it's official - I hate shotguns

Well, hate might be too strong of a word but I prefer a handgun or my SBR any day of the week for defensive use.

J Martin - can't remember his actual screen name off the old forum - anyway he and I took a shotgun course yesterday and it proved to me what I already know. I can shoot a shotgun fine but under stress I just can't work a pump shotgun and handle emergency loads and such like I can with a pistol or rifle.

I would like to try a sweet Beretta 1301 like J Martin was using but I don't feel like sinking a grand into one just to still grab the AR when things look sketchy at the house. His 1301 was lightweight, came setup well, required minimal upgrades to make it perfect, and ran like a raped ape. Someday maybe I'll get one but for now my 870 is once again on the chopping block. A buddy that was beside me on the line yesterday is likely going to take it off my hands.

I'm going to take the funds and put them into a WML for my SBR and more 9mm ammo for my pistols.

Let the ridicule begin ....

 

Larry Vickers says they do. I heard it many times in the 1911 course I took with him a couple of years ago.

I had a Benelli M1 Super 90 that I recently sold. I still don't regret selling that one either though. It was really cool but it was heavy and I was going to have to have the stock fitted to me and wanted to replace a few parts in it for convenience. Rather than doing that - if I want another shotgun in the future I will for sure get a semi-auto and the 1301 seems to be the bees knees lately.

 

Shotguns are hard to master. Its hard to keep the skills once you acquire them. I love 870's, but after a day at the range, my hands are typically chewed up and I'm exhausted. I think that's why you dont see many trainers teaching shotgun classes. I have taken a couple of "defensive" style classes, and found that two days with a shotgun is tiresome.

 

This class was taught by a buddy of mine. He's a Tom Givens protege and definitely qualified. It was a one day class billed as home defense use of a shotgun.

I've had tons of pistol training and a little AR training but this was my first shotgun training. I've never felt so inadequate in a class as I did yesterday. On one timed drill I short stroked it, fumbled a reload, then didn't have enough ammo to finish taking out the steel (because I fumbled a couple of shells during reload). It was awful. I got a second run with his M1 Super 90 like I recently sold (we bought them the same day off the same rack on the way home from a range trip) and cleaned it up. That pump though .... not for me.

 

Ive taken Toms Givens Defensive Shotgun Class at Rangemaster. He breaks into 4 hour days, but due to his range, we were limited to what we could do. Givens has some great presentations, but I'm not fond of the range.
Shotgun training for me is like Leg day at the gym. I know I need to do it, but its the first thing I skip.

 

@VolGrad The price of being a "noob". I'm right there with you man. When my kids bought me my first shotgun I was ecstatic. I've only had the opportunity to shoot skeet with it one time so far. "I suck" is not too strong of a description. I might as well have closed my eyes. But I do have every intention of becoming serviceable with it this fall and winter.

On the other hand I have had numerous pistol classes and have chronicled close to 40,000 rounds through my assortment of handguns. It's human nature to continue to practice what we are already good at. It's no fun to practice that which we're not.

 

All true. What it ultimately comes down to for me is this - We have had a couple of instances in recent years of fugitives on the loose in very close proximity to my home. One had just murdered a couple of people (and was ultimately found less than a mile from my house - he had buried himself alive then took his own life with a gun in the hole). In these times I always grabbed the SBR out of the safe rather than a shotgun. Did it before and will do it next time so might as well just own it and dump my shotgun, support gear, and ammo.

 

It's like going to the gym, the exercise you hate doing, is the one you need to be doing the most. Like stated above, Ford or Chevy, Mossberg or Remington, in the end, everyone is going to grab what they are most comfortable and most confident with. In my case, it would be my shotgun. I like to think that myself AND my wife being armed will increase our chances of a good outcome in our favor!

 

The engraved one shoots better.

 

I am with you on the handgun or SBR Volgrad.

The older I get the less I enjoy my 12 ga, so I don't practice with it enough, I have a auto loader on my list but not at the top. I am in the process of building an suppressed 300 black out SBR that will become my HD weapon.

 

I have a fitted sporting clays browning, but I also have a Beretta A360 for waterfowl that had a nifty shim in the stock that, depending on how you arranged it, could give you cast on or off, and some drop or not. That totally dialed that gun in for me.

 

Made a package deal for the shotgun with all remaining ammo and gear. My buddy couldn't pass it up. Hoping to FTF tomorrow to close the deal. I feel better already.

 

I can agree that a shotgun takes some practice to use as a home defense gun, and certainly not the one I would grab for when things go bump in the night. But I for sure know that I can't hit a dove or a duck winging by at 50mph with a SBR or hand gun! Different tools for different jobs

 

You should send me that nasty old DD of yours. You don't need its shotgun-like properties creating undue stress!

Seriously, it's just a minor weak spot, and if you already knew it, you already knew you just need a couple hundy boxes worth of practice makes perfect. Git after it, man. In your state and frame of mind, different equipment won't change anything.

 

You are gonna love that SBR! I predict a can in that rifle's future as well. It's a kick in the pants to shoot and not have to fiddle fart with buffers and springs and adjustable gas blocks and crap just to get it to run right suppressed and then have to undiddle everything when you take off the can!