Loading and Shooting a Pump Action Shotgun

[Music] I brought on the race today Scalise Prairie gunfire here in the background today we're talking about loading shooting reloading pump-action shotguns now this comes with a litany of yacht's disclaimers and caveats including but not limited to they're technically called slide action shotguns but I'm going to call them pump shotguns anyway and that there are many different types of pump shotguns and many different techniques for operating them and in the interest of brevity I'm just going to hit a few of what I would consider to be the high points two very important things are that even if I say you should do this or you should be aware of that nothing I say today should be inferred as a tutorial I'm in no way trying to tell you how you should operate your shotgun I'm just demonstrating some of the techniques that I use and there are many techniques in the interest of brevity I am just hitting a few of what I would consider to be the high points so that having been said let's get started as I said there are many types of pump shotguns out there but the two that I would consider probably the most popular are any one of the many different versions of Remington 870 and any one of the many different versions of Mossberg 500 or 590 they're both pump shotguns they have several differences but let me show you a close-up of what I would consider to be the two main operational differences between the two the two main operational differences between these firearms have to do with the loading gate and the location and operation of the safety on the remington the loading gate is covered by this piece that has to be depressed before putting the round into the tube magazine the Mossberg has no such piece and the round is just put into the tube on the remington the safety is located behind the trigger guard and disengaged by pushing it from right to left on the Mossberg the tank mounted safety is disengaged by pushing it forward with your thumb the location of the safety on the Mossberg makes it very easy for me to use it's also far friendlier for left-handed shooting than the location of a safety on the Remington the design of the Mossberg loading gate makes it easier for me to load and far easier for me to unload than the Remington now in discussing loading this shotgun there's two main techniques one for carrying with a loaded chamber one for carrying with an empty chamber if you're going to carry with an empty chamber you have to remember that once you work the slide and the internal hammer is cocked now that slide will not function unless you press the slide release and so if you're going to carry with an empty chamber you have to first make sure your chamber is empty close the slide disengage safety dry fire the shotgun and then load the tube this way when you have to bring the shotgun into action you don't have to press the slide release or disengage the safety and the shotgun can be brought to bear very quickly now when it comes to carrying with a loaded chamber what I'm going to do is keep my safety engaged in my chamber open and put the first round into the chamber then I can keep the shotgun pointed downrange and I'm ready to go with at least one round while I continue to load the tube some people will say that you should keep it in your shoulder while you do this that can be difficult but what is imperative is that you train yourself to load the shotgun without looking at the rounds or the gun I'm feeling the rim of each one of those as it comes out of my pocket to make sure that it's pointing to the right direction now when it comes to unloading some people will just cycle the action and put all the rounds out on the ground that can have some safety concerns and I don't want to put all my rounds into the snow so I'm going to press the shell retention piece and take these rounds out of the chamber and I can take them out a couple of a time and once you learn how to do it it's not that difficult and once I get all of these out then I will take the last round out of the chamber by pressing the slide release pushing the slide back just a little bit and then catching that last round and then I'll make sure my Safety's on and visually inspect the chamber and the tube and make sure it's empty when carrying with a loaded chamber you'll notice I load the first round from underneath the shotgun some people are of the opinion you should load from over I'm not a fan of that technique because I think it increases the chances I'm going to drop that round there's also people who will advocate loading that first round with your other hand I also don't care for that technique because I'm a proponent of keeping my firing hand in a firing position on the gun so for me I'll load that first round from underneath the gun now that we've talked about loading the shotgun let's discuss a little bit about actually shooting it and there's three things I want to cover first is stance now when I learned to shoot a rifle it was very common to stand almost sideways to it with the rifle in your shoulder today for many people whether it's rifle or shotgun they'll want to be completely Square to the target in something that people will call an athletic stance and they'll have the shotgun in their shoulder crouching down something like that to me that is very unstable for absorbing the recoil of powerful shotgun rounds the stance that I'm going to want to use and I'm right-handed so if you're lefty just do the opposite I'll stand a little more Square to the target than I would with a rifle put my left leg forward and bend it just a little bit to absorb that recoil the second thing is I'm going to keep both eyes open now the gun will be in my right shoulder and my right eye will be looking down the barrel but my left eye will be open for peripheral vision when I do that I'm seeing two images of the bead you have to train yourself to know which one is the correct one and it's really pretty easy to do the third thing is the concept of pulling the trigger and racking the slide now with the rifle people will talk about pressing the trigger or squeezing the trigger with a shotgun I'm going to pull the trigger and rack the slide and there's a word that goes with that and the word is Paul Raque it's very important to remember that Paul Raque is one word I'm going to pull the trigger and rack the slide as part of one motion [Music] also while racking the slide I'm going to transition from one target to the next so there isn't any wasted time or motion so with the idea of Paul Raque and with the right stance let's see if we can put that into practice and after shooting I always want to remember to top off load and on the subject of top offloading let me show you something you may notice I switch jackets the jacket I was using I typically load from the upper pocket because it's so easy it has shot shell loops in the lower pockets which are good for organizing ammunition but it's difficult to get that ammo out quickly this jacket is a little different it has shot shell loops up here on both sides these are great for organizing ammunition you can have buckshot on one side slugs on the other and when it's really cold and your hands are numb or you're wearing gloves these kind of loops can make sure you get the ground by the right end but how helpful will they be for top off loading let's find out looks like they can be very useful let me show you some other ways that people carry ammo I switch back to my other jacket now I'm wearing a shotshell vest vest like this were at one time very popular I think Mike Campbell wrote a song about having a seashell vest on now this has pockets and it has shotshell loose a padded shooting shoulder and it fits over most garments a viewer sent me this one thank you and it is cooler than a parallel bottoms and a Grand Funk Railroad t-shirt but for as practical as something like this could be in the field from home events personal protection type of situation it's unlikely you're going to need a vest full of shot shells and unlikely you're going to have time to put it on a solution that some people will select or having sidesaddle use on the stock of their shot there's different types this was just elastic and fits over the stock with a loaded tube magazine in five extra rounds that's going to be enough ammunition to handle just about any situation and it's self-contained you have your gun in your ammo altogether however it's a solution that I don't care for because for me the ammunition gets in the way especially if I have to shoot left it also creates a balance that I don't like and it's more awkward for me to load from here than it is for me to use a vest or to just keep extra rounds in my pocket let me show you what I mean [Music] for some people this can be a good solution for me it's not I want to discuss something called a select slug drill the concept is that you have your shotgun loaded with multi projectile ammunition but then you encounter a target that requires more barrier penetration or more range than that multi projectile ammo could provide so you load in one slug and shoot it at the target some people will advocate keeping the tube magazine downloaded by one round so you always have room to load in that slug it also requires that you keep your slugs segregated from the rest of your ammunition I'll keep some extra ammo in my upper pocket but I'll keep my slugs in the shot shell loops in my lower pocket so I know where they are and when I evaluate the target and decide that I do need a slug I'll load that slug into the tube eject the multi projectile round out of the chamber onto the ground thus chambering the slug and engage the target some people will say that you should shoot that multi projectile round at the target for the purpose of suppressive fire that might be applicable in some situations but generally I won't do that because shooting at a barrier that I can't penetrate doesn't make a lot of sense and using that round for suppressive fire might mean that my target will take cover or make an escape making it harder to hit with the slug so I've got a target set up at 50 yards let's do some select slug drills and you'll notice that I always pull rack so there's another multi projectile round in the team and then top offload whenever you can let's take a look at the target and we see it 50 yards my shotgun patterns just a little high with slugs as I said at the beginning there are many techniques these are just some of the techniques that I use but the takeaways from today are one good stance to both eyes open for good peripheral vision three top off load when you can for train yourself to maintain looking down range and manipulate your firearms in your ammunition without looking at them and five remember that pole rack is one word so as always don't try this at home and what to call it professional and thanks for watching the pump shotgun video [Music]

Channel: Paul Harrell

Views: 390,148

Rating: 4.9723082 out of 5

Keywords: paul harrell, paul harrell pump action shotgun, paul harrell pump shotgun, paul harrell shotgun, pump action shotgun, pump shotgun, shotgun, how to load a pump action shotgun, how to load a pump shotgun, how to shoot a pump action shotgun, how to shoot a pump shotgun, pump action shotgun techniques, pump shotgun techniques, shotgun techniques, shotgun loading techniques, shotgun shooting techniques, pump shotgun tips, shotgun tips, pump action shotgun tips

Id: fDnyRXF_0Ck

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 19 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/TravelingMansBones]

Wife bought me a pump shotgun for Christmas—she doesn’t know that I found it, but that’s what she gets for making me clean the house, right? Lol—so this is a timely video!

[u/546875674c6966650d0a]

I am now going to just go sit at the range and load and unload my Mossberg until I can do it without looking. Everything I do, Paul makes it look like I've just learned how to spell the word gun, nothing more. So many things to learn from him, complete with reasons why.