that it takes a heck of a lot of force in order to get that to harm you at range right that's why you'll see trap and skeet ranges that are in a circle and you you might be shooting at something in the air and there might be somebody 400 yards from you directly in your path that you're literally shooting right where they are but because the carrying energy of these small little bitty projectiles is so minimal it just doesn't have the carrying energy to travel that far once it comes out of the shotgun and goes up in the air it's gonna it's gonna fall out the sky pretty quick because you just don't have the mass with these little bitty pellets that are needed to cause any type of long-range injury or taking down game all right so that's why shotguns get a reputation for being a close-range only type of weapon because those round pellets lose so much energy as they travel through the air especially in birdshot and that's why most people don't consider birdshot to be a viable home defense or self-protection type of thing now if it's all you've got sure getting peppered with birdshot is not pleasant right it's still going to be very very dangerous and it's still not intended to be treated like a toy it still can hurt you very much especially at very close range when this wad does not have a chance to expel the buckshot into any sort of a pattern at real close range this thing is going to act almost like a slug or a solid because of that Cup and shot being sort of homogenous and together and it hasn't really had a chance to move apart if that makes sense okay so you get into birdshot then we step up into what we call buckshot okay now with buckshot not all buckshot is created equal okay buckshot is a much larger pellet all right right here I've got a couple of double-aught buckshot right here you can see it's a much larger pellet okay so each pellet you can't fit as many pellets into the cup but they have more mass which means they penetrate more and they carry more energy for a longer distance than these tiny little pellets do that's what makes double-aught buckshot such a great personal defense load because yet still spreads out a bit like the small shot does but you get really good patterns and even out to like 25 35 yards maybe even with some loads like the federal flight control you can get really good patterns even out to like 50 yards even out of buckshot which is great alright so that greatly increases your chance of causing a lethal wound to an assailant or if your deer hunting that's why they call it buckshot because obviously it's more for like big game like deer all right not all shot sizes and buckshot are the same either we start out with number or buckshot number four buckshot is kind of in a way it's sort of in between birdshot and double oo you can fit 41 pellets of number four buckshot in a three inch shell so that's quite a bit of payload there you're still getting some dispersal of the pellets the pellets are roughly about the size of the 25 caliber projectile so they're roughly about 25 Cal so it's certainly a lot of payload and also number four buckshot doesn't penetrate quite as much through an abode Monteux we've done wall testing where we have tested number four buckshot and it performs quite well it still offers a good amount of penetration you get a bit more mass on each of the projectiles okay and some good carrying energy but not so much carrying energy that you're shooting through five walls in your house so if you live in an apartment building or you're in close proximity to your neighbors this is a much better buckshot choice if you're worried about shooting through all the walls in the house okay we step up to double-aught buckshot okay comes in a lot of different payloads the double-aught is going to be your most common buckshot round okay now this isn't all of them because it does kind of go up the chain you know you have you have for a number for buckshot three two zero and of course it goes into various types of buckshot types okay but double-aught is going to be your most common buckshot this is what most of your defensive loads are going to be loaded with as double aught here we have a Winchester military round which is a nine pellet two and three-quarter inch buckshot load this is a very very common type of buckshot that you're going to see the only way you can increase this payload is by increasing the length of the show so as you step into a three-inch that allows you to step up to a twelve pellet as you step up to a three and a half inch buckshot round you're able to get 18 pellets of double-aught buckshot in a three and a half but the issue is that in a three and half inch chamber that's more of a specialized shotgun not every gun is chambered for a three and a half inch so most shotguns are chamber for two and three-quarter and three inch shells three-and-a-half being more of an outlier so make sure whatever ammo you're getting for your gun that whatever is listed on the gun itself it's going to show you the chamber length and do not exceed that chamber length you can develop unsafe pressures and you can put premature wear on the gun and in some cases you can actually have some issues all right so you definitely do not want to shoot a longer shell and what the gun is designed to take all right so you have double all then we step up into triple oo this is out of all the buckshot families this is going to get into the larger buckshot for sure in a in a three-inch all right so just to put this into perspective in a three inch shell we can only fit ten pellets of triple op buckshot we can see that triple op buckshot is the largest of the buckshot sizes giving us a point three six inch or 36 caliber projectile okay so each pellet is 36 caliber in a triple oo so this represents the largest buckshot you can only fit ten pellets of triple law in a three inch shell so you put that into perspective in a two and three quarter you're not talking a huge payload in terms of the amount of round balls that are in this buckshot round but on that token though you get much better carrying energy so a triple buckshot realm although not quite as common you do get really good carrying energy and exceptional penetration especially in an Magnum load that has a good powder charge behind it all right so when we step up from birdshot to number four buck we get into double triple oo now let's get into solids alright so not all solids are created equal but solids represent the most direct transfer of energy and the heaviest payload that you can possibly get down to and they represent the most energy in a shotgun because the projectile is one projectile so it's literally a solid okay so with the slug being a solid you get more energy downrange the energy carries for longer and at traditional shotgun ranges slugs provide absolutely visceral penetration and energy on target and not all slugs are created equal but generally speaking the heavier the slug and the faster you can get a heavy slug moving the more the recoil is it's going to have more recoil force but it's going to have a lot more penetration capabilities and a lot more carrying energy for longer range not all shotguns are created equal in terms of how they will handle slugs okay some shotguns have rifled barrels that are designed to stabilize slugs much better okay there are certain shotgun rounds that are like Sabo shotgun rounds that are specifically made for rifled barrels and then you won't have very good accuracy out of a smoothbore there are other types of shot slug rounds that are intended to work equally well in smoothbore and rifle barrels for the purposes of this video you're probably dealing with a smoothbore shotgun and that's fine smoothbore is not a bad thing with a smoothbore shotgun you have a forster style slug with your forster style slugs basically what they have is a driving band and they have these flutes that are sort of tasked into the projectile and as those gases expand they interact with those flutes and they cause a little bit of a spin a little bit of a lofty spin not a super crazy spin like you would get out of a rifle barrel but the foster style slugs enhance the accuracy of a smoothbore by allowing those gases to put a little bit of a slight spin on the on the projectile okay this one here is a Bernie key home defense one ounce slug that is also reduced recoil recoil is a big thing as you increase the payload and as you increase the powder charge it is going to increase the recoil of the round there's no such thing as a free lunch in physics so if I make this projectile heavier and I put the maximum powder charge in it it's gonna have a nice little amount of recoil in there okay if I take a heavy project I want to lower the powder charge it may not be as powerful as like a full bore slug but it's still gonna ruin somebody's day we're gonna step up here this is a duplex broadhead hexyl it this is the the number number 28 expanding steel slug I didn't cut one of these open because these are super expensive slugs but this is an expanding broadhead slug that's designed for hunting you notice it has a high brass shell most of your higher pressure shotgun shells are going to have a high brass hole to help it operate properly and to contain the pressure and then most of your lower pressure shells you can see that the brass on our bird load is considerably lower what we call low brass versus high brass generally speaking is not always the case but generally speaking the higher the brass the higher the pressure that it's designed to contain and the more they want to make sure that the rear of that cartridge where most of the pressure is exerted is nice and strong right you want to have that brass a little higher to contain a higher pressure of the cartridge so generally your higher pressure cartridges are gonna have a higher brass what we call high brass okay this hexyl it is a really cool projectile it's great for deer hunting hunting big game but also for personal offense you're talking about a slug that will not take any prisoners so let's put it that way and that's why I like them I use them for home home defense okay so the broad head hexyl it is a really cool example of an expanding steel slug very very interesting technology that duplex puts into their projectiles all right here we have something else from Bernie key I'm a big fan of duplex and Bernie key slugs these absolutely are my favorite slugs I use all the time I love the black magic as well that's a great slug this is their maximum barrier penetrator okay this slug right here is it's a heavy it weighs 1 and 3/8 ounce so this is getting on the top end of a payload for a 12-gauge that is one heavy slug and it is moving at a good little tick as well and this is a super hardened alloy slug they actually use special alloys which I would imagine it's probably a Linotype or some type of line of type based alloy that makes it really really really hard but not brittle just hard enough to be able to penetrate light barriers so this is a slug if you think you're going to be in a position where you have to shoot through a car door or a car windshield these things will absolutely penetrate any barrier you need to get through if that's what you're worried about but keep in mind that this slug will also penetrate the ever-loving crap out of your house this thing will go through multiple walls before it stops so don't shoot it at anything you don't intend to destroy because that's what these slugs do is destroy things okay so two very different things right when we've gone over these slugs and these buckshot rounds we went from a load that is designed to kill a bird all the way to a load that can kill a bear in one gun Birds Bears bad guys Birds bears okay all right I'm gonna step up now you have two and three-quarter you have three-inch we have three and a half inch all right so this represents a power level in a buckshot round that is approaching ten gauge type payloads and speeds okay now obviously a Magnum 10-gauge load can really get some really cool power going downrange but ten gauges aren't quite as popular for defensive purposes as a 12-gauge now if you do have a Benelli super black eagle or something like that with a three and a half inch Magnum chamber or a pump shotgun like a Remington 870 Wingmaster or something that might have a three and a half inch chamber you can chamber these shells and fire them safely in that shotgun one thing of note is that as the shell gets longer you also decrease your capacity the longer the shell the fewer of them you can fit in the magazine the smaller the shell generally the more of them you can fit in the magazine so as you get more length yes you get more payload per shot but you also decrease your capacity over the over a given magazine length okay and I wanted to show the 10 gauge this is a 10 gauge slug that's that's a lot a lot of firepower going downrange there but but just to show you I mean that definitely gets into some very different territory there okay that's a ten gauge slug and this is a two and three-quarter inch buckshot load Winchester military load well quickly before I let you go we're going to talk about chokes a little bit there's some things that you need to consider if you're a new shotgun owner chances are the shotgun that you've purchased could have a screw in choke and the chokes that are in your gun are going to determine what you really want to shoot through the gun and what you don't okay some chokes really really constrict the shot column that is going out at the end of the barrel and there are certain chokes that you do not want to shoot slugs or even some buckshot through okay chokes in a nutshell are designed to constrict the shot column as it passes out at the end of the gun and maintain a nice tight pattern as the shot goes downrange so chokes generally are used to keep really tight patterns when you're shooting at birds and things in the air you want to add that extra ten yards on to your shot spread it brings that shot spread in tighter and tighter if you want the gun to throw a bigger spread then you stick with a cylinder bore if you want a tighter spread then you obviously add tighter chokes to get a better spread on your birdshot I personally would treat a choke as birdshot only you know buckshot you can get away with improved cylinder okay but I wouldn't go any tighter than improved cylinder on buckshot and honestly you can shoot slugs I have improved cylinder no problem but I wouldn't shoot slugs through anything tighter than an improved cylinder so you have cylinder bore which means so under bore okay the bore is no constriction on the barrel it is the same diameter from the from the end of the muzzle all the way to the beginning of the chamber it's so under bore what they call that cylinder bore is no constriction and you can shoot anything you want out of a cylinder bore anything that says twelve on it put it in there and run it you're good no big deal okay most defensive shotguns that don't have any form of screwin choke are generally going to be cylinder bore which means run it if you got it you're good but that's important to know because some guns have fixed choke made into the gun so if you look at your shotgun and it says I see on the barrel improved cylinder that means it's not a cylinder bore it means that is a fixed improved cylinder barrel that is not a problem you can still shoot buckshot through and improve cylinder in fact buckshot groups really nice I've improved cylinder no problem slugs depends on the the wad and the payload I would I would approach with caution using any form of a choke with slugs you can shoot slugs I have improved cylinder but I generally always try to stay away from I try to just stick the cylinder bore if you're talking slugs and we'll go over it and so these are chokes that's what they look like so these screw in and you have a choke wrench for getting the chokes in and out these are Benelli chokes this one is a modified modified is going to be a little bit tighter than improve cylinder I believe that's the next one up from improved cylinder so you got cylinder improved cylinder modified improve modified you have full and then you have extra full and then there's any number of like ski chokes and super tight chokes that are designed for really specific purposes guys please don't put a modified or improve modified or ski choke or a full a full choke on a shotgun and try to shoot slug through it don't shoot a buckshot through it okay so if you had screwin chokes you can get an improved cylinder screwin choke that's designed to protect the threads of your shotgun because you can see here this is a winchester sx 3 and vector choke you see that the threads are actually down inside of the barrel so you would not simply want to just remove the choke and then just shoot the gun without a choke in it because then you're going to get that wadding and fouling into the threads and you might not you might not be able to get all that out very easily right so if you had a winchester sx3 you would buy the the cylinder bore choke that will also double as a thread protector for your threads on the inside of your barrel so you don't get a bunch of Fallout and crap in there and gunk those threads up okay so don't assume that just because you remove the choke yeah it's a quick fix maybe but you want to make sure that you get if you have screwin chokes on your shotgun and you're not comfortable with removing them or if you don't have the tool go to your gunsmith and tell them to install a cylinder bore choke on your gun and it'll protect those threads and you can shoot whatever you want out of it and it won't be a big deal okay or at worse maybe an improved cylinder but I would I would still I would stick to cylinder that's just my recommendation and there's gonna be any number of people they're gonna jump in on this conversation and say that you can shoot this and that through that every single situation is different but for the new gun owner if you want to err on the side of caution buy a shotgun with improved cylinder choke that's fixed with no screwin choke and don't worry about it and honestly that's gonna be like 90% of your defensive shotguns anyway okay I just wanted to mention it because there's a lot of new gun owners out there that may not know that chokes are a thing so please don't take grandpa's old skeet gun with a skeet choke in it and try to shoot a slug through it okay not getting em well trust me you don't want to do that okay it may not blow up or burst the barrel on the first shot but it might okay and you just don't want to risk that and with that tighter choke you're also gonna get a degradation of slug accuracy with the really tight chokes as well so it's just it's not good it builds excessive pressure it's squeezing that that projectile down it's just it's developing unsafe pressures don't do it stick with cylinder bore maybe improved cylinder that's it don't it don't exceed improve cylinder for anything if you're trying to especially if you're trying to shoot solids okay I hope this video helps some of you if you're new to the shotgun world please take a moment to read the manual on your gun make sure you know what you're dealing with take the time to look at the markings on your shotgun you need to look at the chamber length you need to look at the type of choke if any it is built into the barrel and you need to make sure that you're making informed decisions about what you're putting through shotgun and what this video was also intended to do is obviously explain that not all shotgun shells are made equal they all serve a very different purpose okay and they can all do a wide variety of different things shotguns are a very versatile tool that can really serve a ton of different purposes and honestly I feel like a 12-gauge shotgun is one of the most versatile guns just about you can get period ok there's a lot more information out there this is the basics so hopefully you guys came away with a little bit of knowledge thank you so much for watching today's video we hope you enjoyed it and I've definitely like to take a moment to thank all the folks who purchased man cans over on the website as well as t-shirts and other merchandise to inc.com also if you are a patreon supporter if you see value in what we do and you wish to support us thank you so much for supporting our channel and seeing value in what we provide and thank you for being a part of what we do we hope that you'll share this video with some of your shot gun toting buddies especially if they are new to shotguns the last thing we want is for anyone to get hurt or do anything unsafe we want for people to be safe protect their families do what they need to do and do it in a way that gives them the best tools for the job that they need so it's important to know what you're dealing with so you can make the best decision for you so thank you so much for watching many more videos on the way and thank you guys so much we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Iraqveteran8888

Views: 219,186

Rating: 4.9507761 out of 5

Keywords: iraqveteran8888, iv8888, ar15, ar, ar-15, ar 15, 2a, freedom, liberty, gun rights, gun control, top 5 guns, top 5, meltdown, guns, gunsmithing, gun gripes, life liberty and the pursuit, shotgun, shot shell, shotshell basics, shotshell, 12 ga, 10 ga, 12 gauge, buckshot, birdshot, slug, buckshot vs birdshot vs slug, 00 buckshot vs birdshot, buckshot vs birshot, shotgun slug, shotgun ammo, #4 buckshot, #4 buckshot for home defense, #4 buck vs 00, shotgun chokes, shotgun loads, shooting tips

Id: X2eRC5G1cfM

Length: 28min 26sec (1706 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020