Home Defense: Buckshot vs. Birdshot

hi I'm Roy Huntington editor of American handgun ER magazine a lot of my readers are really concerned about self defense and home protection basically defending their families of course in these crazy times I think it's wise to at least be thinking about those things a lot of people have bought a short-barreled defensive shotguns lately in order to defend their home a lot of my readers asked should I buy buckshot should I buy slugs should I buy birdshot I'm just really confused can you help me now keep in mind this isn't a comprehensive training video about how to effectively deploy a shotgun in a combat situation all I want to do is give you just a real quick look at the basic differences between buckshot which in this case is nine pellets about 32 or 33 caliber my left hand I have a typical two and three-quarter inch number eight shot 12-gauge something that you would go dove hunting with now which one is most effective in your home defense shotgun a few things you need to keep in mind buckshot will penetrate just like you were shooting a 380 automatic or a nine-millimeter it'll penetrate multiple walls inside of your house more than likely now if you live alone and out in the woods then that may not be a problem but if you have family members in the house or neighbors who are close by over penetration is a serious problem and something you need to think about and that's maybe where birdshot is a good option birdshot since it's very small bb's tend to under penetrate now that doesn't mean they're ineffective against an unprotected bad guy we actually took buckshot and took number eight shot and shot it at a target that was about five yards away what I want you to pay attention to is the fact that at close range they're virtually equally effective now granted you can argue that the buckshot may be more effective because it'll penetrate better and I won't argue the point with you but if you're concerned about over penetration you're concerned about other family members in the house being armed with 12-gauge shotgun loaded with number eight birdshot will absolutely protect you and your family okay we made these two shots at about five yards and this is an old Remington 870 police trading shotgun and it's got a cylinder bore so there's essentially no choke whatsoever it's pretty short barreled and it's pretty typical of a lot of the home defense type shotguns that you buy nowadays made by Remington or mosburger but not only anybody like that well we've learned here is we have number eight birdshot here and then we have double-aught buckshot over here what I'm trying to show you here is the fact that at five yards which is essentially across the room if you're using this as a defensive shotgun this is actually very significant and you'll see the majority of the shot are clustered right in here and this is what's called a rathole effect wound this is where a large portion of the shot actually went through causing a very significant wound over here of course you have the 32 33 caliber pellets that have spread out in a little bit of a distance this may be more effective for you because it does cover a larger area and at these distances both would be very lethal and would more than likely stop any threat that you had so if you have a sporting shotgun there's certainly nothing wrong I feel to use birdshot of some kind at close range home defense situations the additional advantage of that is the fact that the birdshot generally won't over penetrate and won't pass through two or three walls the buckshot being solid lead 32 or 33 caliber projectile tends to really penetrate and that could endanger neighbors or family members in other rooms so you need to think about this personally and do a little experimenting likely we did here with your shotgun just to see what kind of patterns but make a wise decision always be safe to be sure of your target make sure you have a light if possible get some training all we wanted to do is just give you something to think about here i'm roy huntington and thanks for tuning in you [Music]

Channel: GUNS and American Handgunner Magazines

Views: 1,534,703

Rating: 4.8811855 out of 5

Keywords: buckshot, birdshot, shotgun shell, 00 buck, #8 birdshot, home defense, roy huntington, american handgunner, fmgpubs

Id: KrM5U2kGQCc

Length: 4min 25sec (265 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 08 2013