Home Defense

[parttimer]

For years my HD gun has been a mossburg 500 with 00 buck. I have been considering buying a different shot gun lately. I now have two young kids in the house so the shotgun stays unloaded as I don't want to chance an accident with the kids. I know an unloaded gun is worthless in a HD situation for anything but a club.
I have been considering going to a mag fed shotgun so it could be loaded quickly. Semi auto is also going to be a major consideration. I work nights a lot so having something easy for my wife to use is part of the equation. Getting her out to the range to practice is like pulling teeth and I am afraid if she had to use a gun she would short stoke a pump.
These are some things for the OP to think about when selecting a HD shot gun.

 

[Darkemp]

I’m interested in purchasing a shotgun for home defense.

Not sure what I want yet. I don’t want to break the bank but would like something reliable and will last.

Any suggestions?

Personally I started off years ago with a Mossberg 500, great shotgun with no issues and was my second firearm purchase ever. As time went on and tastes and experience changed I found the Mossberg 590 to be a great HD shotgun which I still have and wouldn’t hesitate to use in that necessity.

 

[Darkemp]

For years my HD gun has been a mossburg 500 with 00 buck. I have been considering buying a different shot gun lately. I now have two young kids in the house so the shotgun stays unloaded as I don't want to chance an accident with the kids. I know an unloaded gun is worthless in a HD situation for anything but a club.
I have been considering going to a mag fed shotgun so it could be loaded quickly. Semi auto is also going to be a major consideration. I work nights a lot so having something easy for my wife to use is part of the equation. Getting her out to the range to practice is like pulling teeth and I am afraid if she had to use a gun she would short stoke a pump.
These are some things for the OP to think about when selecting a HD shot gun.

Some good callouts here. Having two small children over the past 4yrs completely changed my HD perspective as well, my shotty is locked up now, HD is a Glock 17 in a secure quick access safe.

 

[parttimer]

Some good callouts here. Having two small children over the past 4yrs completely changed my HD perspective as well, my shotty is locked up now, HD is a Glock 17 in a secure quick access safe.

That is my thought also but, I can't get her to shoot my pistols. I have an m&p 9 that she won't shoot so I bought a m&p 22 for her to practice with but, she has not shot it in the 3+ years I have owned it. She has shot the 500 quite a few times in the past so for now we are shocking with it as the HD club.

 

[fabsroman]

For years my HD gun has been a mossburg 500 with 00 buck. I have been considering buying a different shot gun lately. I now have two young kids in the house so the shotgun stays unloaded as I don't want to chance an accident with the kids. I know an unloaded gun is worthless in a HD situation for anything but a club.
I have been considering going to a mag fed shotgun so it could be loaded quickly. Semi auto is also going to be a major consideration. I work nights a lot so having something easy for my wife to use is part of the equation. Getting her out to the range to practice is like pulling teeth and I am afraid if she had to use a gun she would short stoke a pump.
These are some things for the OP to think about when selecting a HD shot gun.

My HD shotgun is a Benelli M4 and it is loaded to the gills with one in the chamber. It resides in a gun safe that only my wife and I know the combo to. Handguns are spread throughout the house in their own little safes.

I have 4 kids. My wife has shot before, but not in several years. I haven't even pulled the trigger yet on the M4 and have probably owned it for 3 years now. I have handguns that I have not shot for 3+ years now. Heck, pretty sure I have not shot any handgun whatsoever for 3+ years. I just don't worry too much about accuracy in a HD situation because the distances will be so, so short. Fear and nerves are the only reason I would miss, and shooting at paper isn't really going to help me deal with that very much.

 

[erwos]

Here's some hot takes.

First, if you're planning on using a gun for home defense and haven't actually run a significant number of rounds through it to ensure reliability, you are making a huge mistake. I've seen pump guns fail! It happens! You need to test your stuff first. That's not even talking about patterning concerns - you don't know what your spread is until you've fired a few rounds down the pipe to figure it out.

Second, bead sights suck. Ghost rings are where it's at. You want to get CNS or brainstem shots for ending a threat, you need to be aiming, and beads are good for pointing, not aiming. Reflex sights are also good.

Third, mag-fed is OK if you've checked for reliability, but you NEED to have a plan for how you're going to get store that mag, retrieve it, and quickly get it into the gun. Bonus points for figuring out how to have a second mag on you if things get real. This is one of those very home-defense-specific problems, since if you're expecting trouble, you can toss on a rig. While tube-fed guns are slow to load, comparatively, it's easy to carry some more ammo on a carrier.

Fourth, this shit where you've got a blank, rock salt, birdshot, buck, and then a couple of slugs in the tube is just a terrible idea. You point a shotgun at someone because they're fair game to kill. Anything less, you don't point it at them, the end.

Fifth, pumps are cheap, but introduce failure points and complexity into a situation where that's not a great thing. A reliable semi has a lot less stuff to worry about.

 

[fabsroman]

Here's some hot takes.

First, if you're planning on using a gun for home defense and haven't actually run a significant number of rounds through it to ensure reliability, you are making a huge mistake. I've seen pump guns fail! It happens! You need to test your stuff first. That's not even talking about patterning concerns - you don't know what your spread is until you've fired a few rounds down the pipe to figure it out.

Second, bead sights suck. Ghost rings are where it's at. You want to get CNS or brainstem shots for ending a threat, you need to be aiming, and beads are good for pointing, not aiming. Reflex sights are also good.

Third, mag-fed is OK if you've checked for reliability, but you NEED to have a plan for how you're going to get store that mag, retrieve it, and quickly get it into the gun. Bonus points for figuring out how to have a second mag on you if things get real. This is one of those very home-defense-specific problems, since if you're expecting trouble, you can toss on a rig. While tube-fed guns are slow to load, comparatively, it's easy to carry some more ammo on a carrier.

Fourth, this shit where you've got a blank, rock salt, birdshot, buck, and then a couple of slugs in the tube is just a terrible idea. You point a shotgun at someone because they're fair game to kill. Anything less, you don't point it at them, the end.

Fifth, pumps are cheap, but introduce failure points and complexity into a situation where that's not a great thing. A reliable semi has a lot less stuff to worry about.

First - some of us don't actually have to go to a range to know that a gun will work. I replaced the trigger in my Benelli M4, it goes click, and it dents the primer on an already fired shell. Only issue might be cyclying new rounds, but since I am shooting high brass 3" 00 buck in it, I doubt that will be a problem.

Second - if you need ghost rings for HOME DEFENSE, then you are shooting the person in the yard or you have one hell of a big house. With a shotgun at such close ranges, and even in the field at long ranges, what really matters the most is mounting the gun, looking down the barrel, and shooting. Who the heck is going to have time to make a brain stem shot in a HOME DEFENSE situation where loved ones might be in the house and the intruder might be shooting back. I just want to hit the person center mass. That will be good enough for me.

Second and a half - what ranges do you expect to shoot at in your house? Unless the threat in my house is in my unfinished basement that is 35x58, everything will be at less than 10 yards. Have you ever tried out a cylinder choke at 10 yards? It looks a lot like a full choke at 10 yards, which happens to be 30 feet last I checked. Even if the intruder is up against the wall in my basement and I am up against the far wall in my basement, even then the distance is only 20 yards. Not much difference between cylinder and full at that range either. Heck, might be a better idea to use a cylinder choke for Home Defense IF you can get to a 20 yard separation from the intruder. Large rooms are 20 feet (i.e., 8 yards) in length. Huge rooms are 30 feet (i.e., 10 yards) in distance. If you have a McMansion with an open floor plan, you might be able to shoot somebody at 20 yards.

Third - most mag fed shotguns have a reliability problem because the rim of the brass on one shell gets hung up on the rim of the brass of the next shell. The rim on the base of shotgun shells is a lot different than the rim on the case of most rifle and pistol cartridges. Rifle and pistol cartridges usually have a base that does not protrude outside of the diameter of the cartridge.

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/1/29/shotgun-magazines-box-fed-vs-tube-fed/

They do make a mag extension for shotguns that is completely insane:

https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/26-round-12-gauge-benelli-m2-xrail/

Just wonderful. Once upon a time, that thing would hang off the front of the gun at the end of the magazine. Now, it appears that it replaces the entire magazine and now I am debating buying it since the weight of all that ammo will be more toward the middle of the gun versus hanging off the very end. This is why I hate this board sometimes. lol

Fourth - I agree with you completely. If you have the gun out and are dealing with an intruder, shoot to end the threat, not scare them off.

Fifth - I have had my Browning BPS pump shotgun for 40 years and hunted with it for the first 20 years I had it. It was my main hunting gun for those first 20 years until I bought a Benelli SBE. Have had zero malfunctions with the pump. In the 20 years I have been hunting with the SBE, I have had 2 malfunctions. However, both guns have seen way, way, way more rounds through them than I will ever shoot through my Benelli M4 or any other home defense shotgun. Nowadays, pumps and semi-autos are extremely reliable.

Time to go see how much that XRail costs for the M4.

 

[fabsroman]

Yay, the Xrail only works on the M2, so I will not be spending more money on the M4. Instead, I am contemplating the purchase of an M2. lol

 

[Darkemp]

Second, bead sights suck. Ghost rings are where it's at. You want to get CNS or brainstem shots for ending a threat, you need to be aiming, and beads are good for pointing, not aiming. Reflex sights are also good.

No don’t aim for the brain stem, you can harvest and sell those at the Bazaar! Fear the Walking Dead told me so!

 

[jimbobborg]

Forget the shotgun, get a Ruger PC9.

 

[erwos]

First - some of us don't actually have to go to a range to know that a gun will work. I replaced the trigger in my Benelli M4, it goes click, and it dents the primer on an already fired shell. Only issue might be cyclying new rounds, but since I am shooting high brass 3" 00 buck in it, I doubt that will be a problem.

Assuming your gas system works in the first place, you mean. You have no idea if there was a manufacturing defect in the gas system, or if the chamber is rough, etc. Benelli make good stuff, but no one is perfect. Watched a dude's shotgun go down at a recent class when he ripped the rim off a shell during cycling because of a rough chamber. I feel fairly comfortable saying you don't "know" anything about reliability until you actually test your gun.

Further, you totally skipped the patterning issue. You have no idea whatsoever how wide your spreads are without doing that, and you cannot pattern without shooting your gun, full stop.

Second - if you need ghost rings for HOME DEFENSE, then you are shooting the person in the yard or you have one hell of a big house. With a shotgun at such close ranges, and even in the field at long ranges, what really matters the most is mounting the gun, looking down the barrel, and shooting. Who the heck is going to have time to make a brain stem shot in a HOME DEFENSE situation where loved ones might be in the house and the intruder might be shooting back. I just want to hit the person center mass. That will be good enough for me.

It's not good enough for me anymore. Shot placement is still a thing with shotguns. Ghost rings aid in that. I hate to say this, but I've seen people either hit the edge of their target or flat-out miss with beads at ranges that I would consider shockingly close when put on a timer. Beads are just not that good for aimed fire, and given that ghost rings and reflex sights are nearly as fast... why settle for less? It's easy to be good with a bead when you're shooting clays or birds or whatever; you can get a real good shoulder on the gun, and get your head down low consistently because there's not a whole lot of pressure. That is not always realistic in a home defense situation.

Second and a half - what ranges do you expect to shoot at in your house? Unless the threat in my house is in my unfinished basement that is 35x58, everything will be at less than 10 yards. Have you ever tried out a cylinder choke at 10 yards? It looks a lot like a full choke at 10 yards, which happens to be 30 feet last I checked.

The concern I have is not choke size, it's how a particular load patterns at a particular distance with however your gun is configured. You mentioned your loved ones are nearby - do you really want to fire off a load at 10yds and have pellets flying off to who knows where? Buckshot penetrates walls, that's a fact of life. I want my backstop to be the bad guy, so to speak.

Third - most mag fed shotguns have a reliability problem because the rim of the brass on one shell gets hung up on the rim of the brass of the next shell. The rim on the base of shotgun shells is a lot different than the rim on the case of most rifle and pistol cartridges. Rifle and pistol cartridges usually have a base that does not protrude outside of the diameter of the cartridge.

If you are an idiot loading your mags... well, yeah, this is going to happen with any rimmed round. If you exercise a modicum of care, it won't. I can't even remember the last time this happened to my Saiga 12, or even my rimfire pistols.

Fifth - I have had my Browning BPS pump shotgun for 40 years and hunted with it for the first 20 years I had it. It was my main hunting gun for those first 20 years until I bought a Benelli SBE. Have had zero malfunctions with the pump. In the 20 years I have been hunting with the SBE, I have had 2 malfunctions. However, both guns have seen way, way, way more rounds through them than I will ever shoot through my Benelli M4 or any other home defense shotgun. Nowadays, pumps and semi-autos are extremely reliable.

I watched 3-4 relatively new guns go down at a recent shotgun class, and the instructor informed me that that was a pretty typical experience. They can certainly be reliable, but I would not count on it without testing them first.

 

[jaredm1]

First - some of us don't actually have to go to a range to know that a gun will work. I replaced the trigger in my Benelli M4, it goes click, and it dents the primer on an already fired shell. Only issue might be cyclying new rounds, but since I am shooting high brass 3" 00 buck in it, I doubt that will be a problem.

What if there are extraction issues? Feeding issues? You do you, but there is no way I'd take a gun out of the box, load it up, and call it good to go for home defense regardless of the manufacturer.

 

[fabsroman]

Assuming your gas system works in the first place, you mean. You have no idea if there was a manufacturing defect in the gas system, or if the chamber is rough, etc. Benelli make good stuff, but no one is perfect. Watched a dude's shotgun go down at a recent class when he ripped the rim off a shell during cycling because of a rough chamber. I feel fairly comfortable saying you don't "know" anything about reliability until you actually test your gun.

Further, you totally skipped the patterning issue. You have no idea whatsoever how wide your spreads are without doing that, and you cannot pattern without shooting your gun, full stop.


It's not good enough for me anymore. Shot placement is still a thing with shotguns. Ghost rings aid in that. I hate to say this, but I've seen people either hit the edge of their target or flat-out miss with beads at ranges that I would consider shockingly close when put on a timer. Beads are just not that good for aimed fire, and given that ghost rings and reflex sights are nearly as fast... why settle for less? It's easy to be good with a bead when you're shooting clays or birds or whatever; you can get a real good shoulder on the gun, and get your head down low consistently because there's not a whole lot of pressure. That is not always realistic in a home defense situation.


The concern I have is not choke size, it's how a particular load patterns at a particular distance with however your gun is configured. You mentioned your loved ones are nearby - do you really want to fire off a load at 10yds and have pellets flying off to who knows where? Buckshot penetrates walls, that's a fact of life. I want my backstop to be the bad guy, so to speak.


If you are an idiot loading your mags... well, yeah, this is going to happen with any rimmed round. If you exercise a modicum of care, it won't. I can't even remember the last time this happened to my Saiga 12, or even my rimfire pistols.


I watched 3-4 relatively new guns go down at a recent shotgun class, and the instructor informed me that that was a pretty typical experience. They can certainly be reliable, but I would not count on it without testing them first.

We will have to agree to disagree. I know my abilities and I know my shotguns pretty well. I also happen to understand the dimensions of my home and how the chokes and patterning of shotguns actually work.

 

[fabsroman]

What if there are extraction issues? Feeding issues? You do you, but there is no way I'd take a gun out of the box, load it up, and call it good to go for home defense regardless of the manufacturer.

What if after you test fired it, and issue occurred, but you would not know without another test fire. Good Lord, we can go round and round in circles. Just because the gun fired once, or 200 times, what makes you think that it will fire the next time you pull the trigger?

I'll rely on my knowledge of firearms, how they work, and how they should look inside, especially with my shotguns. Plus, Benelli test fires the firearm before it leaves the factory.

Just because your car starts up and runs today, does not mean it will start up and run when you need to get to the hospital.

So, I have a handgun right next to my bed, which I would grab, and I have my shotgun in a safe that I would grab. My wife has 2 handguns on her side of the bed and the phone. Something has to work there. Same goes for downstairs. I have a handgun and an AR.

Oh yeah, we have back up vehicles to the backup vehicles, just in case we need to make it to the hospital and something has decided to crap itself at that specific moment.

Of course, everybody worried about the "function check" of their shotgun has a backup handgun ready to go, just in case the shotgun decides to crap itself at that very moment. An ejector works today, or maybe it works for 4 shots today, and then it breaks on shot number 5. Just because you function check your shotgun does not guarantee that it will work the next time you pull the trigger.

Do you work on your own guns? Do you know how they work? How about your vehicles?

 

[erwos]

You seriously can't see the problem in relying on a firearm you've never shot in a life-or-death situation? You don't know a gun "well" until you've shot it, end of story. I've found problems running guns hard that I never would have found dry-firing. If I asked you, right now, what the spread of your M4 was at 10yds with your chosen HD ammo, you couldn't tell me. Hell, you don't even know where the PoI is against your sights.

Here's my advice: go take a home defense shotgun class with Tim Chandler. You will really see what I'm talking about. It sure opened my eyes.

 

[willtill]

I'm largely in Fab's camp with this discussion.

Close quarters drills do not need ghost sights; center of mass is where it's at in an average sized home regarding distances.

The gun WILL go boom. No need to overthink that... unless you're trying to create a negative television commercial regarding home defense. So many of them out there.

.

 

[jaredm1]

Do you work on your own guns? Do you know how they work? How about your vehicles?

Yes.

But like I said, you do you if that's what your comfortable with.

 

[fabsroman]

You seriously can't see the problem in relying on a firearm you've never shot in a life-or-death situation? You don't know a gun "well" until you've shot it, end of story. I've found problems running guns hard that I never would have found dry-firing. If I asked you, right now, what the spread of your M4 was at 10yds with your chosen HD ammo, you couldn't tell me. Hell, you don't even know where the PoI is against your sights.

Here's my advice: go take a home defense shotgun class with Tim Chandler. You will really see what I'm talking about. It sure opened my eyes.

At 10 yards or less, I could point the barrel at an intruder each and every time and kill the intruder with 00 Buck without even using a bead on the barrel or any sight whatsoever. At 10 yards, I would kill an intruder even if the intruder decided to run. Granted, not a single room in my house is 30 feet in any length except for the entire unfinished basement.

This is a shotgun, not a rifle, and even with a rifle I could point the barrel at an intruder at 10 yards and kill the intruder almost all of the time. Beyond 10 yards, things get a little more dicey and there is less room for error.

You must have a really big house to worry about patterning, sights, etc. Just make sure you only use a rifled barrel for slugs, never shot.

Now, my SBE with a rifled barrel and 3-9x scope is sighted out to 150 yards. Not going to use that setup for home defense though.

At 10 yards, can you really notice a difference in point of impact from where you were aiming? For it to even be substantial at 10 yards, the gun must be shooting a mile off target at 40 yards. If you are off by a foot at 10 yards, you would be off by 4 feet at 40 yards. If my shotgun is shooting a foot off at 10 yards, I expect to see a bend in the barrel when I look down it.

Any engagement inside a house is going to be close, real close, and probably a lot closer than 10 yards (i.e., 30 feet). Most important thing is going to be hand eye coordination. Getting on target and pulling the trigger as soon as you are on target.

Now, if we are talking about something other than Home Defense, like SHTF and I am out and about in the wilderness, then things are different. Maybe I should put some time and money into the M4 just in case we have an EMP, plague, nuclear war, or some other SHTF scenario where one of my other 10 shotguns or an AR will not work well enough.

Again, we will just have to agree to disagree on this one. I am pretty confident in the Benelli M4 right out of the box with a simple inspection by me and a test fire on a spent cartridge, and in my ability to kill an intruder in my house with it. The ghost ring does line right up when I shoulder it, but I doubt I will be looking at the ghost ring at 30 feet (i.e., 10 yards) or less. Heck, the dimensions of my garage are only 22.5x24 feet. When I shoot a pheasant or a dove at 30 feet with an IC choke in the gun, which has happened plenty of times in my lifetime, there is just an explosion of feathers with nothing but hamburger and a lot of cussing from my dad. Over the years, I've learned to let them fly away a little bit before pulling the trigger.

http://www.chucktayloramericansmallarmsacademy.com/close_quarters.html

https://rifleshooter.com/2013/01/defensive-shotgun-patterning-deconstructing-the-1-per-yard-myth/

 

[fabsroman]

Yes.

But like I said, you do you if that's what your comfortable with.

Yes, I am generally comfortable with myself, my abilities, and my judgment.

Likewise, you do you if that is what you're comfortable with.

 

[Pinecone]

What if after you test fired it, and issue occurred, but you would not know without another test fire. Good Lord, we can go round and round in circles. Just because the gun fired once, or 200 times, what makes you think that it will fire the next time you pull the trigger?

And even worse is those who take the firearm to range, fire it, then take it home and strip it down and clean it.

How do you not you did not introduce a failure mode?