I would have put this in the “riding shotgun” thread, but that (quite rightly) seems to be dedicated to etymology. Today’s column.
I;d just like to point out that statements like “If the barrels were sawed off, the shot scattered over a wider area, an advantage if you were defending against a group (robbers or wolves, for instance). You didn’t need to aim precisely, just point the gun in the right general direction.” are misleading at best. This really isn’t true.
A shotgun is not an area-effect weapon. Even with shortened barrels the shot pattern doesn’t spread that much. By the time the pattern expanded to something larger than a single person it would be out over fifty yards away, which is pretty much outside effective range. There really aren’t that many pellets in a useful self-defense load either. Modern 12-gauge 00 buckshot loads hold between 9 and 12 pellets, and I’m sure late 19th century loads we’re much different.
You can’t “just point the gun in the right general direction” and expect anything useful to happen. It might increase your chances to it a target with at least one pellet in a snapshot, it’s loud, and looking down those barrels is intimidating as hell, but it’s not going to toss out a huge cloud of lead in a ten-foot-diameter circle.
My understanding was that the bell mouth on a blunderbuss wasn’t there to spread the pattern (it doesn’t), but more to act as a built-in funnel to make loading easier.
Especially as, IIRC, it was often used by the frontier wife for home defense and used unusual ammunition.
The story goes that once you had the charge in you could load it with damn near anything. Drop a plate? Break it up small and put it in the blunderbuss! Those little bits you chopped off the chair legs to keep it level? Put 'em in the blunderbuss! Kid falls and breaks his leg? Put some 'tussin on it!
Anyhow, someone tries harassing the wife while the man’s out farming and he gets a face full of high-velocity crockery shards.
I don’t think that’s correct. I was never much of a hunter, but my brothers were, and I remember their little .410* shells holding more than 9-12 pellets. This site gives you an idea of the number of pellets per ounce. The chart indicates that your 00 buckshot comes in at 8 pellets per ounce of shot, but a 12 gauge shell is pretty heavy, and 00 is the second largest diameter shot given.
My brothers used chokes on their guns to deliberately limit the spread of the shot, but I still remember seeing a foot wide pattern left by the shot from 20 yards out. I would imagine that a sawed off shotgun would spread the shot out quite a bit.
A .410 is the smallest shotgun sold before you get into specialized stuff. A 12-gauge is a cannon compared to a .410.
The critical clause in **Exgineer’s ** post may be “a useful self-defense load”. A .410 loaded with bird shot can pretty well blow you head off if fired at a close enough range. I’m sure a 12-gauge shooting .38 caliber balls would have more stopping power, but for most folks getting shot with a .410 would be enough to discourage any further bad behavior.
I reload my skeet shells, and I usually just drop one ounce of shot. That way I save about one shell per box of that hideously expensive Peruvian lead. That’s just my target shells. I don’t reload self-defense ammunition. I buy it from reputable manufacturers.
Remington and Winchester (is Winchester still Olin America?) both load 00 buck at 9 pellets per 2.75" and 12 per 3".* Three inch shells weren’t available in the late 19th century, so let’s call it 9. (The introduction of steel shot begat the 3.5" 12-gauge and the renaisance of the 10-gauge, but that’s a different thread.)
For the record, my records put 00 buckshot at about .34 caliber, but that’s a meaningless quibble. The point is that you just can’t fit an infinite amount of lead and propellant into such a small volume (the gun chamber), and black powder wasn’t exactly a good propellant.
To address bnorton’s point directly, more than 9-12 pellets of what? Shot comes in different sizes. There’s a crapload of different shot sizes, and there’s a huge difference between 00 buckshot and #9 birdshot. A load of #9 at two feet will be lethal, but at twenty yards it’s not going to do much more than make your taget really angry.
*They also throw in a bunch of crap like buffering material, which doesn’t really do much. The idea, though, is to reduce in-bore damage to the shot, which would make them fly more true, and reduce the size of the pattern.
Sounds like you know your stuff on scatterguns. So, I’ve got a question for you. I’ve been using two firearms for home defence (A Springfield XD Service in .40S&W and a RRA M-4 Tactical carbine) but I’ve become a bit concerned about overpenitration in my apartment (the walls are a bit thin, and I don’t need to shoot a neighbor.) I’ve decided to add a third horse to the stable, a shotgun (duh.) Seeing as I don’t really know all that much about them, I’ve been asking around, and the two that have come up more often than any others are the Remmington 870 and Mossberg 590. I’ve had it recommended that I take either version in a 16" barrel with 3" chamber. In your opinion, which would be the better shotgun for carrying a #4 birdshot load? The only other load I’d carry would be a 000 buck magnum load, but in close quarters, I’d think that 40 pellets per shell would be nicer than 4.
Exgineer Since you just posted I won’t quote. You appear to be right on the mark as far as the weights, calibers and gauges are concerned. But a sawed off shotgun at 50 yards is practically useless. If you had said 50 feet we might have some common ground. A full length 26-32" modified or full choke would be more in line with your post.
At about 25’ my double barreled shotgun, (18" barrel length) loaded with 00buck 3"mag. will blow a hole through a 5/8" thick sheet of plywood from about knee high to eye level when held at my waist and pointed. I’ve done this more than a few times.
You’re right about the 9-12 shots per shell on the size and quantity of buckshot. I once thought it was a .38 also but after inspection decided it was closer to a .32 In any event, IMHO at close range (less than 50 feet) a short barreled shotgun is my first choice. I used to have a pump that was pretty awesome. But a buddy of mine had a bull pup…now that’s a bad ass weapon.
I really wish you wouldn’t quote out of context. The lead-in to that paragraph was that the shotgun was “disdained by marksmen.” We weren’t trying to say that the shotgun was like a grenade or nuclear weapon, we were comparing it to a rifle or six-shooter. You didn’t need to be an expert marksman to use a shotgun.
You do NOT need to aim a shotgun as precisely as you would need to aim a rifle.
We didn’t say it was OK to point the gun in the general direction, we said the RIGHT general direction. I think our meaning – comparison to a marksman – is clear from the context.
Nobody ever said anything of the sort. The shotgun was NOT used only by stagecoach guards. The Staff Report makes it clear that it was used by messengers (remember the line about “shotgun messengers”?) who were riding ALONE, sleeping out under the stars, etc. Back in the late 1800s, those messengers reported the weapon was useful against wolves. But, of course, you modern-day revisionists know better.
fushj… I can’t say about where you live. But in the US as far as I know it’s illegal to own a shotgun with a barrel less than 18". I could be wrong but I think that’s still the law. Gun laws are getting pretty confusing these days. BUT I do know this. It is illegal for you to alter your shotgun. I been there and done this thread before so I’m not getting busted for advising anybody to saw off anything, see y’all later.
Under federal law, minimum barrel length for shotguns is 18", and minimum overall length is 24" for shotguns. The rules for rifles are different. It’s not technically illegal to modify your own gun as long as you keep it within regulated specifications, but it’s really not something I’d recommend doing.
fushj00mang, I really can’t think of a better home-defense gun than a Remington 870. Mine has a 20" slug barrel, which seems to be about the right length for that sort of application. There’s a bewildering array of variants, though including a version manufacturedspecifically for home defense with (I think) an 18" barrel. Your ammunition choice is dead on as well; #4 will make a real mess at ranges of a couple of feet. 000 buck in a 3" shell is simply ridiculous, IMO.
Sorry, Dex, but stand by what I said. I never implied a shotgun is a precision marksmanship tool, but if you just point it in the “general direction” of your target you aren’t going to hit anything. You don’t need to get all persnickety with aiming like with a rifle, but you’re not trying to hit a quarter at 100 yards, either. At practical shotgun ranges your pattern might be 4" wide at most. You do need to aim. And frankly, I can’t see how I could have misinterpreted “scattered over a wider area” or taken it out of context. Furthermore, you said a shotguns were good against groups which strongly implies that it’s possible to engage at least two man-sized targets at the same time, which is false.
I’m pretty sure that the “weapon of choice among Pony Express riders” was the Colt 1851 Navy pistol. They were much smaller and lighter than a shotgun, and could fire more times before reloading. (BTW: The Pony Express only lasted about 18 months, before the telegraph made it unnecessary.)
<< Furthermore, you said a shotguns were good against groups which strongly implies that it’s possible to engage at least two man-sized targets at the same time, which is false. >>
I don’t want to get all defensive, I have never fired a shotgun and don’t pose myself as a firearms expert by any means. I can only go by what the people of the time said.
I suppose it depends on how far apart the folks in the group are standing, doesn’t it? And I quote Mark Twain (the “she” refers to a scatter-type gun):
In short, if you are aiming at one critter amongst a group, and you miss by a foot or two, you have some chance of hitting another if you’ve got a scatter range of 4 or 5 inches (using your figures). You’re talking about aiming at and hitting a target. These folks were often quite happy to fire and frighten off a threat.
I also wonder whether there have been technological changes since the 1880s, that might have made for a wider scattering in those days than what you are familiar with?
BTW, Twain was writing in 1871 about his stagecoach rides in the early 1860s, and he refers to the person who sat next to the driver as a “conductor.” No mention of shotguns in that context.
The Pony Express might have had different regulations for itself. The articles of the time that I was citing and reading referred to general messengers and “express riders.” There were many such, over a long period of time, not just Pony Express.
Like I said in the OP, Dex, it’s mostly a quibble. “General direction” is pretty clear language and implies that if a target is somewhere to the north of, and I loose off in a more-or-less northerly direction, I stand a chance of scoring a hit. It just doesn’t work that way.
I haven’t read the whole Twain piece, but that snippet strikes me as less of a comment on the nature of shotguns than on the ability of the shooter. He’s describing an unbelievable bad shot.
“Flock shooting” never gets you anything. A shotgun gives you a better chance at hitting moving targets at close ranges, but it’s still a single shot per target proposition. The other benefit is the intimidation factor, like you said.
Weeee…lll…it’s true that you shouldn’t aim at the flock, but at a specific target. On the other hand, I’ve seen my brother knock down both the blackbird he was shooting at and another unlucky one from the same flock with one shot. Send the buckshot flying at a mob of guys riding close together, and there’s no telling what could happen.
Umm, no. The blunderbus wasn’t used much in America, being a continental thing. They were flintlocks. There may have been a few kicking around in early colonial days, used by guards & stuff- but I doubt if you’d have found any on the Western frontier in the 1800’s. The real purpose of the large bell was to scare dudes away. They LOOK damn dangerous. They were used sometimes on the early sailing ships, too.
CKdex- there have been no authenticated cases of an unprovoked wolf attack in North America. In general (the hundred years war & France being a notable exception, which I can explain)- wolves don’t attack humans. In fact- in general- predators don’t attack humans.
