I've put our buckshot load through a car door and it looked ok, at least on paper. I didn't get to try glass, though, as there was none left in the car by the time we got to use it.

The type of ammunition used makes a big different in 223/5.56 penetration.

I tested Speer 64 grain Gold Dot through windshield glass and the two rounds I fired hit the target on the front seat with no deflection from the point of aim and penetrated on through 10 inches of wet newsprint. One bullet was captured by the duct tape at the rear of the pack, and one blew out the back window. Both M193 and M855 broke up upon striking the glass and penetrated only shallowly into the wet pack.

The Gold Dot also penetrated into the engine of a 1976 pickup better than did the FMJ NATO loads. Gold Dot 62 or 64 grain is what my agency has issued for duty ever since.

Whenever my opinion is solicited, I tell them how little I think of shotguns for law enforcement purposes.

Car doors are simple pieces of sheet steel for the most part with varying substructure. You can shoot a door in two spots a couple inches apart and stop one round and pass another one through. Doors provide very inconsistent ballistic performance but generally don't stop shit.

Glass and pillars (the things that tend to surround the parts of the person you are likely to shoot at) are different stories. The A/B/C/D pillars on any modern car are going to stop everything you throw at them. Laminated glass, which makes up windshields and in more and more cars, side windows, is going to be a challenge for ballistics.

I was surprised to see such poor performance from our slugs against a windshield, but it is a fairly blunt projectile made of soft metal traveling at a relatively low speed. Rifle rounds will vary but bonded (as sigfreund reports) do much better.

My suggestion to anybody making these types of decisions is to get some cars and shoot them. We have generally not had to pay for them and have shot up a bunch at this point. My strong suggestion to LE firearms instructors is to get to a VCQB Instructor class and for all LE officers to get to a VCQB class. It's eye-opening stuff.

Have any LE agencies issued or allowed semi-auto shotguns?

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
Have any LE agencies issued or allowed semi-auto shotguns?

I have no idea about recent history/practice, but following the LAPD SWAT team’s experience during the big shootout with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, they reportedly switched from slide action shotguns to autoloading Remingtons. That was said to be due to the difficulty they had operating the former while lying on the street and trying to use the sidewalk curb as cover. That of course was long before patrol rifles came into common LE use.

MRD? What happened to RDS? At least with the latter I could figger out what each of the letters meant.

quote:

My strong suggestion to LE firearms instructors is to get to a VCQB Instructor class and for all LE officers to get to a VCQB class. It's eye-opening stuff.

Strongly agreed. One of the best classes I've attended. (I've had the class but not specifically the instructor course, but I often assist our certified VCQB instructor with teaching the class.)

We've incorporated an abbreviated VCQB course into our police academy curriculum. Even though we can't fit the full-blown VCQB course into the schedule, it gives the cadets a taste of it, letting them see some live fire on a car to demonstrate stuff like penetration through car doors/body vs. pillars plus windshield deflection, and getting them thinking about and practicing positioning around a vehicle while stacking the pillars.

quote:

Originally posted by monoblok:
MRD? What happened to RDS? At least with the latter I could figger out what each of the letters meant.

MRD = Miniaturized Red Dot (Also often seen as MRDS for *Sight)

RDS = Red Dot Sight

All MRDs are RDS, but not all RDS are MRDs.

MRD/MRDS helps differentiate the smaller handgun red dots (like the RMR/DPP/etc.) from the larger rifle red dots (like the Aimpoints/MRO/etc.).

We actually send our guys to VCQB sessions twice a year since our SWAT unit puts it on.

It's very eye opening. Especially when you're shooting out of the vehicle with 357SIG.

I havent been to a civilian VCQB course(so adding my own grain of salt here), but the highlight reels i see on youtube concern me a bit.

I have no idea who this guy is, so if he is ‘your guy’ Im not trying to pick on him specifically or single him out in any way. I just went to youtube and typed “vcqb” and he was the first one to come up. Assuming this video clip is an honest representation of his curriculum, Id advise against several things I see here. It isnt dissimilar to other clips Ive seen.

https://youtu.be/LOR5sLXLmeo

-Rounds that pass through barriers, cars included, will carry shrapnel at 50-75% of the velocity of the round at time of impact to the barrier, in a cone.

-If you flat top your rifle over a hood, recognize incoming rounds that dont get pulled down into the engine are going to skip up a couple inches and tumble -with shrapnel- into your face. If youre lucky, and the round goes over your head, but shrapnel travels in a cone.

-firing from inside to outside of a car, through a windshield, guarantees no rounds will hit poi until you have punched a hole and removed the angled barrier that changes trajectory. It also ensures you now have safety glass powder in your airway and eyes.

-laying down and firing under a car is temporary positional concealment and nothing more. Rounds will pass down through the car, and cone you with shrapnel and any rounds that happen to pass through. It also increases the likely hood of getting hit if they walk their fire down under the car, since rounds will skip -and carry frag in many cases- under the car and pepper you

Unless a vehicle is uparmored, it is not cover. Get out. Get moving. Get it done. The longer you stay, the stronger your psychological anchoring comes into play attaching you to the vehicle.

If you havent done so before, Id recommend the next time you put a car on the range, put a target behind whatever part of the car you are shooting through at distances varying from right up on it to 10 ft and it will give an idea of what im talking about. Youll see the material carried through and into target, and see that distance is a key component to your survivability around vehicles. Imo its important to consider the type of barrier and manner which you are employing it from the vantage point of not only you the shooter but also as you the target.

Just my $.02

quote:

Originally posted by kiwikurt:

-firing from inside to outside of a car, through a windshield, guarantees no rounds will hit poi until you have punched a hole and removed the angled barrier that changes trajectory. It also ensures you now have safety glass powder in your airway and eyes.

Years back, a neighboring PD had a pursuit and dude crashed and came out shooting. The pursuing officer rammed him and the guy kept shooting so he shot him just fine through his windshield and killed the guy. They were using Glock 22s at that time. Not sure what they're using now.

We went to assist and the guy was DRT with plenty of bullet holes in him. Sometimes you have no choice. During training, we're wearing eyes and ears so it helps. A little.

quote:

Originally posted by Chowser:

quote:

Originally posted by kiwikurt:

-firing from inside to outside of a car, through a windshield, guarantees no rounds will hit poi until you have punched a hole and removed the angled barrier that changes trajectory. It also ensures you now have safety glass powder in your airway and eyes.

Years back, a neighboring PD had a pursuit and dude crashed and came out shooting. The pursuing officer rammed him and the guy kept shooting so he shot him just fine through his windshield and killed the guy. They were using Glock 22s at that time. Not sure what they're using now.

We went to assist and the guy was DRT with plenty of bullet holes in him. Sometimes you have no choice. During training, we're wearing eyes and ears so it helps. A little.

You can use “nearly guarantees” if you prefer. The primary point is that there is a considerable poi shift from poa, that is generally not reliably predictable.

The closer the target is, the less the angle of deflection will affect poi. Subsequent rounds passing through the same space of the compromised barrier will deflect less than previous rounds. I can understand that if an imminent threat is stacked to your vehicle, yes, you may have no choice. I just generally see what seems like disney land with guns more than it is applicable training.

Imo, its better to bet on the data repeatedly found than it is the anecdotal one off, but opinions do vary.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kiwikurt,

Shotgun? What's that?

We took the Remmington 870's out of commission about 15 years ago. Allegedly they are all safe somewhere according to my friends on the range.

We used to have them mounted up front in the squad cars, then Mayor Daley said it looks too scary and mean! So the department left about 5 in each district locked in the radio room. If you were shotgun qualified you could take one out. Then, thru attrition, only the Tact and Gang officers were qualified, then it was fewer and fewer as the years went on.

Circa 2008, Mayor Daley wanted the Olympic Games here in Chicago. There was no way the city would be considered unless the police were better armed, so Jody water-head Wies, the superintendent was able to get the mayor to sign off on starting an AR program for the Dept. The department issued guns are now stock, out of the box S&W and a few Colts sprinkled in. No lights or red dots. Officers can use their personal AR's (manufacturers off of an approved list), and after qualifying and zeroing can use WML's and RDS'. Because it's Illinois- Personal SBR's and Suppressed are verboten.


Because the CPD doesn't have mandated IQ testing, there's a few idiots in the ranks, some of them even rise to the top... There's still some bosses around that think "Hmmm, Guns are bad, M'kay", and want the AR program gone. On the other hand, there's still some good bosses out there. A few years back, they wanted to implement a program where there was an "Incident Car", one per shift in each district. Officers would be trained more on the AR, first aid/LEMART/TCCC, more CQB training, other "specialized" training (as in how to deal with people in mental breakdowns...) and the CPD was going to issue less-lethal Rem 870's with the bean-bag and Tazer rounds. The program gained traction, until one of the anti-gun twats derailed it, it was timed perfectly with the retirement of the Sgt that started the program- (Ronny G).

The Detective Division implemented "heavy-weapons" teams about 10 years ago, and are still in service. I don't remember how many are in each Area, but because of our lackluster manpower, I know it's nowhere near enough. They have (Dept Issue) SBR AR's, and Benelli Shotguns.

SWAT pretty much uses personal AR's, but do have Department SBR's in their inventory.

Everyone else- you can carry a WML on your handgun if you choose. We're in the works for approval and training for the handgun red-dots, they too will be available for the regular officers.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: CPD SIG,

There is no doubt the AR has pretty much taken over as the long gun of choice for patrol work. However, without going into a lot of details, you may have your faith restored in the shotgun after viewing the actual results of a load of buckshot delivered on a human at the distance buckshot is commonly used. Based on that observation, I have opted to keep a shotgun handy. I have a 5.56 rifle as well but used properly, a shotgun still is a viable weapon.

quote:

Originally posted by kiwikurt:
I havent been to a civilian VCQB course(so adding my own grain of salt here), but the highlight reels i see on youtube concern me a bit.

I have no idea who this guy is, so if he is ‘your guy’ Im not trying to pick on him specifically or single him out in any way. I just went to youtube and typed “vcqb” and he was the first one to come up. Assuming this video clip is an honest representation of his curriculum, Id advise against several things I see here. It isnt dissimilar to other clips Ive seen.

https://youtu.be/LOR5sLXLmeo

-Rounds that pass through barriers, cars included, will carry shrapnel at 50-75% of the velocity of the round at time of impact to the barrier, in a cone.

-If you flat top your rifle over a hood, recognize incoming rounds that dont get pulled down into the engine are going to skip up a couple inches and tumble -with shrapnel- into your face. If youre lucky, and the round goes over your head, but shrapnel travels in a cone.

-firing from inside to outside of a car, through a windshield, guarantees no rounds will hit poi until you have punched a hole and removed the angled barrier that changes trajectory. It also ensures you now have safety glass powder in your airway and eyes.

-laying down and firing under a car is temporary positional concealment and nothing more. Rounds will pass down through the car, and cone you with shrapnel and any rounds that happen to pass through. It also increases the likely hood of getting hit if they walk their fire down under the car, since rounds will skip -and carry frag in many cases- under the car and pepper you

Unless a vehicle is uparmored, it is not cover. Get out. Get moving. Get it done. The longer you stay, the stronger your psychological anchoring comes into play attaching you to the vehicle.

If you havent done so before, Id recommend the next time you put a car on the range, put a target behind whatever part of the car you are shooting through at distances varying from right up on it to 10 ft and it will give an idea of what im talking about. Youll see the material carried through and into target, and see that distance is a key component to your survivability around vehicles. Imo its important to consider the type of barrier and manner which you are employing it from the vantage point of not only you the shooter but also as you the target.

Just my $.02

Yes, Will is the guy and frankly, you're wrong about most of what you're talking about. This curriculum is in use by the FBI, USMS, DSS, RCMP, multiple state agencies, and countless city and county agencies (including large outfits like the NYPD and Dallas PD), so it is extremely well researched. Many of the things you are saying are directly controverted by the research and data. Many of the things you are saying are likely assumption.

Cars exist in predictable places and orientations in the world. Gunfights have a tendency to happen around cars. Law enforcement gunfights run about 60% in or around vehicles.

Traditional law enforcement "training" on getting in a gunfight around a car is that you're only safe behind the engine block and the wheels and brake rotors. This is inaccurate to begin with and it doesn't solve the problem of what to do when your gunfight happens in or around a car.

So we're left having to come up with ways to most efficiently use the car. Thoughts regarding your comments:

-Rounds that pass through barriers, cars included, will carry shrapnel at 50-75% of the velocity of the round at time of impact to the barrier, in a cone.

The pillar structure of the car is going to stop everything at Level IV if you can get two pillars lined up. I have fired everything up to .30-06 into pillars and have NEVER had a pass-through. In one class I attended, we put 105 rounds of 5.56 ball into one spot on the B pillar of a 2006 Buick until we got a round to go through and strike a target on the other side.

The metal body of the car is mild steel or aluminum and does not spall. It is possible and even likely that rounds may fragment but they generally are not going to exit the car. I will take a severely impaired round over a full velocity one any day.

-If you flat top your rifle over a hood, recognize incoming rounds that dont get pulled down into the engine are going to skip up a couple inches and tumble -with shrapnel- into your face. If youre lucky, and the round goes over your head, but shrapnel travels in a cone.

If you're running the gun rested on the hood of the car, you're probably already injured. You're also as low to the car as you can get there. You have to conform to cover - it never conforms to you. Rounds impacting the actual surfaces of the vehicle do not tend to skip...they tend to enter. Yes, it's possible to skip one, yes, it's a day ruiner, but versus not shooting back?

-firing from inside to outside of a car, through a windshield, guarantees no rounds will hit poi until you have punched a hole and removed the angled barrier that changes trajectory. It also ensures you now have safety glass powder in your airway and eyes.

Part of the VCQB curriculum and covered in depth. Gunfights that start with you seated in the car are over in an average of 5 seconds. If you have 5 seconds to win or lose, you need to fight from where you find yourself. Yes, you need to port the windshield and yes, it's going to be a mess. That same windshield you have to port is going to negatively effect his bullets, too. If you can shoot yours at close distance and make a hole, you're probably getting through first.

That angled barrier that changes trajectory in the car is actually not very good for you in the car...rounds tend to deviate down and in when coming outside to inside because they follow the rake and curve of the windshield.

-laying down and firing under a car is temporary positional concealment and nothing more. Rounds will pass down through the car, and cone you with shrapnel and any rounds that happen to pass through. It also increases the likely hood of getting hit if they walk their fire down under the car, since rounds will skip -and carry frag in many cases- under the car and pepper you

What if you fall? What if you're injured? Watch some video. Guys tend to end up on the ground. Shooting on the ground is covered extensively in the curriculum primarily because of the likelihood that you will end up on the ground at some point.

Look at the video of the Las Cruces PD shooting from earlier this year for shining examples of some of these things. That officer was dead set that he was going to be out of the car and have the drop on the suspect. By the time the officer had two feet on the ground, the suspect was at the rear of his truck shooting the officer. The officer went to the ground, tried to get sights on the guy from under the car and then transitioned up and finished it.

Unless a vehicle is uparmored, it is not cover. Get out. Get moving. Get it done. The longer you stay, the stronger your psychological anchoring comes into play attaching you to the vehicle.

If the fight starts and you're in the car, you do not have time to get out. You probably do not have time to drive away. You need to be on the gun. If you're a cop, you don't get the luxury of "getting off the X", you are the X. And get out and move where? Around the other cars in the parking lot? Into the ditch? In the lanes of traffic? These are extremely high intensity, short duration, close-quarters engagements. There are literally dozens of videos of gunfights occurring in and around cars out there...have you ever seen one where the opportunity to "get moving" existed?

Cars absolutely do not behave the way that you expect them to when they are subjected to gunfire. And they offer substantially more ballistic protection than you would expect. We don't end up with the world's finest or most modern autos when we do this (I had an early 2000s Honda Pilot recently that was about as nice of a car as we get) and they all perform very predictably. You're not going to get a 2004 Chevrolet Cavalier to stop 200 rounds of 7.62x39, but you have to be realistic about the context of the fight.

Thanks for that clear-eyed commentary, DaBigBR.

One of the things that has become so obvious to me in following what the pundits and pontificators have to tell us about almost anything is that the vast majority are first and foremost concerned about having the rest of us pay attention to them. And the best way to accomplish that is usually to make what they have to tell us be as dramatic as possible. If anyone is warning us about the dangers of anything, they’re going to accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive to capture and hold our interest.

That’s where things like the nonsensical “handguns are poor defensive weapons” come from, and such stupidity wouldn’t matter except that the naïve and ignorant may believe it and lose confidence in their weaponry: Rather than the attitude of, “I will win this!” it’s, “Oh, my god; oh, my god; I’m going to die because all I have is a pistol and I can’t get to my shotgun!”

quote:

I will take a severely impaired round over a full velocity one any day.

Defensive tactics instructors should ensure their students understand the difference between cover and concealment, but that is the sort of thing that should be recognized and taught as well. Perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of good enough or better than doing nothing.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
There is no doubt the AR has pretty much taken over as the long gun of choice for patrol work. However, without going into a lot of details, you may have your faith restored in the shotgun after viewing the actual results of a load of buckshot delivered on a human at the distance buckshot is commonly used. Based on that observation, I have opted to keep a shotgun handy. I have a 5.56 rifle as well but used properly, a shotgun still is a viable weapon.

Probably the truest thing said about LE and the use of Shotguns!

Extremely versatile weapon if used correctly. But KNOWING how to use one correctly takes a lot more time and rounds down range than instruction on an AR.

Seems like now a days, there's WAY MORE AR instructors than shotgun instructors, and the really compentent are fewer than that. Then Departments seem to be in the thought process of "you have a machine gun, why do you need a shotgun?" (Exact quote from the head of CPD's Training. Obviously knows nothing about weapons at all) Taking time to learn how 0, 00, 000, 4, 8 shot spreads out, how far and how much drop a slug has, is exactly that- TIME. Even on the "less-lethal" side, bean bag rounds, rubber buck shot, launching tear gas, Tazer rounds... Takes time, money, and an officer off the street for an extended period of time.

AR platform? Give it a week and a few hundred rounds for a basic course, and you have an officer whose comfortable and compentent with an AR. Shotgun is going to take a lot longer than a week.

At our police academy, cadets are given what amounts to a half-day familiarization course with the shotgun, with some basic instruction and dry fire manipulation and then a couple bouts of live fire with various loading sequences. And that's the extent of experience that most of them will ever have with it. Most agencies around here no longer issue patrol shotguns. (Even those that do no longer offer any sort of in-depth intensive/extended training classes for them to my knowledge.)

Everything is ARs nowadays. Cadets get a similar half-day to full day familiarization in the academy with those, and then most of their agencies will put them through a 4-5 day patrol rifle course before they actually start carrying a rifle on duty.

I've taken many shotgun classes and a few truisms come from them.

1. A shotgun is the hardest small arm to use. It takes a lot of constant motion to use it properly and effectively.

2. No AR based firearm is as versatile as a shotgun.

3. You have to be committed to the shotgun platform and train a lot to be proficient. There's no way around it except to train and train. That can be said for any weapon however the shotgun, by virtue of the constant motion of the non-firing hand, is something you must train with all the time.

4. A shotgun with full load slugs or buckshot will find the weakness in your shooting skill and it will also find any weakness in your shotgun itself.

5. It's far less expensive to buy a tricked out shotgun than an AR but you don't need all that stuff to be a very good shotgun shooter. A light, extended mag, properly fitting stock and lots of training.


On a side note, I drug out my 25 year old police trade in 870P and was shooting next to a guy with a fulled decked out Vang. The full package on the Vang. Looked pretty. $225 v. $1,600.

Less than 50 rounds into a course of fire and his front sight flew off. The base prep wasn't right or the silver solder didn't hold and it went airborne.

The guy had no skill but he had a nice shotgun although he was really torqued that his shotgun broke. The instructors and myself told him to stay and work through the issue and continue to make due since it's good training. Nope. He picked up his sight and went home.

The shotgun is a formidable weapon in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.

I gotta say for a topic that veered of course this has been interesting reading. Thanks all for that.