Urban SHTF: Shotgun or Pistol Caliber Carbine?

[skb12172]

While my recent thread on Apartment HD got a lot of responses, few of them were of much use to me. After speaking for an hour or so with a local PO last night, he informed me THAT SHOTGUNS WERE ALL BUT PHASED OUT FROM THE LOCAL FORCE. An AR4, using VARMINT ROUNDS in .223, were now general issue due to concerns about overpenetration, etc.

I'm wondering if a shotgun is truly the answer I'm looking for.

I have an SKS, but consider it too powerful for urban HD and SHTF. Would a pistol caliber carbine be better? Maybe something in, say, 9mm or .40? Even a 9mm round from a 16" barrel supposedly has knockdown power equal to a .357 magnum. Not exactly weak.

Here's my question for this thread. Urban, apartment HD or SHTF. Shotgun or Carbine? For your answer, please include caliber/type of shot/etc. and your justifications for that choice. Hopefully, I'll get something from this thread that I can use for my particular situation. Fire away.

[D5CAV]

I am not a fan of sub-guns or semi-sub-guns (aka pistol caliber carbines). I have them and they are fun to shoot, but if I was down to carrying a sidearm and a shoulder arm, the shoulder arm would be an assault rifle or a battle rifle. I've considered a Keltec 2000 for a 'truck gun', mainly because it uses the same magazine as my 'truck pistol', but it also shoots the same bullet as my 'truck pistol', so I'm not sure of it's utility.

Regarding shotguns. They are great for trap and skeet. They are great for bird hunting. They are good for room clearing. They are good for home defense. They would not be the shoulder arm I would be carrying for SHTF.

My recommendations for urban SHTF:
1. deep cover sidearm: P3AT (.380 ACP)
2. sidearm: BHP (9mm) or 1911 (.45ACP)
3. shoulder arm: SIG 556 (5.56 NATO) or M14/M1A/etc. (7.62 NATO)

[Bullspit]

Urban Home Defense or SHTF long gun choice:

Home Defense in an apartment or close packed neighborhood: Shotgun. Loaded with 71/2 or 6 birdshot. Keep # 4 buck in reserve and slugs for SHTF.

Rationale: The shotgun will deliver an ounce or more of lead at 1000 fps or more to your intended target. Using birdshot at less than 30 feet keeps the pattern tight. How tight? Depends on the shotgun but I've seen cardboard targets at 30 feet with a 3 inch hole (and not from the wad) with just a few pellets surround it. Birdshot will penetrate 1 or 2, sometimes 3 layers of wall if not at point blank range. This is still dangerous to other occupants of the building but not as much as most pistol or rifle rounds. With #4 buckshot you have 18-20 24 caliber projectiles, good to 20-40 yards should you need it and good for rendering inside the house concealment useless as cover (in case you have to shoot through a wall your bad guy is hiding behind). Beyond 40 yards switch to slugs and you should be able to hit and effect targets out to 100 yards. Urban situations are less likely to require extreme long shots that would point to a rifle. The shotgun gives you the most versatility.

Now, if you are prowling around the city post SHTF you may find yourself at odds with some other well armed and motivated teams of post apocalyptic mayhem seekers, or just plain hungry folks. That situation would call for a rifle. Choose your flavor, any good semiauto in a caliber larger than .22 rimfire will work if you do your part.

[Fill]

Urban Home Defense or SHTF long gun choice:

Home Defense in an apartment or close packed neighborhood: Shotgun. Loaded with 71/2 or 6 birdshot. Keep # 4 buck in reserve and slugs for SHTF....

birdshot is for birds.

any weapon capable of sufficiently penetrating a threat will also penetrate drywall and any non-threats on the other side.

a weapon will not compensate for poor tactical choices.

[Kommander]

Shotguns you probably already know plenty about so I'll just say load buck and forget about birdshot, all it's going to do is make a mess. Pistol caliber carbines are a bit more complicated of a matter. You pretty much have 3 options, a lever gun, a civilian style carbine, or a military style carbine.

The lever guns are just that, old cowboy type guns in .38/357 or .45 colt. They are easy to use, handle well, but have slow reload times, limited magazine capacity, and must be manually cycled after each shot. Marlin and Winchester are the big names here, with Marlin probably being your best bet bang for buck wise.

Civilian style carbines are stuff like the Beretta Storm, High Point carbine, Kel Tec Sub-2000, and Marlin camp carbines. These guns are semiautomatic and use pistol mags so they have good rates of fire, fast reloads, and can interchange mags with your handgun. However they are not as rugged as the military style carbines nor do the have the ammo capacity.

The Military style carbines include the Uzi, Thompson, and P90. These guns bring the most firepower to the game with 30+ round stick mags and drums but are quite heavy and expensive. $1000+ for a good used Uzi and the prices only climb from there. Another advantage, though perhaps one of dubious value to you, is that they are among the most easily SBRed of guns as most of them were originally designed with shorter barrels.

Honestly for home defense I would just get a 12 gauge, load it with buck, and save the SKS for situations of unusual hazard.

[Bullspit]

Urban Home Defense or SHTF long gun choice:

Home Defense in an apartment or close packed neighborhood: Shotgun. Loaded with 71/2 or 6 birdshot. Keep # 4 buck in reserve and slugs for SHTF....

birdshot is for birds.

any weapon capable of sufficiently penetrating a threat will also penetrate drywall and any non-threats on the other side.

a weapon will not compensate for poor tactical choices.

Fact: Birdshot is effective against humans at close range. Not as effective as buckshot but do you want to volunteer to stand up to be shot with birdshot at 20 feet? I know I sure don't! For the record, I wouldn't use anything smaller than 71/2 shot and larger would be fine. Choose based on how likely you think it is that you can risk over-penetration.

Fact: Birdshot penetrates fewer layers of a typical urban wall construction than buckshot, and most pistol or rifle rounds.

Fact: There are more lawyers waiting to sue you for injuring your neighbor than there are bad guys wanting to break into your house.

I have lived in an apartment and I know how little there is between units. I've lived in town and I know how close my neighbor's house was and how little barrier there was between me and them. If I did still lived in such a situation I would choose birdshot for home defense.

I agree that a gun choice can't compensate for poor tactical choices, but sometimes you don't have a good tactical choice. You don't always get to determine the angle at which your attacker forces to you defend from, and you don't always get the choice of what is behind your attacker. You also can't be 100% certain that every shot you fire will hit your intended target. The shotgun gives you options that reduce the probability of shots fired in defense of you and your family from endangering others. Sometimes you don't have a tactical choice that makes using a round that penetrates three houses possible without risking liability.

That's just the way I see it.

[workinwifdakids]

Is this a home defense thread, or an urban unrest thread?

In an urban unrest situation, if I were on the move, I'd have a mag-fed semiautomatic rifle.

I'd think long and hard about a Mini-14, btw.

[The Quiet Man]

I read "Urban SHTF". And then I read that you already have an SKS. If you want a shotgun then go ahead and get one or if you want a pistol caliber carbine then head on, but do it with the knowledge it's just because more guns is more fun. You're already covered. HD is a different animal altogether and might require something a little less unwieldly. A shotgun with #4 buck will do you fine defending an apartment. Once you leave that apartment during a SHTF event you are gonna want that SKS and a reliable handgun...I wouldn't even worry about a "deep cover" handgun. As I understand it, a SHTF scenerio kinda negates many of our normal social niceties...one of which is not scaring the natives by hiding our weapons. YMMV.

[Darrell]

Here's what Old Painless at the Box O'Truth had to say about birdshot, in a test of various shotgun loads:

Birdshot as a Defense Load
I have had a lot of questions, summed up as follows: How effective is birdshot (#4, #6, #8, etc.) as a defense load?

We have done tests with various birdshot loads. Birdshot penetrated through two pieces of drywall (representing one wall) and was stopped in the paper on the front of the second wall. The problem with birdshot is that it does not penetrate enough to be effective as a defense round. Birdshot is designed to bring down little birds.

A policeman told of seeing a guy shot at close range with a load of 12 gauge birdshot, and was not even knocked down. He was still walking around when the EMTs got there. It was an ugly, shallow wound, but did not STOP the guy. And that is what we want... to STOP the bad guy from whatever he is doing. To do this, you must have a load that will reach the vitals of the bad guy. Birdshot will not do this.

In fact, tests have shown that even #4 Buckshot lacks the necessary penetration to reach the vital organs. Only 0 Buck, 00 Buck, and 000 Buck penetrate enough to reach the vital organs.

Unless you expect to be attacked by little birds, do not use birdshot. Use 00 Buck. It will do the job.

But doesn't 00 Buck penetrate too much in interior walls to be a "safe" load in a home?
Yes, it does penetrate a lot. But any load that is going to be effective will need to penetrate walls to have enough power to penetrate bad guys. If our only concern was to be sure we didn't penetrate walls, we would use BB guns. However, BB guns will not stop bad guys.

Therefore, we must use loads that will STOP bad guys, and this means that they will also penetrate walls. So, be sure you hit the bad guy and do not shoot into walls where loved ones are on the other side.

When To Use Birdshot
A friend of AR15.com sends this:

"I saw a gunshot victim, about 5' 10" and 200 lbs, taken to the operating room with a shotgun wound to the chest. He was shot at a range of six feet at a distance of just over the pectoralis muscle. He was sitting on his front porch and walked to the ambulance. We explored the chest after x-rays were taken. The ER doc had said 'buckshot' wound, but this was obviously not accurate.

It was # 6 shot. There was a crater in the skin over an inch in diameter. When the shot hit the level of the ribs, it spread out about five inches. There was ONE pellet that had passed between the ribs and entered the pericardium, but not damaged the heart at all. As you say, 'use birdshot for little birds.'"

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

Interestingly, I've heard other places that #4 buck is the minimum, OP says even that's not enough.

[Kommander]

Fact: Birdshot is effective against humans at close range. Not as effective as buckshot but do you want to volunteer to stand up to be shot with birdshot at 20 feet? I know I sure don't! For the record, I wouldn't use anything smaller than 7 1/2 shot and larger would be fine. Choose based on how likely you think it is that you can risk over-penetration.

Two items. First "Birdshot is effective against humans at close range". No it's not. It does not have enough energy to penetrate to the CNS and is therefore not a proper defensive round. Sure you'll make a messy wound and that may stop the aggressor. Or it may not.

Secondly the whole "I don't want to be shot with it" is a fallacious argument. It makes no sense. No one wants to be shot with anything. Using this logic thrown pudding cups are an effective stopper because people don't like getting hit by them. The proper question is what would you rather be shot with, birdshot or buckshot? I would much rather be shot by birdshot, and therefore will be loading buck.