I put this here since its not ammo for your S&W.
I learned that 00 buck has quite a spread at 30yds, even out of a 26" cyl bore.
You'll be lucky to hit a gallon paint can at 30yds.
It will be close, and a B2 target will take some hits, but using #1 buck will insure several hits.
In a home, 00buck is devastating. At 30 yds. Not as much. #1 buck will be devastating at in home ranges also plus almost double the
hits at 30 yds.
It's 9 .33cal pellets with a 2 3/4" 00 buck vs. 16 .24cal #1 buck 2 3/4".
More energy with the 00, but more hits with the #1 buck.
When ranges are 25/30 yds. what do you prefer?

OO buck isn't for range,you want that go get some slugs,they do have some...."flite control" I think it's called that the law folks are raging over,I've heard it kinda sucks at rage which I'd expect since those pellets are small.

Which I think you should also look at:how do those pellets do penetration wise? I'd be leery past twenty yards.

Oh yea,if you insist on a dual use round look for the "buck and ball" load they've made some the last few years,it's a few 00 pellets and big'ol .69 cal ball.

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Life's a grave,dig it!

Buck shot of any sort is highly overrated in my opinion

Sure, it will work in a home, but so will a light load of 7 1/2 shot. Anyone who doubts this hasn't shot many critters with a shotgun.

At longer ranges (25-35 yards) almost any pistol is better.

Sure, you may get a few hits at that range, but you're throwing a lot of buckshot that won't come close to your target. What hits you get have little retained energy, little retained velocity and won't penetrate enough to be reliable.

Sure, you'll punch holes in a paper target, but so what?

Just stop,that's bad info to be slinging as truth any birdshot is a bad idea for defense but if I had to got-no-choice type of thing I'd use a turkey load #4 shot high base at close range.

People have caught birdshot to the face and lived,in fact some people have tried suicide with it and lived....well not much to live for but they're alive.

Still the #4 might not work or it may knock them right over,buckshot is cheap enough to not have some it's stupid.

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Life's a grave,dig it!

I prefer #4 buckshot in a short barreled riot gun for home protection (with a back-up M&P 45 with a bottom rail light) and "OO" buck shot for deer hunting in brushy areas and at close range (50 yards and under.) Past 50 yards. I use a scoped rifle.

This^
#4 buck puts 25 or so .22 caliber sized balls in the air at 1500FPS. Thru an improved cylinder choke is my SD/HD preference.

Charlie, 50 yds. Is not close range for buckshot of any size.
That's about twice the effective range of buck shot.
I'll edit that to say if hit. Which is questionable beyond 30yds.

"Buckshot is not the stopper most people think it is"

-Jim Cirillo

And if anybody would know, it's him.

Frankly, I think shotguns are highly overrated for the purposes of defending one's abode from human attackers. I would much rather choose something with less recoil, faster follow up shots, and greater magazine capacity with less of a reload time than a shotgun, i.e. an AR-15 or even an M1 carbine. As for overpenetration of buckshot vs carbine rounds, you might want to look up the ballistics tests on that. Turns out, buckshot penetrates farther than high-velocity carbine rounds.

There is a reason why Law Enforcement and the military are moving away from shotguns and towards carbines. They are fantastic hunting guns, and always will be, but for defense? Sorry, there are better options today and their have been for about 75 years now.

Apparently not many here have had significant experience with buckshot. I have used it for over 40 years dog hunting for deer here in the south.......Tight patterns can routinely be achieved with the right choke combination at 40/50 yards.....And at that distance a 00B can break bones and shoot clean through a deer(about the same thickness of a human).......Try it and you will see.

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S&W Accumulator

No. 4 Buck is your optimum load, period...I learned that hunting leopard in Zimbabwe.

My choice for close range is a 12 gauge with #4 Buckshot Up to 25 yards it will do the job.

Once again a few factors-if a person isn't willing to actually use a weapon right then anything can suck.

If you're talking about getting in a serious fight with a number of enemies then yea you'd be better off with a Amalite,AK,M1 carbine et cetera.
But if it's a general use thing and it's most likely you and maybe two idiots trying to rob your house then I fail to see how a load of OO buck at close range is not gonna have an effect on the bad guys.

Even with several opponents a few quick shots would do a lot of harm.

And I don't get the reload thing,if you HAVE to reload best to drop it and get you handgun out and finish business.....

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Life's a grave,dig it!

My preferred for close range or up to 30 is 15 rounds of 9mm.
A shotgun in the house in the dead of night? Good luck with that! Deaf and Blind.

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Still Running Against the Wind

Maybe, but deaf blind and dead will usually be the outcome for a BG confronted with a 12 ga. Within the home.
A 9mm? Maybe, maybe not.

First off I live in the peoples republic of NY and to be legal have some interesting regulations to follow.

Second I live in a very rural area, assuming my LL still works LEO help could easily be 20 or more minuets. (no cell service in my area)

Third Bears and other critters ( some with rabies) could have to be dealt with!

For those reason my primary gun is a Mossie 12G 20'' 9 shot loaded to fire 5 rounds of 00 buck with 4 slugs to follow. There is a bandoleer with 40 more rounds (both 00 and slugs) next to gun. I also have in the safe a couple more 12Gauges (one a short barrel coach gun) and that ammo could be used in them if needed.

Its only the wife and I and we have no close neighbors to worry about over penetration. When those two jail birds busted out of a upstate prison last year I also had my Mini 14 handy. My carry gun is always close by. The wife will have it!


FWIW!
Many years back we had a very dangerous person (Robert Garrow) running around and was taken down by a 12G buck load at about a 100 yards. Shot was fired by a conservation officer! Yes it had a bit of luck to it but it stopped him and allowed him to be captured. If that was fired at 50 yard or less best bet he would have taken a few more balls.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

With luck, as you said. I'd prefer not to rely on luck

You do have to keep in mind what's beyond the target with any weapon,for me I'm out in the middle of nowhere WV and the closest house is a good three or so hundred yards,plus we have trees up ze butt so~most buckshot I don't worry about.

A slug? I'd have to be careful.

Right now all I have is the 9mm but I want another 12ga.

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Life's a grave,dig it!

One of our resident experts, Mr. Ayoob, has recommended #1 buck in several articles and posts I have read. I think the GA. State Patrol did a study a few years ago and found that #1 buck filled the pattern better, didn't penetrate walls like 00 Buck did, and was generally more effective.

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Why duck?? It's a 9mm!

Back in the day, I experimented firing 12 ga. 00 Buck from 25 yards at the range to show my fellow officers the effectivness of the 870 IC pumps we carried in our patrol vehicles. While the qualification course of fire was done at 15 yards, with most pellets striking inside the center mass 4 and 5 rings of a TransStar human outline target, at 25 yards, the pattern opened up to cover most of the full body of the target. I would expect #1 buck would provide even more hits. YMMV. For duty carry, we alternated 00 and slugs because of the ability of slugs to penetrate glass and metal. Considering the fact that some BGs wear body armor, a pellet spread makes stopping them with a head shot a lot more feasible than attempting to do so with a handgun. IMO, a shotgun is a versatile defensive firearm.

No for the shooter, try inside a closed room at 2AM

My thoughts at SD range with a shotgun does it matter if it is 00 or #4 ???
At 30 yards why are you shooting the person anyway?

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Still Running Against the Wind

That, friends, is the question. Or it is if we are talking about defensive shooting.

Unless an attacker is shooting at you from thirty yards away with fire accurate enough to pose imminent danger to your bacon, you'd better not be shooting at him at that range.

I figure the odds against such a situation for most of us who aren't in law enforcement or the military are enormous.

I have a an old twelve gauge side-by-side with twenty-inch cylinder-bore barrels and some #4 buck. They stay in a closet, and my apartment-defense guns are a couple of .38 Specials.

The buckshot is there if things get incredibly hairy in my parking lot. I'm not holding my breath.

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Oh well, what the hell.

Keep some #3 in a 18.5 20 ga. 870.
I figure 20 some .25 pellets @ 11-1200 fps adequate for my needs.

I looked on the internet to see if anyone did some analysis of shotgun patterns at close range. Here is a link to one article and a picture from the article (range was 12 feet / across the room type distance). Some were reduced recoil loads. All were 00 Buck:
The Box O' Truth #20 - Buckshot Patterns - The Box O' Truth



He did another article about 00 buck, shooting at ranges of 3 yards, 5 yards, 7 yards, ... Here is a link to that one:
The Box O' Truth #42 - Precision Shooting With Buckshot - The Box O' Truth

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You're shy a few manners.

My shotgun load is high brass #5,6,and7's turkey loads with heavy shot. When I can find them it's federal heavy weight #7's. They penetrate like lead 4's. I don't believe a man can handle a load of those in the chest at 7-10 yards


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

00

Oh. That's not 10 characters.

Bird shot for birds.
00 for deer and bad guys.
#1 buck good for smaller critters, like coyotes. Not humans.

Bird shot and #1 buck don't provide enough penetration for deer and humans.

Another vote for #4 buck.

I only have 40 linear feet of range to any home defense shot, so that's all I've practiced with. I use Federal Flitecontrol shotgun ammo, which makes a single hole in a paper target at that distance. This video shows these tight groups are maintained at the distance you are interested in.

I use an old box of Winchester double xx magnums with #2 lead shot... no good for geese anymore... but since I can't shoot more than 25 feet anywhere in my house it should work great...

In 1968 there was a riot in the Ohio pen. The 110 year old 14 foot thick wall had a 10 foot hole blown through it so two assault teams could enter. Leading one of the teams was Columbus PD Sargent Larry Mead. The Ohio State Highway Patrol was supplying any weapon you wanted to carry. Among the choices were Thompson Machine guns with 50 and 30 round mags, M-2 carbines with 30 round mags and a wide assortment of 12 gauge shotguns. Larry chose a Stevens pump because it has no disconnector and you can hold the trigger and it will fire every time you slam the bolt shut. For ammo he chose #4 buck loose in a shell bag hanging at his side. With reloading as you go, he could sustain a wall of lead that the Thompsons could never keep up with past the first 45 seconds.

In trials at the police range they separately proved, with cylinder choke, 00 buck would not increase pattern size any larger that ONE inch per yard from the muzzle (30 yards-30") and could be held much tighter with various tight choked barrels. Smaller shot will have larger patterns at the same distance /choke ratio. You can control what your pattern will be with choke and shot size (and velocity plays a role also- faster spreads more!)

Small game and trap shooters have been balancing this act for over 100 years! Mostly what you need to do is, quit boasting on the internet and get some in the woods and field experience. Listening to most of you, I have come to expect your neighbors will die when you get scared! Pistols , rifles, and shotguns shoot through walls, even concrete block walls. 2x4 and aluminum siding are little protection from a 32 acp at 900 fps, let alone a 30 caliber shotgun pellet at 1400 fps. WE are responsible for every single projectile that leaves a firearm we fire! Learn how to use it correctly!

The funny thing is, in old houses (built before WWII) the wood lath and plaster walls were very good a deflecting shot fired down halls and stair case and the hard wood 2x4's stopped non magnum pistol rounds if they hit the stud. But at "in house" ranges few walls beside solid brick and stone ( and MAYBE concrete block) will stop even light loads from many firearms at right angles to the wall. I shot up a number of old farm houses (with permission, before they were burned down) learning what my house would withstand. The owners and deputies were always surprised what they would and would not stop! The most important lesson is; DRYWALL STOPS NOTHING! even from any angle!

Pontificating rant over. Ivan

I've read about those flight control loads. Pretty impressive. It compresses a load pretty effectively.

Umm...I'm returning fire since he presents a threat to me and my loved ones? If I'm taking rounds from him and I have a clear field of fire, you bet your butt I'll do my best to take him out. I don't live in an apartment complex, subdivision, or condo. Thirty yards means you're still on my lawn. The SO response time will average 10 minutes or more. A lot of bad can happen in that amount of time. My job is to put the bad on the BGs until the threat is gone and backup arrives.

Any long gun is inappropriate in my current home. However when I lived in places where a shotgun was a useful tool, I kept mine loaded with #4 buck.

You got me curious about the mechanics that make the Flitecontrol shell different.

From Federal's website:


Q) Explain the main differences between the FLITECONTROL wad and a conventional wad.

A) "In a conventional wad, as soon as the wad leaves the barrel, it has petals that open up in the front and dispense the shot into a cloud so that the shot isn't protected in any way. With the FLITECONTROL wad, as soon as it exits the barrel, the shot is kept inside the wad. There are no slits in the shot cup portion and the shot is contained in the wad for an extended period of time, say anywhere up to 10 yards, depending on the configuration of the wad. What happens is the slitting in the overpowder [rear] section opens up and starts slowing the wad down. Instead of releasing the shot in a cloud, it starts slowly backing away from the tight shot string sitting inside the wad, and releases the shot that way. The biggest difference is that the FC wad is a rear-braking wad that pulls itself off the shot and conventional wads kind of "throw" the shot out there. This is how we get such tight patterns."

I have a Taurus Judge Magnum that I keep loaded with 410 #4 buck for the first round, then I up the ante with 00 buck, then 000 buck, then .45 long colt cowboy load of 250 gn, then a Hornady 225 gr FTX hollow point. That assumes I can get off all 5 shots. If I need more, I do keep my 40S&W loaded with hollow points. Think that will discourage even the most determined bad guy!

Doing my own tests with my own shotgun, at 15 yards (which I feel is probably greater than the maximum distance I would take a shot inside a home - At any longer distance, I'd feel safer using a slug), I settled on #4B as having a somewhat more uniform pellet pattern distribution than 00B. May not be true with any other shotgun. At one time, I checked patterning using several shotguns - large differences in patterning seen, even with open choked barrels.

Since I live in a rural area I don't have any close neighbors to worry
about hitting so I could use anything I wanted if someone was
kicking in my door. I keep various guns loaded including an 870 Rem
although it might or might not be the gun I would grab first. 00 buck is
my load of choice but there are far better options than the cheap soft
9 pellet loads sold at the big box stores. Like Winchester Supreme,
Double X Magnum 2 3/4" Copperplated buffered shot 00 Buck 12
pellets. Yep 12 copperplated buffered 00 pellets. As mentioned above
patterns are likely to be tighter than the typical 9 soft pellets. At
typical home defense range, feet rather than yards, these loads
should take out Godzilla if well placed. Maybe not the absolute best
choice for HD but my 870 with these loads sure does provide a
feeling of being well protected.

I always thought that the maximum effective range for OO buck was 20-25 yards, and for most loads that's true. But my experience with the Federal Tactical ammo with the Flite Control wad is similar to the above. The stuff is incredible. I've never seen a buckshot load that comes close to the patterns this stuff throws. I would say its effective range is at least double that of anything else I've used.

My old department used #4 buck in our 870's, the old tech 27 pellet load. We shot a number of people with it, mostly at 25 yards or so, and none of them were terribly bothered by it. The #4 buck is fairly small and looses velocity quickly and in our open choked shotguns, we would be lucky to hit a person with more than 1 or 2 pellets much past 25 yards. Plus, the shotgun is long and clumsy in a house.

Most police departments in the U.S. use .223 carbines instead of shotguns now, and if they use shotguns, it is for specialty rounds, like breeching or gas.

Very interesting video. Thanks for taking the time to post it (and make it?)

Amazing how tight the pattern stays. I am assuming that the shotgun's choke has little or no effect on these patterns(?) That is, the special wad is a sort of "flying choke" (?)

For a hunting situation, I would be concerned that the pattern is just too tight. But I've never hunted (to speak of) with buckshot.

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You're shy a few manners.

That sounds fascinating. Can you elaborate?

I know that white hunters often relied on shotguns with British SSG sized buck. What does that equate to in US buck size?

Did you muff a shot with a rifle, to have to deal with a wounded leopard with a shotgun, in follow-up?

Well,a deer is a much tougher animal than a human being and I have taken dozens of deer,both running and stationary,with 3" #1 buckshot. One particularly memorable shot was an instant,dead-as-a wedge kill at over 100 yards. A single pellet to the brain pan on a running 130 pound doe. Lucky shot? Hell yeah,but definitely effective!
f.t.

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South Carolina-God's country

A 100 yd. shot at a running deer with #1 buckshot?
Not only were you lucky, so was the deer. Wow

I like the ammo mentioned above. I also like #4.
Back before Benelli came out with their semi-auto...
(likely we could not afford them) we would buy
a used Remington 1100. Have the Smith
Cut the barrel, parkerize and add rifle sights.
Made a neat little scattergun. This still rides with me
most places.

Your welcome. I did not make it, just Google searched for a video that matched the OP question.
Your categorization of that technology as a "flying choke" seems to agree with the manufacturers own description of the technology.

As for hunting, Federal states that Turkey hunting was one of the initial purposes this technology was developed for.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the work of Hans Vang. His company provided modified Remington 870s a few years back to Customs (iirc) and some other federal agencies.

I fired one of his 870s on an indoor range at 25 yards with 00 buck and you could cover the group with a paper plate. Needless to say, a Vang shotgun is now my go-to HD weapon.

I'm not sure if he still sells completed guns or whether he now only performs the modifications to customer-owned guns.

Here is a video explaining the modifications and their benefits.

https://vangcomp.com/portfolio-item/demo-sierra-farm/

During the Vietnam era the army created some "duck bill' shotgun barrels.....Flat on the top & bottom and round on the sides......To promote horizontal dispersion of buckshot......Shotguns with buckshot were used by the Allies in WW1.......Germans hated them so much it was rumored that they executed anyone caught with one......Can you imagine the casualties by opening up down a trench with a Winchester mdl. 12 or 97 stuffed full of 00B?

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S&W Accumulator

When the gun worked the way it should of it was devastating.

They figure out after a while to use brass shells as the other kinds got wet and jammed up the gun many times.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

I always enjoy buckshot threads. I live out west where shotguns are close to useless for any big game hunting, so I have zero experience to draw from. Ok, that was a lie, I have shot one skinny coyote with #4 buckshot, and an even skinnier yote with #8 shot. Both experiences left me wanting. The #15 pound little female I shot at with the #4 buckshot was shot at 12 yards. Four of the pellets failed to exit on a broadside lung shot. The even skinnier desert dog was shot at a range of 3 feet, straight down on top of the head with #8 shot from a 20 gauge. When skinning it out I found all the shot had failed to penetrate the skull and was found wadded up under the skin. What actually killed the yote I do not know as no pellet penetrated the to the brain. My guess is the wad did more damage. The worldwide hunter, Craig Boddington, shot a leopard, twice in the head with a 12 gauge using 00 buck, and actually watched both loads bounce off its skull. Then others have had excellent results with big shot. The only person I know that was shot with birdshot, was a kid that went to our high school. He was shot point blank, in the chest, with a 410. He had a nasty looking scar to show all the girls in school.

Having seen one dead body some years ago (due to the victim taking a load of birdshot to the chest from a 12 gauge, shot size unknown), I can state from personal observation that it was a very messy wound - looked like hamburger. Nothing bounced off nor did the target survive. I think he died instantly. I don't remember the distance, but not very far, maybe a few yards. I wasn't involved, just a witness.

Thank you for some first hand experience. The unknown shot size is the fly in the ointment. The shot size of the kid shot by the 410 is not known. What is known is, he was dove hunting, so logical assumption is smaller shot but no way of tell for sure. I lost a classmate when he was 13 years old by a blast from either 1 or 2 barrels of a 12 gauge at inches distance. He was duck hunting, assuming larger shot but not sure, when he pulled the old double barrel from the Jeep, muzzle first and either one or both hammers snagged on the seat and discharged into his stomach. Tragic loss due to poor gun handling. Tom lived for 5 minutes or so but died with my future brother-in-laws Jean jacket shoved into the hole to slow the bleeding. An ambulance driver told of 2 different clients of his that had received a shotgun blasts to the chests. He said neither showed real signs of distress, and one was sitting up smoking a cigarette when he arrived. With no details as to distance, and shot size, nothing accurate can be gleamed from his tales. Just interesting stories.