I’ve used the words “Patrol Shotgun” as part of my overall
effort to move the mindset for new and inexperienced shooter from “target”
shooting or “goin’ to the range” or, in this case, trap or skeet shooting to
that of defensive shooting. You are
going to use your shotgun for the defense of your family and your home. I suspect you won’t be putting it in a rack
in your car or truck.
That said, the type of shotgun, the way you equip it and
the way you train and practice with it would not change significantly from the
way a law enforcement officer would.
Keeping all this in mind I want to talk about your Patrol Shotgun. We’ll talk about the type of action I prefer
and why, what equipment you add to it, types of ammunition and finally we’ll
talk about training and ongoing practice to maintain your proficiency. Feels like it may be a long post . . . so you
might want to drag out some snacks and something to wash it down with.
When it comes to types of actions only two make sense to me,
either an autoloader or a pump action. I
do not believe a bolt action, a simple single shot or double barrel break
action make sense for a defensive firearm.
While it is always possible that a potentially lethal situation could be
cured with a single round or two, or that you would have the time and
individual discipline required to work a bolt . . . I prefer the simplicity of
working a pump action or simply pressing the trigger again in the case of an autoloader.
In the choice between a pump action and an autoloader, if
chose a pump action for the simple reason that there are fewer moving parts and
I have a belief that in the long run a pump will be more reliable than an
autoloader.
I have two Remington 870 pump shotguns seen here laying on
the upper half of the photo. The lower
half are my two Patrol Rifles. I took
this while at a LE Instructor workshop I took in October 2019. For me, any time I take a training course I
take two nearly identical weapons, in the case of the photo both for shotguns
and carbines. I also had a duplicate Glock
17 as well. The reason is simple – good training
is expensive. The course in October
including ammunition, food and lodging cost around $800. I’ve spent as high as $2,750 and as little as
a couple hundred dollars. And just as
sure as I am typing this, if I have not taken a spare along my primary weapon
will break. And just like that, I am out
the money. Now the instructor might be a
really good guy/gal and have a spare – but I don’t consider it fair to expect
that they do – so I bring two of everything.
Patrol Shotgun
So let’s start there.
My primary Patrol Shotgun is a Remington Model 870 Express Tactical pump
action 12ga shotgun. It holds 6 +1
rounds of 2 ¾” or 3”. The shotgun is
typically stored or carried in “patrol ready” meaning 6 rounds in the magazine,
chamber empty and closed, hammer down and safety on. For sights it has a front blade and a rear Ghost
Ring significantly increasing the accuracy at longer distances.
There are a couple other pieces of attached gear that I
believe are important to make your Patrol Shotgun effective.
Side Saddle
The Patrol Shotgun is typically loaded with 6 rounds of
00-Buck Shot which would be 9 round .32 caliber pellets. Additional ammunition is in the form of 6 ea. 7/8
oz rifled slugs and are stored in a Side
Saddle either fed from the top or bottom depending on your personal preference,
method of combat loading and mix of additional buck shot if so desired. The Side Saddle provides you a total of 12
rounds to fix whatever problem is before you and is much more reliable than
just grabbing a “couple extra rounds” out of a stored box and jamming them in
your pocket.
Sling
Let’s start with the purpose of a sling.
Weapon
Retention:
It is a good way to make sure your Patrol Shotgun stays on your body. If you are moving about your house or perhaps
your property it insures that in the even you trip and fall or perhaps the
intruder attempts to wrest your shotgun from you, that it is secured to your
body.
Weapon Transition: Should your Patrol
Shotgun stop working either through running out of ammunition or due to
mechanical failure, it makes for an easy transition by simply using your
support hand to hold it out of the way and then drawing your handgun to
continue the fight. Obviously all of
this is dependent on the situation, what precipitated the engagement, whether
you even have a defensive handgun on your body, but all that aside it allows
you to keep your Patrol Shotgun with you rather than discarding it and moving
on.
Load Distribution: Lastly, these darn things
can get heavy. While you may not notice
the weight during a short encounter, should things drag on and you end up
moving from one point of cover to another, it’s weight will eventually become
an issue. Or, should you take an 8, 16
or 24 hour training course let me assure you that by the end of the day you
know you’re toting around more than a few pounds of steel and lead.
There are two primary variations
of the sling – a 2-point sling and a single point sling. While there are
multiple variations on these two themes, each has primary characteristics.
Two-Point Sling: The sling attaches to two
separate sling-points on your weapon. One is usually near the rear of the stock
and the second somewhere on the fore-grip. My personal preference is the
Vickers padded 2-point sling. It allows for easy adjustment whether I want to
snug my weapon to my body during movement or if I want to extend and engage
with my weapon. The biggest advantage to a 2-point sling is that when both
hands are needed, the weapon can be drawn close to your body so that as your
move your hands are free, yet your weapon doesn't bounce off your thighs and
knees.
Single-Point Sling: A single point sling
attached to a single point on your weapon. This is usually to a ring located
near the junction of the stock and frame. It typically has a “shock cord” feel
so that while you can keep your weapon close to your body, it easily stretches
during engagement without the need for additional adjustments. The biggest
fault I find with a single point sling is the amount of movement of the weapon
when it is released to hang free on your body. If you do this during movement,
you are guaranteed some pretty good-sized bruises by the end of the day. I do
not use a single point, nor do I recommend them.
Another big area
discussion is “How the heck do I wear this darn thing???” Honestly, to me it’s
as clear as day. You want easy access to your secondary weapon system. This is
typically a handgun worn on your dominant hand side – therefore, I want that
arm to have the most movement possible. I wear either of these slings by
putting my head and SUPPORT arm through the hole. This ensures that there are
no obstructions on my dominant side between me and my secondary weapon system.
Sights
Another area of consideration are the sights. The better the sight the more accurate at
distance you will be.
My backup 870 simply has a front bead much like a trap
gun. I lay my cheek on the comb of the
stock where my eye becomes the “rear sight”.
I sight down the top of the barrel and find the front bead. Putting the bead in the center of the threat
I have my sight picture and am ready to press the trigger. This is the least accurate type of sight but
given the typical range of 50 yards or less, it is typically accurate enough to
get the job done.
Next would typically be the Ghost Ring. The rear sight is simply a larger ring that
you look through. You center a front
sight post in the middle of the ring.
Place this on the center of the threat and this becomes your sight
picture. I find this significantly more
accurate and I find target acquisition quick and easy.
Yet another option would be a traditional front blane and
rear notched sight combination. Here
accuracy can increase but, at least for me, target acquisition is slower. This would be the most accurate if you’re
trying to push beyond the typical 50 yard distance.
Finally, there is the holographic sights – the “red dot”. These, once zeroed, are fast and
accurate. However, again given the
distances we are talking, I find that I have no interest in putting one on my
Patrol Shotgun
Flashlight
A weapon mounted light is simply a must. It will simply not work well if you expect to
be able to use a handheld flashlight and still be able to run the gun efficiently. That said, a handheld flashlight is just part
of my EDC kit. I carry a Surefire
G2ZX. The thing I like about it uses a pushbutton on the butt of the flashlight so I don’t have to mess with
switches. And, it has a wrist lanyard so
should I need to “drop it” to help run the gun, all I have to do is to let it
go and do what I have to do. This
flashlight is used to help explore an area and to do a general search. Once I need to transition to run the shotgun
I can simply “drop” it and let it hang from the lanyard on my wrist.
As for the weapon mounted light, It’s tough to beat the
Surefire TR-1 series. I use the TR-1s
with is a 320 lumen light with a strobe feature. It also has a momentary on so I can
illuminate, identify and then quickly go dark and move. It also has a “full-on” should I need it and
a strobe function that can disorient a threat.
All in all, it’s hard to beat this little guy.
So there you go, a basic Patrol Shotgun setup consisting of
the Shotgun, spare ammo carrier, a sling, a sighting system and
flashlight. That’s all you need, keep it
simple.
Ammunition
Let’s take just a bit and roll through some ammunition
choices.
Bird Shot
No, just no. In a
lethal encounter you want something that will stop the threat. While you may get lucky with bird shot –
please, don’t depend on luck. Take your
defense seriously. No bird shot.
That said, bird shot, particularly low recoil trap rounds
are great for practice and learning to run the gun. Perhaps the best way to explain the
manipulation of a shotgun is to say it’s just plain clumsy. It’s heavy, you load it a round at a time,
there may be instances where you need to feed in a single slug round, throw in a
quick round because you ran dry . . . and if you don’t spend some time learning
to run the shotgun properly things may not end well should you need to deploy
it to defend your family.
The course I took in October 2019 went through about a hundred of
the low recoil rounds. We shot against
steel targets and the process worked great.
One thing to keep in mind is that, as with a pistol, you need to spend
range time to keep your proficiency with your weapon. A couple day training course becomes
meaningless after a couple months if you don’t spend the time practicing your
skills on the range – and low recoil birdshot is a great way to do that.
Buckshot
00-Buckshot consists of 9 .32 caliber pellets. The typical range for Buckshot is 15 yards or
less. For most types of buckshot once
you exceed that distance, they spread out enough that they are not very
effective. One exception is Federal’s “Flight
Control” 00-buckshot. While I’ve not used
this myself, it was demonstrated in the coursework and it could keep all 9 pellets
on a steel plate at 40 yards. However,
with increased performance comes increased costs – they are much more expensive
than traditional buckshot.
Slug
The biggest issue with slugs is simple recoil mitigation. They will hammer the crap out of your shoulder. As a result, folks shy away from practicing
with them. If you look at the velocity
of the Winchester rounds, you will notice that it comes in at 1,600 fps. That’s a lot of energy. In looking at different rounds for this
course I found a 3-gun competition round that had about half the recoil while sacrificing
some speed – down to 1300 fps. Honestly,
for a 50 yard or less shot, the lethality of the round would not change in any
significant way while my ability to quickly provide a follow-up shot improved
simply because the recoil was so much lighter.
These will become my standard defensive round though I will continue to
load the magazine with 00-buck shot and the side saddle with the slug rounds.
Range Results
How do these rounds transfer to range performance? This is my qualification target from the
coursework I took. The smaller holes are
a result of the rounds of buckshot I fired.
It was a mixed course of fire requiring combat reloads and conducted
from 15 yards. Each pellet counted as an
individual round.
The large holes were made by the slugs fired from 40 yards
(the max distance we could get on their range).
A qualification score for an instructor was 90%. As you can see the spread of 00-buckshot at
15 yards is well within the outlines of the target. This should give you some idea of how this
type of shot placement would affect a threat.
So there ya have it – my view of a Patrol Shotgun and the
rounds I use to defend myself and my family.
I realize lots of folks have their own opinions – I’m always willing to
listen.
