Why 00 buckshot

Even people unfamiliar with firearms know of it from movies and television. This ammo type, as the name implies, is for hunting deer and large game. In terms of 00 buckshot size, they are.

Due to the stopping power it offers, it's also one of the most widely used types of buckshot ammunition for home defense. With so many buckshot types, it's good to have these shotgun shells explained. Most offer several to many. All the designs aim at offering tight patterns. The shot is usually high antimony lead, meaning it deforms less under pressure in the bore and as constricted traveling through the choke.

The rounder the pellets stay as they leave the muzzle the truer they fly down range. Nearly all modern buckshot loads contain buffering. This is granulated plastic that fills the voids between the large pellets. This also helps reduce deformation of the pellets because it absorbs the energy as the pellets squeeze together passing down the bore and through the choke.

And the best buckshot loads feature specially constructed wads that protect the shot and keep them collected at greater distances headed down range toward their target. One is the excellent Federal Premium Flite Control wad. Finally, manufacturers recognize the stout recoil produced by heavy buckshot loads. So most manufacturers are offering reduced recoil buckshot loads.

And when you start seriously comparing the numbers, most of these will make excellent short-range home defense loads, too! Tags: Dynamic Shooting. Shotgun shells come in a variety of lengths. It is important to note that this length refers to a fired shell where the hull is completely opened at the front and not a loaded shell that is about to be fired.

From a safety perspective, a shooter should not load a longer shell into a shotgun rated for a shorter one. These types of Buckshot shells may increase your capacity in a pump-action or semi-automatic shotgun, but you may sacrifice reliability and effectiveness.

The size of the individual Buckshot pellets increases as the number goes lower. Number 4 Buckshot, for example, measures 0. As these numbers decrease into zeroes or the oughts, the size increases more.

The number of Buckshot pellets found in each shotgun shell varies based on shell length, gauge, the size of the Buckshot pellets, and the manufacturer of the Buckshot ammunition in question. A 3-inch shell most often contains 12 of these same sized pellets. Going to the lowest extreme of Buckshot loads would be the Shotgun loads. An average Buckshot factory load holds a mere 3 pellets while a 4 Buckshot load may have 9 pellets in each round. The combinations and variety vary so much, that it is best to consult the manufacturer of the Buckshot shotgun ammunition in question.

All of this information is also listed on the ammunition boxes themselves. Hyperbole aside, a shotgun is a good supplement to a defensive handgun in the home and for the hunter, a lowly pump shotgun may be the most versatile arm in the gun cabinet. For people who get their first impressions or all of their knowledge, for that matter of a shotgun loaded with Buckshot from the movies they may expect to see targets flying across the range from a single shot or wonder why something so devastating could be used for hunting.

The answer is because those are movies and not always based in reality, especially with regard to shotguns and Buckshot. Depending on the shot size, shell length, and the gauge of the shotgun; Buckshot travels as fast as fps to feet per second. Every box of Buckshot ammunition will have these numbers printed on the box. However, as shot travels downrange, the pellets will lose velocity.

This makes Buckshot an effective, but relatively short-range solution. With all of these factors taken into consideration, the average range of Buckshot fired through a shotgun can be anywhere from 30 to 60 yards.

Fired Buckshot pellets may travel much further than that; however, they lose velocity and energy over distance. For this reason, it is very important for every shotgun shooter to pattern their shotgun to determine at what distance their Buckshot spread begins to lose effectiveness. All shotguns should be patterned for the loads that will primarily be shot from them. This is imperative with Buckshot whether you use your shotgun for hunting or home defense.

Patterning refers to firing your shotgun at known distances to see where the pellets impact the target. Inside your home, that might be from the back of a bedroom, down the hall, through the kitchen to the back door. Pace off that distance and add a couple of yards just to be on the safe side and use that as your maximum distance. Start patterning your buckshot at about five yards, and repeat the process at three to five yard increments until you reach that maximum distance.

That way, you know exactly when that shot starts to spread and how big the pattern is going to be. The key is predictability.

You have to know how your buckshot behaves. And every barrel is a little different, so you have to pattern it in your specific gun. So what kind of pattern do we actually want? Maybe even less than that if possible. For one thing, the terminal ballistics are better when the pellets all impact the same general area at once.

But the main advantage of a small pattern is shot accountability. We are accountable morally, ethically, and legally for every projectile that leaves that barrel. The wider the spread, the greater the chance that even a good center hit is going to result in at least one or two pellets that miss the target and hit something we did not intend to hit.

Tim Chandler , who teaches some excellent shotgun classes, has often pointed out what I think is a perfect illustration of the problem with wider patterns. But the students with wide-patterning buckshot often struggle to keep all of their pellets on the target. Half of them miss the paper completely. A tighter pattern is more forgiving of some small mistakes in your shooting technique. The greater that maximum potential distance is, the more that shot spread becomes a major liability.