Shooting Illustrated.

Faster?
Yup. No matter how good the shooter is with a pump. Many big 3-gun matches also have a side match for shotguns. There is usually a low target count, so nobody has to reload. The buzzer goes off and you shoot the targets. No reloading, running, jumping or standing on one leg, and no tricky targets. Just stand there and shoot the shotgun. Pump guns never win. No matter what the guy at the gun shop says, semi-autos are simply faster.

Semi-autos will not shoot all ammo.
That was an issue with that bird gun I mentioned and a few others, but not with most guns today. Today’s best semi-automatic shotguns can digest a wide range of ammo from low-recoil to full-power without a problem. Shotguns with the inertia system pioneered by Benelli, or the multi-port gas systems like Remington used in its guns, will handle all ammo. Most of the newer gas guns will likewise eat any ammo they are fed.

Semi-autos jam.
They pretty much don’t anymore. At least, no more than other firearms. Pumps do, though. I shoot a pump shotgun a lot. (I never said I don’t like them.) When it counts, I will now and then inadvertently short stroke and jam it up.

It’s not just me. I have seen even the very best pump-shotgun shooters in the world short stroke their guns when trying to go fast. The simple fact is that operating a pump shotgun is a human function. When subjected to stress, humans do not beat well-designed machines, because machines are not subject to emotional stress.

I agree with all of these remarks.  I think that a commitment to pump action shotguns over semi-auto shotguns because you believe that semi-auto shotguns are less reliable is based on a false paradigm that may have been correct 50 years ago, but certainly isn’t now.

Specifically, he’s reviewing the latest Savage tactical shotgun, the Renegauge Security.  It appears to want to compete with the Beretta 1301.  I doubt that it can come up to the level of the 1301, but since Savage didn’t send me one to review, I have no way of knowing with certainty.

It’s a nice looking gun, and maybe I’ll get a chance to shoot one some day.

As I expected, the Beretta A400 Xtreme Plus did a magnificent job at putting pellets in the bird (19:48).  My takeaway isn’t so much that one shotgun does better than another, but that you need to know what you’re doing and get your testing protocol and equipment settled out when you presume to test one against another.  Having to admit you screwed up a test should be just a bit embarrassing, but at least it’s honest.

I’ll also say that after a morning of shooting quail with the A400, I felt like I had plinked with a .22 rimfire rifle all morning.  The action and stock design manages the recoil better than any 12 gauge shotgun I’ve ever used.

These observations will be brief and to the point, and they apply to the A400 Xtreme Plus and 1301 (but I suspect to all their newest line of shotguns excluding over-unders).

The bolt carrier is very similar in design to that of an AR-15, with a firing pin held in place by a retaining pin, a cam, and the bolt carrier.  There are differences of course including dimensions, the spring on the fire pin, and the lack of gas return to operate the bolt (the Beretta gas system follows the tube).

But it has the look and feel of maintaining and cleaning an AR-15 at times.

Either Beretta learned from Eugene Stoner’s design and liked it and decided that it would lead to increased cycling speed, or they wanted American buyers to feel more accustomed to the system (or both).

There are numerous YouTube videos on this design.

Their over-unders are absolutely beautiful, but very pricey.

Recoil.

Rifled slugs are designed to be used in smoothbore shotguns. The rifled slug’s defining feature is a set of exterior grooves that resemble barrel rifling. Unlike barrel rifling, the slug’s grooves do not spin the projectile. Instead, the channels allow the slug to compress slightly so it can fit through a shotgun’s choke tube.

Sabot slugs lack the rifled slug’s exterior grooves because they are designed to be used in shotguns with rifled barrels or with a smoothbore paired with a rifled choke.

They go on to discuss various brands, including Remington Sabot slugs, Federal TruBall rifled slugs, Hornady American White Tail slugs, Winchester Super-X, and Brennecke Black Magin and Hefty Slugs.

I wouldn’t want to be behind a shotgun shooting Brennecke slugs unless my life was in danger.

The Hornady slug is 325 grains.  I’m left wondering why anyone would choose to shoot that over 45-70 at 325 grains.  Oh yea, stupid states like Illinois where shotgun and bow hunting are the only legal ways to harvest deer.

I don’t know the fate of HB 4386, but here’s the concern as expressed by the controllers.

“We are talking about cartridges that are as powerful as you need to cleanly harvest the animal without being excessively powerful so that there is accidental damage at distant targets that you can’t see,” Dale said.

Dummies.  South Carolina is a much more densely populated state than Illinois and this has never been a concern there.  The gigantic woods and corn fields of Illinois are the last place one should be concerned about “targets you can’t see.”

I know The Alaskan prefers Brennecke for dangerous animals.  If I lived there I’d probably practice with that – for one or two shots anyway.

Source.

In the 1840s and 1850s, companies in Liege, Belgium, produced thousands of double-barreled percussion shotguns. These imported 12-gauge models were popular among American hunters. At the onset of the Civil War, there is no evidence that state or national entities purchased these weapons in any significant number, but many merchants would for private sale.

While most of these imports did not have many markings on them, some did bear the popular Liege stamp, and a few had information linking them to American dealers inscribed on their barrels. Markings were typically located on the gun’s lock. Some, however, displayed markings on the barrel rib, the piece connecting the two barrels.

When they enlisted, many mounted Southerners brought their personal shotguns with them. The 52-inch length allowed a cavalryman to reload easily while riding, and the two barrels delivered heavy damage at close range. They could also be reloaded quicker than the 20 seconds it usually would take to load a rifled musket.

Southern blockade runners continued importing inexpensive Belgian shotguns throughout the war, as verified by the presence of several cases among many U.S. naval vessels’ prizes-of-war lists. Some of these captured shipments show markings of the Confederate gun companies to which they were being shipped, put there by an agent who had inspected the weapons for his company before it was shipped from a European port.

At the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, Mo., in August 1861, and during the 1862 New Mexico Campaign, close combat favored Confederates armed with shotguns against Union troops carrying rifled weapons.

Shotguns have always been, and will continue to be, used in warfare.  It’s a great CQB weapon and for that reason also a great home defense weapon.

My understanding is that it takes a shell of 2.5″ in length, or more precisely, 2 + 9/16″.  You cannot shoot modern 2.5″ shells in it.  It’s also my understanding that these go for around $200 – $300, although when someone tells you that “This gun was used in the civil war,” that’s almost impossible to prove unless it has papers and was associated with some well-known officer.

But if you could find such a gun with papers and proof or ownership and history, it would be a nice find as a C&R.

I think this will take some practice.

I just can’t find a good tactical shotgun course offered anywhere near me.

This article at Task & Purpose provides some interesting information, as well as this one at Guns & Ammo.

Field & Stream.

At my gun club’s range the other day, one of the other members let me shoot a couple of his straight-wall deer rifles. He told me that before he found the right bullets, he had lost a couple of well-hit deer. I was sympathetic, because losing a deer hurts, but part of me thought That never happened with slugs. Maybe the shotgun slug deserves another chance before it lumbers off to extinction.

Extinction definitely seems to be where deer slugs are headed. My local store, located in the middle of good Iowa deer country, used to sell as many scoped 20-gauge Remington 1100 packages as they could put together before deer season. Now, it’s hard to find a slug gun in the rack there, but there are plenty of .45-70 lever actions, ARs in .350 Legend and .450 Bushmaster, and a few bolt-action rifles, too.

I get it. Rifles are cool in a way that slug guns aren’t. Shotguns are bulky and heavy, and they can kick hard with slugs. They aren’t as accurate as rifles are, either. On the plus side, at real-world whitetail hunting ranges, slugs make big holes in deer. Often they make one hole going in and another on the way out. The blood trails are short and easy to follow.

Back when I started deer hunting in the early 80s, everyone ganged up and drove woodlots. Deer drives often result in shots at walking and running deer. I saw deer shot in some creative places, and learned that while it’s possible to hit a deer with a slug without killing it, it’s not an easy thing to do. I could never manage to do it.

[ … ]

As deer hunting became a bigger deal, and a bigger business, gun and ammo makers spent a lot of time making slugs shoot more accurately. Rifled barrels and slugs encased in plastic sabots came along in the late 80s and early 90s, and after twenty years or so of constant R&D and improvement, slug guns could shoot 1-2 inch groups at 100 yards. Even I could shoot a group I could cover with my hand at 200 yards with the right gun and ammo (Ithaca Deerslayer III, Winchester XP3), although for shooting at deer under any but ideal conditions, 150 yards is a better maximum range for sabots and rifled shotguns.

While it’s true that sabot slugs aren’t as big around as full-bore slugs, they’re still big. Most 12 gauge slugs are loaded with .50 caliber bullets. Even 20 gauges have .45 caliber bullets, and in my experience with them, they expand impressively.

Well, I think shotguns are pretty cool too.  With the thin barrel I don’t find shotguns heavy unless it’s a very long barrel (like duck, goose or upland bird gun), and in that case, hunt with a tactical shotgun.  I watched a guy use a Benelli M4 and put slugs on a fist size target at 100 yards.  Of course, his shoulder was bruised at the end of the day.

We covered this in a very interesting and informative video before with a competition shotgun shooter.  It may be useful to go back and watch his video.  He’s a winner, so what he says is worth listening to.

This analysis at Shooting Illustrated adds to the discussion.

In general, dedicated shotgun-sports shooters (trap, skeet and sporting clays) take on a feet-close-together, straight-legged, weak-leg-forward stance, with the toes pointing 45 degrees to the target, 95 percent of the weight over the front foot. Such a stance allows wingshooters to swing the shotgun by more-or-less pirouetting on the front foot while using the toe of the rear foot as a rudder for balance. This tall, elegant stance is deceiving, because while it doesn’t look aggressive, most of the shooter’s body weight can be thrust into the shotgun at the shot, thereby counteracting the forces of recoil. However, there are obvious reasons why this stance isn’t the most practical for home defenders.

[ … ]

Some military and law-enforcement personnel are trained to shoot a shotgun much like they do a carbine, which is to say their feet are square to the target, shoulder-width apart, toes pointed toward the target, torso square to the target but leaning over slightly so the weight is divided 50/50 over the balls of each foot. This allows operators to maximize peripheral vision and to walk and move in any direction. The squared-chest orientation maximizes body armor’s protection. For most civilian home defenders, however, this stance can be disastrous.

First, most home defenders do not wear body armor. Second, a shotgun loaded with 00 buck has up to 10 times the recoil of a 5.56 NATO carbine, so recoil is a real issue. For all but the biggest, brutish shooters, three shots in succession from a square stance can rock a shooter so far backward that they may fall. (Try it for yourself.) I believe this stance was dogmatically taught to some military types to conform to other curriculum being taught at the time, such as dynamic entry, where moving smoothly and facing the enemy was paramount. These days, however, I see more shotgun-savvy military and law-enforcement shooters adopting a slightly more staggered, hybrid stance of 55/45 (front foot/rear foot) weight distribution. Even so, they keep the torso square to the target as much as possible.

[ … ]

The preferred shotgun stance of professional 3-gun shooters is offense-oriented. Most of these shooters assume a staggered stance where one foot is in front of the other, knees slightly bent, feet shoulder-width apart, torso bladed 40 degrees and bent forward at the waist so that 70 percent of their weight is forward. From this position, they can run, stop and fire multiple times while absorbing recoil and mitigating muzzle flip so they can get the maximum number of shots on target in the least amount of time.

However, there are a couple of significant differences between pro 3-gunners and home defenders: First, 3-gunners don’t have to consider retreating. This enables them to commit more to a weight-forward stance geared for shooting quickly, instinctively and accurately. Additionally, 3-gunners must focus on shooting 10 to 15 shots as fast as possible, mandating their weight be aggressively forward. But, this high-volume “running and gunning” is unrealistic for home defenders.

So then, the best stance for most home defenders—one that promotes a compromise between fast and accurate shooting while maintaining great balance and mobility—is one where the stance is slightly staggered, with the toe of the right foot in line with the heel of the left, feet slightly more than shoulder-width apart, toes pointing 30-degrees to the target, knees bent, chest slightly bladed 25 degrees and the torso bent forward at the waist so 65 percent of the weight is over the balls of the feet. However, during the actual shot, you may find that more weight should be shifted (shotgunners call it “throwing your weight”) forward as much as 80 percent to counteract recoil before being shifted back as soon as the recoil impulse is finished.

But, people, circumstances and shotguns are all a little different. The most important thing is to find and develop a shotgun stance that works best for you. Tactical guys say squared, wingshooters say 90-percent-weight forward, 3-gunners say bladed; I say use what works for you.

I don’t think it’s possible to stay “squared” (aggressive plates forward) and get off quick multiple shots with a 12 gauge shotgun on target.

I think he’s essentially saying what our professional shotgun competitor said in the video.  But it all requires practice.