Mulling over a home defense shotgun that my wife and daughter can handle. I fear a 12 gauge would scare the living crap out of my daughter. Any here like the 20 gauge for this purpose?

I prefer 12 gauge but I'm sure 20 will work also.
Started hunting as a kid with a 20 gauge shotgun and killed my 1st deer with one. More than enough to stop a person.

As always when the subject of recoil-sensitive people comes up, I recommend the .223/5.56 self-loading rifle. Very low recoil with quick follow up shots, and 20 or 30 rounds at hand.

With the self-loading rifle, there is no danger of an inexperienced and stressed shooter short-stroking a pump shotgun.

The .223 cartridge is terminally effective on humans, yielding something in the neighborhood of 1500 foot-pounds at the muzzle.

Forget the shotgun. Your family will find the .223 self-loading rifle easy to shoot, and perhaps even fun to shoot, and I doubt they would say either of those things about even a 20 gauge shotgun.

I'd have to agree with para on this one. If you think a 12 would be an issue, then a 20 won't be much better. While the 223 does have a lot of boom, there is significantly less recoil. Plus, it won't go through nearly as many walls as most shotgun ammo will.

How old is she? I'm assuming if you think she could handle a shotgun, she can handle an AR-style rifle. You can put a suppressor on it, too!

A semi-auto shotgun in 20 could work. But a pistol caliber carbine or an AR would be better.

She is 18 years old. Thinking about it perhaps I don't need to fit anything to her. She's starting college in the fall so she's just about out of the house. I have 4 12 gauge shotguns, but they are all hunting models with barrels long enough to get the shot half way there. Now the AR pistol caliber option is interesting. I would have never thought of that.

I don't think 9mm AR's or PCC's recoil any less than an AR in 5.56, and you're losing a lot of terminal effect. I'd put a 5.56 first, a shotgun second, and a PCC somewhere in distant third in that regard. It's all tradeoffs, but really, the only major downside I can think of to a 5.56 for home defense is the volume and concussion.

A 9mm carbine is enough and will get the job done. And its MUCH quieter than lighting off a 5.56 indoors.

The Beretta and Ruger carbines can be found for around $600

I started off with a single shot New England Firearms chambered for 20 gauge when I was in my early teens and I never really left it.

I am a 20-gauge person even though I have a Mossberg 500, 590 and Remington 870 all chambered for 12 gauge.
(The other half uses the 12-gauge stagecoach shotgun)

I just never caught the 12-gauge bug, even after all the years in the military and LE.

I always believed that the 20 gauge was easier to handle, and I shot better with it.

I have to agree with other members and state that a pistol caliber carbine would work just fine.

An interesting article that saved from a couple of weeks ago:

https://americanshootingjourna...ed-for-home-defense/

I keep a 12 riot type on each floor of the house (2)

taught the wife, (petite size 2, as in skinny ) to tuck it under her arm and pull trigger, rack and repeat,

works for her,

she can dot your eyes with any of my Hi Powers, , so has some firearms experience, but has a J frame nearby as well,

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
As always when the subject of recoil-sensitive people comes up, I recommend the .223/5.56 self-loading rifle. Very low recoil with quick follow up shots, and 20 or 30 rounds at hand.

Yep. For a recoil-sensitive person, a 5.56 AR is the best option by far.

Much less recoil than a shotgun. Much simpler manual of arms than a shotgun. Much higher capacity than a shotgun. Much faster follow-up shots than a shotgun.

As for pistol caliber carbines, a 5.56 AR doesn't recoil any more than a blowback 9mm AR will, and you're getting the effectiveness of a rifle round instead of just a pistol round. (There's a reason why 5.56 carbines have replaced PCCs and subguns for serious use over the past decade or two...)

Skip the ahotgun. Skip the PCC. Teach her to use a 5.56 AR.


However, if you want to set up one of your hunting shotguns for your own defensive use, Remington Arms has now restarted spare 870 barrel production under their new management post-bankruptcy, and 18.5" barrels for the 870 are easy to find in stock at various online stores again after being a bit scarce for several years due to both the bankruptcy and the pandemic. I recommend AI&P Tactical: https://tacticalgunslings.com/...y-bore-matte-finish/

A couple of things come to mind. These threads remind of a real life tv show about a women in her own home with a revolver. A satellite tv guy who set their system up. comes back weeks later to rape and kill the wife. She shoots all rounds at close range as the attack unfolds and misses all the shots. He rapes and kills her.
Why I mention this is for many reasons. In a situation such as that a women will only get so many shots off. A shotgun with a heavy load could be a great advantage even if only getting off a shot or two.
A woman can handle a shotgun if she is willing to shot it occasionally and be willing to fire it if someone is in the house. A dog is a huge help too.
Pump shotguns are pretty intuitive.
I understand the easy to shot aspect. But a shot or two of 00 buck can be devastating on an impending attacker even if not hit directly.
If she is willing to train to shot a 12ga. In a situation where she would need to protect herself in her own home adrenaline will tame some recoil for anyone.

Practice/training can also include shooting from the hip.

For those recommending an AR platform a friend of mine recommends a .300 Blackout subsonic round recommended for close encounters where over penetration might be an issue. Thoughts?

It's a heavier projectile moving at a lower velocity. Heavier projectiles tend to retain more energy after hitting something. The nice thing about basically any 5.56 load is that the projectiles are moving very fast, but they're light and tend to dump energy very quickly. It's the same problems with shotgun slugs, or even pistol slugs. 9mm and .45 ACP will go through multiple layers of drywall every time in every test I've seen. Really, the only reason to go with a .300 BO over a 5.56 is if you're going to suppress a short gun and use subsonic rounds. If you're not going to do that, in my opinion, you're missing the point of that caliber.

This is just one source, but there are others. The Box 'O Truth articles years ago were great and they did a number of tests. Risk of overpenetration with good loading in this caliber is comparatively minimal. Have a gander and you'll get a feel for the highlights:

https://www.pewpewtactical.com...erpenetration/#toc12

I think people want to think that because the caliber does devastating things to unarmored flesh, that it will zip all the way through your house, your neighbor's house, and kill everyone on your street until it bounces into some concrete or something. Not so much. As JLJones has stated a number of times, you don't want to build your setup around missing, you want to build it around killing someone as quickly and effectively as you can, should you need to. At house distances, the 5.56 unequivocally excels at that, and without the penetration risks of a lot of the traditional and popular home defense choices.


https://www.ammunitiontogo.com...00-blackout-vs-5-56/

https://www.ammunitiontogo.com...blackout-ballistics/


In the second link, you're looking at projectile weights of anywhere from two to four times the weight of M193, and at best, moving 800fps slower out of a 16" barrel at the muzzle. I'm sure some people think that's a great tradeoff, but that's a sliding scale moving in the wrong direction for me. I'd prefer the velocity, fragmentation, and energy dump. Bottom line, I think if you're close enough that you're overpenetrating with any 5.56 loading, you're overpenetrating with everything else, too.

A ‘youth’ type Mossberg ‘Bantem’ comes to mind, basically a Model 500 in 20 ga,. It’s light, short, dirt simple. I’m not referring that women need a dirt simple gun, I could get by with it, just covering bases if necessary.

Of course the other layers as well, though not every home is suited for a German Shepherd.

Depending on the intended user, some level of training is helpful.

If you have an AR or can get your hands on one, you might have your wife and daughter shoulder the AR and the shotgun. Ask each one which gun they'd prefer. I had my wife shoulder my Beretta 1301 and an AR platform rifle and she chose the AR hands down.

Anecdote:
My sister thought for sure she wanted a shotgun for home defense. She wanted a 20 gauge because she didn’t want the recoil of a 12.
She borrowed a 20, and shot it back to back with my old Mossberg 500 in 12. Believe it or not, the 20 was just bad if not worse than the 12. (I shot both as well, I had MUCH rather shoot my Mossberg)
Hear me out: 12s are heavy. 20s are usually lighter…so much lighter that the 20 can actually have worse recoil when shooting a similar load to the 12.

The rest of the story?
She shot one of my ARs after the shotguns.
The recoil was, in her words, almost nothing.
And she hit what she was shooting at even though it was much farther away.
We were “shotgunning” at 25 yards. The AR was shot out to 50 yards.

My .02, YMMV.

quote:

Originally posted by mark60:
If you have an AR or can get your hands on one, you might have your wife and daughter shoulder the AR and the shotgun. Ask each one which gun they'd prefer. I had my wife shoulder my Beretta 1301 and an AR platform rifle and she chose the AR hands down.

Did she shoot both?

A few years ago I bought an M1 Carbine, 30 Carbine of course. Sorry, don’t mean to muddy the thread, short, light, handy, no recoil. It’s like a 10/22 with a little more power.

Speaking of the 10/22, there was an article(yes, always is one) about the widespread usefulness of such a firearm. They included the idea of home defense with one. The point is, in the right hands with the right mindset, a break-action 410 could often be enough.

The easier comparison are the two guys elk hunting, one with the $200, bought used Savage 110 in 30-06, the next with the $4000 custom 300 Weatherby mag. Nothing wrong with appreciation of fine arms, just unlikely to have any bearing on the hunt success.

I use a mossberg maverick in 12 ga for home defense.

I put a big dot front sight on it and a Velcro patch for an ammo card.

I use the 12ga due to my neighborhood and homes construction, if I lived in the county like I used to I’d revert to the AR. I also use #4 buck for the same reasons-it doesn’t go thru as many walls as slugs.

I have done my own testing at the range and found a few 223 HP self defense rounds clogged up with drywall and became ball ammo after the first board of drywall- it was about 1/3 of them. (And not every time). Someone else spoke of the old “Box-o-Truth” videos, you do your own research.

I also know how juries or more so, lawyers are and I’ve seen them make a mountain out of a mole hill with regard to number of shots fired in a SD shooting. So I figure like Chris Baker from Lucky Gun Labs said, “A single round of buckshot to the torso almost always results in an immediate change of behavior.”

I’ve been to a lot of shootings, with every caliber conceivable, I’ve only ever seen one guy walk away from a dose of 12ga. But he had been shot with a load of dove shot from about the distance of his elbow, and into his armpit down into his torso. His x-ray looked like the night sky-but he lived. Had the shooter used buckshot, the victim wouldn’t have made it.

As to manual of arms, I have taught Mrs. Mike and the Tomminator to place the butt of the gun on the wall at a corner, and let the wall take the recoil. They can both fire the gun from the hip, and they both know how to use a pistol.

But don’t toss what everyone else is saying. Take them to the range and let them try both an AR and the shotgun(I had them use the truck bumper to practice the stance I mentioned). Much like asking for a recommendation for what gun for your wife-the choices are unlimited. Let her decide.