- Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:08 pm
#13011
I know this is a long dead thread that I never saw and I'm not even sure the original poster is even around, but I thought I would answer their question just in case someone else happened upon this in the future.
You really should "pattern" your shotgun with your chosen self-defense load. This involves shooting at various distances starting at close contact and moving back 5 yd intervals. You want to find the distance at which the spread of your shot exceeds 16" in diameter, or one pellet leaves the silhouette. Find the sweet spot where you can keep all the pellets on the target, or in a 16" diameter. This is your max effective range with that load. It is highly specific to your shotgun, the barrel length, choke, and your chosen ammo, the load, manufacturer, and even box lot numbers. A 00-buck from Remington will not pattern the same as a 00-buck from Winchester, or even a Magnum 00-buck from Remington. This max effective range is usually between 18-25 yds. Beyond that you wouldn't want to use shot because you risk throwing a pellet and violating Rule 4 to your legal peril.
The point at which you exceed the max effective distance of your shot round, is when you would do a "select-slug" - dump your shot round (by unloading it manually through the ejection port, not ballisticly through the muzzle), load a slug, re-assess, re-engage.
You should know the rate of drop for your chosen self-defense slug in your shotgun. Again, every load is different, and behaves differently depending on the barrel length. A short police barrel is going to drop quicker than a 24" rifled deer barrel. Zero your sights, if you have them, for 50 yards and practice your holdovers, using your chosen self-defense round, at 25, 75, and 100 yds (For a short barrel, this usually works out to 6:00 hold at 25, upper chest at 75, chin at 100 - but again, your ymmv)
And yes, 7.5 bird shot feels way different than 00-buck, feels way different than magnum buck, feels way different than slugs, feels way different than magnum slugs. You can shoot 7.5 bird all day long, incorrectly, and not know the difference, but the first time you load a 3" slug and don't shoulder the shotgun properly, you're going to leave a mark. You really have to test all your chosen ammo to know how it behaves in your shotgun, and you also have to know some basic shotgun handling in order to be an effective shooter. To others' points, all this testing is hard to do in CT - we have limited facilities and the ranges are overrun with Safety Sally's. Front Sight's 4 Day Tactical Shotgun course is ideal for this. It's the only place you can do a Zombie Apocalypse Drill and not get banned from the range (you'll have to go to Front Sight to find out what a ZAD is...haha).