Home defense shotgun- breakopen or pump?

[Lord Skeletor]

Wait, What?!

I'm not going to argue the reliability of pump vs semi but if you want something that's going to work when the time comes get a break-action.

Semis WILL CERTAINLY JAM. Pumps WILL CERTAINLY JAM. You know when? According to Murphy, right when you fucking need them the most. You know what CANNOT JAM. A break-action. Granted, I don't have anytime on firing lines but two decades of hunting will teach you a bit about the ol' scattergun.

I can agree with your support of a break-down shotgun. It's most definitely going to work. Well...at least once. Not all break-downs positively eject rounds. Most will just expose 3/8ths to 1/2 an inch of the shell to have to manually strip the rounds out and reload. Manually reloading "a round peg into a round hole" is a *fine* motor skill. Under perfect conditions, it's not too difficult. But when the adrenaline starts pumping, blood pressure rises....our ability to complete fine motor skills degrade quite a bit. Stick with something along the lines of gross motor skills.

Your average break-down gun has several steps---Fire gun, push button to break gun down, remove spent cartridge(s), find and replace with a new cartridge(s), re-assemble gun (smacking it back together), get gun onto target, and firing. That takes a bit of time even under perfect conditions.

Now consider doing this operation in low light (like you would likely have to do in a real-life instance), under life or death stress, finding ammo to put into it and making all the racket of smacking the gun back to together and ejecting rounds. I'm not really sure it's going to be worth it to get into a gunfight with one.

If you're talking about firing once and being done---you'd probably be okay. But I'm unsure if I'd want to get into a gunfight and hope that I can "get it done" with one big blast (or two smaller ones). I'd want an excess of available ammo and a backup weapon. And in a home defense situation, I'm gonna put my hands on the fastest, most destructive weapon that I have available and then work my way down to the slowest and hardest to use. What you're talking about with a breakdown gun sounds like a good holdout or last-ditch gun, I won't argue that. But I wouldn't want to get into a gunfight with one and it be my primary defense gun.

[Snake Plissken]

Aren't home invasions usually done by at least two people? I understand that firing a shotgun indoors will scare the hell out of everyone, but it seems preferable to actually be able to shoot and kill the intruders and have a margin of error (by having more than 2 shots)

Most pump action can hold more then 2 shells and the scatter of the blast might not kill two intruders....hell, it might not even stop two intruders, but it sure as **** will give them a little something to think about.

[Permalost]

Most pump action can hold more then 2 shells and the scatter of the blast might not kill two intruders....hell, it might not even stop two intruders, but it sure as **** will give them a little something to think about.

I was thinking about the breakopen type in my last post.

[Snake Plissken]

I was thinking about the breakopen type in my last post.

Then you need not worry about home invasions, only pesky G-Men comin' to raid your 'shine still.

[fourTwenty]

Seriously, are you guys getting broken in on by more than two people at once?

And again, try getting up from a dead sleep and fire a shotgun indoors. Your second shot will be real accurate, I promise.

[wetware]

Seriously, are you guys getting broken in on by more than two people at once?

And again, try getting up from a dead sleep and fire a shotgun indoors. Your second shot will be real accurate, I promise.

http://www.thegrio.com/top-stories/c...orgia-home.php

Well, there's one burglar team. I bet there's others.

Edit: Also found this while on the same search:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...03/2010_115328
Apparently the Greek judo team is good for home defense, too.

[Neo Sigma]

After reading the whole thread and doing some more research, I also see a lot of love for the Benelli Supernova(including Der and JNP), so that's worth looking further into. I like the location on the Mossberg safety, but I've also read some disturbing things about the plastic safety wearing out on the 500 and 590, so if I go Mossberg, it'll probably be the 590A1 for the metal safety and trigger guard.

I don't think most semi-autos that I looked up are really in the price range we're going for, since they all looked to be over $1000.

[Gezere]

Seriously, are you guys getting broken in on by more than two people at once?

Depending on the area most home invasions are generally two or more people.

And again, try getting up from a dead sleep and fire a shotgun indoors. Your second shot will be real accurate, I promise.

Yeah but you're done after that and you might not be done.

The same reason I can't recommend at break open is the same reason I don't go out with only two rounds in my pistol.

[Joz]

...I like the location on the Mossberg safety, but I've also read some disturbing things about the plastic safety wearing out on the 500 and 590, so if I go Mossberg, it'll probably be the 590A1 for the metal safety and trigger guard....

An easy fix for the safety http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=206508836 Also the Trigger guard is pretty ressilient...

The 590 does have a bigger magazine though...

[BadUglyMagic]

I don't think most semi-autos that I looked up are really in the price range we're going for, since they all looked to be over $1000.

Someonelse mentioned it already, the Saiga 12 with 19" barrel. Around $400 - $600 depending on where and when you buy.



Also, it can be pimped with rails, folding stocks, 20 round magazines , shorty barrels, better gas block.

It has a 20 round drum in the picture.