12 GA ammo

[kelu]

I need an advice.
What ammo is good for home defense so it won't pass thru walls?

[ShotgunBlast]

I need an advice.
What ammo is good for home defense so it won't pass thru walls?

Open the floodgates! I think everyone is going to recommend something different. It really depends on your situation. Are you in the suburbs? Apartment? Do you have other family members and kids with you that may be in the line of fire? Just about anything is going to pass through drywall, but how many walls does your building have before it gets to exterior walls?

[kelu]

suburbs, single home, yes, wife and kid
I'm missing the communist walls made of 8-15 inches of reinforced concrete...

[OakRidgeStars]

You could always use frangible "door-breaching" ammunition, which is made of powdered copper and tin.

http://www.tacticaledgeproducts.com/shotgunammo.html

Honestly, I'm not sure just how affective this would be to an attacker, but I'm pretty sure you'll need to be up close and personal.

[Palladin]

consider 2" #4 buck...

Make sure the shorty shells will feed in your rig.

I'm not seeing them right off, but here's something similar-

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/162922 ... -box-of-20

[GeneFrenkle]

The Box O' Truth has some words on this:

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot56.htm

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[Snakester]

I need an advice.
What ammo is good for home defense so it won't pass thru walls?

I know a guy who had never shot or even owned a gun until this past July...He purchased a H and R Partner Pump 12 Ga. for Home Defense . He has 3 small kids and was concerned about shot passing thru the walls. He was looking for options ...Didn't want his family to sleep in Kevlar PJ's so a friend that he works with gave him 4 shells loaded with Rock Salt....We took it and a sheet rock for a test shooting. At 20' it only broke the paper skin but did not go thru. He keeps his Pump loaded with 7 rounds ready to go. We do not have any little one's so my wife and I keep our 870's loaded with 000 Buck.

[jdonovan]

I need an advice.
What ammo is good for home defense so it won't pass thru walls?

Anything that is going to penetrate an intruder enough to get through to the vitals, will go right through drywall.

sounds like what you need to do is replace the 12ga, with a cell phone.

[ShotgunBlast]

I need an advice.
What ammo is good for home defense so it won't pass thru walls?

Anything that is going to penetrate an intruder enough to get through to the vitals, will go right through drywall.

I agree.

sounds like what you need to do is replace the 12ga, with a cell phone.

I disagree. I would never recommend a course of action that would require a 5+ minute wait vs something that could be done immediately. It also depends on the layout of the house. For example, even if I did happen to have all of my bedrooms full, all of the bedrooms in my house are upstairs. The master bedroom is the closest to the stairs (where my shotgun is). If someone broke in through the front or back door I would be in a position to have my shotgun pointed down towards the first floor and not put anyone in the line of fire.

If your house layout is different to where there's a chance you'd put friendlies in the line of fire, I would recommend finding a way to buy them time to get to a point in your house that is not in the line of fire. Hardened doors with good locks as well as 1st floor windows with a security film to make it harder to break might give you the time you need.

[Jakeiscrazy]

As others have said your searching for a solution that doesn't exist. There is nothing that will stop a man and not penetrate drywall.

I would recommend putting a plan in place that does not put your kids in your line of fire. Sometimes this is possible other times it isn't. Learn to shoot and practice often that's pretty much all you can do short of everything else mentioned.

I need an advice.
What ammo is good for home defense so it won't pass thru walls?

I know a guy who had never shot or even owned a gun until this past July...He purchased a H and R Partner Pump 12 Ga. for Home Defense . He has 3 small kids and was concerned about shot passing thru the walls. He was looking for options ...Didn't want his family to sleep in Kevlar PJ's so a friend that he works with gave him 4 shells loaded with Rock Salt....We took it and a sheet rock for a test shooting. At 20' it only broke the paper skin but did not go thru. He keeps his Pump loaded with 7 rounds ready to go. We do not have any little one's so my wife and I keep our 870's loaded with 000 Buck.

That's just a non lethal weapon. Just as well served with a Taser or pepper spray. In fact because it's an unconventional load it could add legal complications.

[Snakester]

The sound of a Pump Shot Gun being cycled is enough to stop an intruder in their tracks especially when every other sound is a shot gun blast. OOO Buck is my prefered load , but I do think Rock Salt is a lethal load ...I would not want to be shot with it. The last thing I would worry about if my home was invaded is Legal Complications from using an unconventional load .

[GeneFrenkle]

The sound of a Pump Shot Gun being cycled is enough to stop an intruder in their tracks especially when every other sound is a shot gun blast. OOO Buck is my prefered load , but I do think Rock Salt is a lethal load ...I would not want to be shot with it. The last thing I would worry about if my home was invaded is Legal Complications from using an unconventional load .

Box O' Truth on rock salt:

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot33.htm

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[dusterdude]

I would think that anything you shoot into someone although it may not immediately kill them would most certainly make them rethink their plans

[ShotgunBlast]

I would think that anything you shoot into someone although it may not immediately kill them would most certainly make them rethink their plans

You cannot rely on a purposely toned down shotgun blast to install rational thought in a doped up meth head who has nothing on their mind but where they're going to get their next hit from. Noogies and Indian burns don't work either. Shoot to stop.

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[Chasbo00]

Noogies and Indian burns don't work either. Shoot to stop.

I've not heard that one before; I like it. Adding it to my list of good one-liners...
Thanks.

[Doyle]

#7 birdshot will do the job. Anything more than that is unnecessary and expensive. But if you need a Rambo rush you can do the double "0" stuff. I just don't find it necessary.

[Mindflayer]

The racking of a shotgun won't stop a criminal jacked up on drugs or alcohol - or sometimes, adrenaline. Your shotgun should be loaded and ready to roll. If you have to chamber a shell, that's precious time. More importantly, you may short shuck under stress, and then you're losing even more valuable time.

I've seen lots of recommendations. Masood Ayoob says #1 Buck. Tom Gresham and some other guys say in the distance we're talking about in an average home, #4 birdshot is enough. I say buy a box of each, and see what feels right to you and what makes sense for your environment.

[Doyle]

Good advice Mindflayer

[gunderwood]

Good resource: http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Self_Defen ... AMMUNITION

Birdshot/rocksalt/other nonsense will not penetrate sufficiently, DO NOT USE IT. If you are justified in shooting someone, you're going to want to make it as effective as possible. You need wound depth and width to be effective from a variety of angles because SD shootings are usually NOT nice and squared up like range targets, there is no getting away from that. You need a min of 12" and a max around 18". That's the FBI standard and they've invested millions and lives figuring that out.

Racking a shotgun will do nothing but make noise. Sure it's possible that a threat might decide to go some place else, but the same things possible if you fart. Neither is effective SD. All racking a shotgun does is let the threat know you are armed, in which case they now have more tactical intelligence than you and will just make sure to shoot first from a concealed location. The same is true with warning shots, pure Hollywood BS. If you still don't believe that, I propose a test. Like all tests, there are always some inherent artificialities, but this should work well enough. You rack your shotgun to your hearts content, but in a threatening manner...might was well say things like "I'm going to kill you and such." Or fire as many warning shots as you want in the air, again say some threatening things to me. In the mean time, I'm just going to shoot you in the head. Get the drift? An unprepared person *might* run away from your clanking shotgun, a prepared person is just going to WIN. As a side note, I've been known to chamber a shotgun or two in all my years, but I don't recall ever loosing my bowels doing it. Perhaps part of the shotgunners SD kit should be some adult dippers? "Put on before using shotgun to avoid making a mess."

#1 Buck seems to give the best theoretical performance (most shot/projectiles area while still penetrating 18"). Less than that and you typically won't get 18", which means you may not get to the vitals and stop the threat sometime this week. The most common LE/Mil buckshot is 00. Because of this, the LE/MIl 00 Buck loadings are typically very good and my preference over general #1 loadings. There aren't many slugs that are good HD options because they typically penetrate too much. A notable exception (and my favorite loading) is the Federal Tactical HP slugs, LE127RS and LEF127RS (low recoil). I do prefer the low recoil for faster follow up shots and making it easier on smaller shooters (e.g. wife).

FYI, anything that makes it 18" is going to penetrate a few walls. Just a fact of life, humans/animals are tougher than drywall. However, high-velocity rifle bullets typically break apart and loose energy quickly, whereas pistols and shotguns use mass heavy projectiles that don't destabilize and shed energy as quickly. It's the reason a lot of LEAs got rid of their 9mm AR15 carbines and switched back/to 5.56mm tactical loadings.


Edit: I'm going to start selling a speaker device that makes the shotgun action cycling noise for SD tools since its sooooo effective. Clearly no one actually needs a real shotgun!

[gunderwood]

He has 3 small kids and was concerned about shot passing thru the walls.

Might I suggest that the following logic.

If there is a threat in my house...

1. I can worry that I might miss and hurt an innocent/someone I love.

or

2. Shoot to stop the likely murdering/raping threat who is guaranteed to hurt an innocent/someone I love.



People propose using ineffective ammunition simply because they either...

1. Watch too many movies.

or

2. They can't wrap their head around the fact that a bad situation is occurring right now and they need to deal with it. In action or ineffective action on their part can only make it worse.


The threat made the choice to put you in a bad situation. Shoot the most effective firearm/ammo you can to stop the threat NOW, with the possibility all won't be flowers and free cupcakes for everyone or guarantee that it's really, really bad for everyone. If you can't wrap your head around that, a SD/HD firearm probably isn't a good option for you. After all, the firearm is only a tool...it's YOU who must use it properly. Shoot an effective firearm/ammo combo and if the shot is iffy, you always have the option of NOT shooting. Don't handicap yourself on purpose, that's just stupid.