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Shotgun Versatility

7K views 28 replies 14 participants last post by  Dorobuta 
#1 ·
If I was in a survival situation, the one firearm I would want with me would be a 12 Gauge Shotgun. I'm NOT talking combat here, but harvesting food. With the ammunition availble today, you can carry in your pockets the proper loads for feathered game, small game, waterfowl, or deer sized game. I can't imagine a survival situation where the shotgun wouldn't be the most useful tool you could have. Terrain varies, admittedly, but in my area, and other areas I frequent, I certainly could feed myself with game I harvested with a shotgun.
 
#2 ·
The shotgun's sole downside for survival is the bulk of its shells.

I don't know if they still do, but Remington at one time guaranteed 2 1/2 MOA out of Remington shotguns with rifled barrels, firing Remington saboted slugs. With a set of ghost ring sights, it COULD be pressed into a decent 200 yard weapon. It's downside there would be reloading time, unless you had it rigged for speedloaders. Since some people think that no one can hit anything past 100 yards, anyway, then the rifled scattergun would make a decent combat arm as well. Just carry the saboted slugs with you in speedloaders and a selection of shot shells for your winged game (along with the smoothbore barrel, which, before soem idiot says anything, weighs almost nothing).

Couple that with a good .22 pistol (Think single-six, fire anything from .22 short to .22 magnum), and you have a VERY versatile survival setup.

Just don't try to start a war with it, or shoot down the shuttle, and you'd be fine. :dgrin:

Oooh, something else, that would be one of the LEAST expensive setups you could find, also.
 
#3 ·
The shotgun when used within its limitations is a very effective firearm. In many populated parts of North America it is the only firearm that you can use to hunt deer sized animals. While serving in the middle east, we used it on feral dog packs, with great sucess. It is currently being used as a front line firearm in Iraq and Afganistan and has been in every modern war since 1914. It is an excellent weapon for night patrols and for point men in a jungle enviornment. If the balloon ever goes up, not everyone will be a "backpack survivalist", those with a stable home might just find it useful. Depending on your location and the situation, you might not be required to carry 400 rds of ammo a day. Something to consider.
 
#4 ·
One interesting thing; many people point out the shotguns low capacity. While this is true, i would point out that its very hard to miss with buckshot, and anything that you shoot wont be getting back up for a second try. Plus with a relatively slow rate of fire, you wont need as much ammo, simply because it wont chew through it at the same rate as say, andy's POS.
 
#5 ·
Garand said:
If the balloon ever goes up, not everyone will be a "backpack survivalist", those with a stable home might just find it useful. Depending on your location and the situation, you might not be required to carry 400 rds of ammo a day. Something to consider.

Very true, if you're staying put, or have some sort of transportation to where they are going to stay put, the bulk of the ammo becomes a non-issue.
 
#6 ·
My preference for multi-tasking would be a double barrel with double triggers. I'd probably go for SxS instead of O/U just on price. You can keep it loaded with slug for the front trigger and birdshot for the rear trigger and you effectively have a single shot deer rifle and single shot shotgun for birds. This will allow you to quickly engage whatever you happen to come across without making noise reloading a pump or semi. This does cut down its potential for combat, but it is quick to reload to 2 slugs or 2 buckshot loads, and the intimidation factor from the wrong end cannot be denied.
 
#7 ·
#8 ·
Its a 32" barrel extension that screws in where the choke tube goes. Could be a good deal if it doesn't make the host barrel droop, doesn't mess up the choke threads and performs as promised.

RIKA
 
#9 ·
Terry G said:
If I was in a survival situation, the one firearm I would want with me would be a 12 Gauge Shotgun. I'm NOT talking combat here, but harvesting food. With the ammunition availble today, you can carry in your pockets the proper loads for feathered game, small game, waterfowl, or deer sized game. I can't imagine a survival situation where the shotgun wouldn't be the most useful tool you could have. Terrain varies, admittedly, but in my area, and other areas I frequent, I certainly could feed myself with game I harvested with a shotgun.

The 12-gauge shotgun (pump especially) is a VERY versatile gun, as you say, used within its limitations. For a non-combat, foraging-type weapon, that kind of versatility is the main reason I babble on so often about the .454 revolver. With the factory loads available for it, it can be loaded for anything from elk and bear, down to rabbits; even have small shotshells available in .45LC, although the range would have to be quite limited due to shot weight being light and the rifling throwing the pattern wide.

Neither the 12-gauge nor the .454 may be “the ultimate choice” for any one thing, but they can both do a whole lot of things very well.
 
#10 ·
Neither either of them amount to a hoot, and there's no such thing, in the lower 48 states, anyway, as a survival situation that DOESN'T involve combat, yet where a gun is any help. Especially a shotgun. For the 10 lbs of gun and ammo, you'd be be WAY ahead to carry a couple of snares, a couple of small trotlines, a gill net, a silenced .22 autpistol, and 4 lbs of high calorie food. It's almost impossible to find a place in the US where you can't cut a rooad, and/or at night, climb a tree or a hill, and see lights. If you can see lights, you can walk to them in 3-4 days, guaranteed. You dont need ANY food for 3-4 days of hard hiking, and 4 lbs of the right food will give you ANOTHER 4 days hiking. In 8 days, with shares, trotlines, gill nets, a .22 pistol, and some knowledge of edible plants, if you cant find something to eat, you are REALLY lame. Big, heavy ,NOISY guns are never the answer for foraging, and they are always inferior to a silenced gun for EFFICIENT combat, too. 3 lbs of shotshells aint crap, and the 12 ga pump weighs at LEAST 3 lbs. That's 10 each buckshot, birdshot, and slugs. You aint going far on that, unless you get LUCKY and pop a couple of deer, or poach somebody's cow. If you went with 25 rds of #2 birdshot and 5 slugs, you'd be ahead, but you'd still be sucking hind tit to the gear I outlined above, along with the food.
 
#11 ·
you can EASILY miss with buckshot, dumbass. you dont even know at what ranges your pattern is any help at combat, much less be able to recognize such ranges while being shot at. Nor do you know how "far" away you can reliably keep even ONE pellet on the head of a cover user. You guys "think" like junior high kids.
 
#12 ·
you dont know how many 00 pellets you need in the 10" chest circle to reliably stop a man (at LEAST 4), nor do you know how LITTLE power that they have left at 25 yds (160 ft lbs, like a Stinger from a .22 rifle) You don't know where your pattern is centered, relative to your sights. You don't know which loads pattern the tightest in your barrel. You've never chronographed them. The S and B 00 load is sub 1000 fps. That's not much power. At such a low velocity. each 60 gr bullet might as well be a .32 pistol load, or a 40 subsonic .22lr, from a rifle. :) A rd lead ball is a VERY poor aerodynamic shape, so it loses velocity REALLY swiftly.
 
#13 ·
If you could center the buckshot load, you could hit with the rifle sp. you're SCARED that you can't hit at ALL with the rifle, that's WHY you favor buckshot. so that means that your pattern WONT be centered. You'll in too big a hurry, cause you are inept and a pussy to boot. You will have LOTS of blast and flash, to tell your enemies where you are, and to make you flinch. anybody who claims he can rapidfire a 308 or 12 ga, without earprotection and without flinching SOME, is just a fucking liar.
 
#15 ·
Andy, Terry is talking about a non combat situation, probably foraging from a fixed location. While part of what you say is true you are looking at things with a tunnel vision point of view. Survival is the primary concern and combat is last.

RIKA
 
#18 ·
I would bet on the indian anytime if you and he were in a fight. You might not have much hair on your head but I guarantee that indian would have the funniest looking curly haired scalplock anybody ever saw hanging from his lodge.

RIKA :D
 
#19 ·
Andy you can not even get yoru puss gut out of the house and find the woods. Shotguns can be incredible fighting weapons in the hands of a skilled user. I ould certainly take a good fighting shotgun over your canned 10 Ar pos.

Heck I would take a JR High kid over you as well.
 
#20 ·
Here we go again punk

andy said:
The Indians didn't know the names of anything, dumbass. didn't have compasses or maps either. Just because YOU can't make it without an 18 wheeler full of gear doesn't mean that better men can't do so. i can take 200 deer a year, any time I want.
Sure you can take 200 head a deer a year :laugh01: and you will need the 18 wheeler to take them in for someone to proccess.

Half the towns, rivers , mountains ect. still have the names the indians gave them and the first whites adopted. Thats not only true in WY but almost every state in the union.

We can do our little hike woods putz and you canm see what I can get by on in real time, at least for the amount of time you can keep up.

Your lame rap is awful weak these days.

Teuf,
 
#21 ·
Neither either of them amount to a hoot,

Capable of taking any land game animal on the continent; I guess that's "worth a hoot" in a survival situation.


and there's no such thing, in the lower 48 states, anyway, as a survival situation that DOESN'T involve combat, yet where a gun is any help.

That's why bush pilots generally carry large revolvers, shotguns, or lever guns as survival gear, I guess. Because of their "combat" potential. Survival is USUALLY more than combat, not rarely, and certainly not "never".


you dont even know at what ranges your pattern is any help at combat

How can you know whether he's familiar with his gun or not...?


The Indians didn't know the names of anything, dumbass. didn't have compasses or maps either

Nor did they have firearms or mylar blankets. How does this relate to us..?



Godallmighty, John. Just get out & "DO" some crap, rather than tell the rest of us what can't be done. Life is unpredictable & messy, and sitting at a keyboard, preaching at the world about how “this it the only thing that can work” is narrow-minded and short-sighted. It’s impossible to predict the future, so it’s impossible to predict future complications. Sunday afternoon, I carried a 12-year-old boy out of the woods who was bleeding something bad. I was just working on a trailer by the shop, and when another, younger kid came out of the woods & told me “Ryan hurt his foot”, I just went in as I was. Point is, there’s no way to “KNOW” in advance what you’ll face, and it’s sometimes just “come as you are”. (FWIW, got the bleeding slowed enough to carry him out, got him to the house, patch him up, call his home, etc. He’s fine, but won’t be walking for a few days.)

Then again, I guess that doesn’t count, because it wasn’t “combat”, right?
 
#22 ·
John, after reading your post, it makes sense now why Gunkid doesn't want to carry either a shotgun or a .454. When you consider who he is likely to shoot (himself, again) I would much prefer a .22 in the foot than hitting myself with either a shotgun or a .454 (no experience with one first hand, but I know a .45LC can be pretty potent). Besides that, with his canned unit, no one else will be around to hear that he shot himself, so as he gimps himself out of the woods, he can do so with some dignity claiming he just sprained an ankle or something. After all, who would carry his fat ass out of the woods if he used a load of #7's to send all his little piggies home going "WHEEEEEEEE WHEEEEEEEEEEEE WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE"?
 
#23 ·
Raider said:
I would bet on the indian anytime if you and he were in a fight. You might not have much hair on your head but I guarantee that indian would have the funniest looking curly haired scalplock anybody ever saw hanging from his lodge.

RIKA :D
LOL! :nyah: :nyah:

Visions of Larry's (3 stooges) scalp on a pole. Imagine the story the warrior could tell his kids about how he got that scalp. :dgrin:

What a talent! You make this look soooo eeeasssyyy!
 
#24 ·
Anyone else notice that CowardKid made 5 posts in 12 minutes on this subject alone? Just rambling on like that, stream-of-consciousness blabbering is a tell tale of an unbalance mind, indicative of someone who is suffering from some sort of mental deficiency, and typically well under average intelligence. This is what those drugs do. . .
 
#25 ·
Magnum88C said:
Anyone else notice that CowardKid made 5 posts in 12 minutes on this subject alone? Just rambling on like that, stream-of-consciousness blabbering is a tell tale of an unbalance mind, indicative of someone who is suffering from some sort of mental deficiency, and typically well under average intelligence. This is what those drugs do. . .
Ya mean he don't have visions of sugarplums dancing in his pointy head?

RIKA :D
 
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