pistol grip shotgun wanted

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Hi I am interested and getting a shotgun to add to my home defense gear. I am on the smaller side at five foot seven and 150 pounds so I'm looking towards a 20 gauge. I was wondering if a pistol grip would be a feasible choice or if the recoil would be too much of a problem. Thanks
 
A reduced recoil 12 gauge load should have less felt recoil if you can handle guns length to your body.

20 gauge shotguns are lighter so there's less mass to absorb the recoil. The round itself maybe have less recoil but you'll feel it just as much.

I would prefer reduced recoil 12 gauge buck. The defensive ammo choices for 12 gauge are much greater.
 
The pistol grip and recoil are unrelated.

Shoot a 20ga and see how you feel about it. If it's manageable, buy one.

If you want a pistol grip, buy one from a retailer that accepts returns. Try it out. Return it if you prefer the original stock.

Lower-recoil buckshot and slugs are also available.
 
you don't want a shotgun with just a pistol grip. (see youtube video linked below) You can't really aim with just a pistol grip and contrary to what people say you still need to aim a shotgun. On my Remington 870 I replaced the factory stock with an adjustable tactical style. I can extend it out for me 5'10" or adjust it in for my wife 5'1" in about 2 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPIO61FoAkI
 
If the police and military don't use them you should consider following their example.

I have a double barrel coach gun for my wife because she's not quite 5' tall. She handles it very well. It think accuracy and speed with the first shot is very important. The weapon you use must be very easy to use. You must practice until you get everything right. The next stage is to practice until you can't get it wrong.
 
A Mossy 500 or a Remmy 870 with a short barrel in 20 or 12, I have a 12. You don't need a pistol grip, as others have noted.
 
Don't listen to these guys. You need a pistol grip shotgun and back holster for it too. That way you can sling that puppy over your shoulder, after a few twirls and all the bad guys are running. Check Apocalypse.com. That's where I got spike hub caps for my car at.
 
Originally Posted By: FirstNissan
Hi I am interested and getting a shotgun to add to my home defense gear. I am on the smaller side at five foot seven and 150 pounds so I'm looking towards a 20 gauge. I was wondering if a pistol grip would be a feasible choice or if the recoil would be too much of a problem. Thanks

Home defense as in the house? I would recommend a .410 with 00Buckshot. Powerful light to blind the intruder. 20 Gauge gonna kick if your recoil sensitive (that's OK)......410 will/does make a mess out of flesh. 2 legged or 4. Look at Mossbergs. They are easily converted from a stock to a pistol grip and lots of light attachments available. Get the gun your comfortable with. Dont get caught up in what others feel comfortable with.
 
Get a Mossberg Maverick 88 12 ga for
Get some 3" Magnum 00buck loads too....thats 15 .30 cal pellets hitting the perp. Basically one shot per customer. Guaranteed it hurts the shootee more than the shooter.......
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Have you ever shot skeet, trap, or sporting clays? Try some shotgun games then decide.
 
I have owned a pistol grip 12ga. Trust me when I say get a full stocked 18" barrel. You can thank me later. Doog has the right idea.
 
If you want low recoil use a low brass (the actual amount that the brass comes up the side of the shell) load. Not a magnum that has high brass. For home defense, you want a double ott 00 buck shot, but if you can't find it in a low brass use a low brass in the lowest number shot size you can find such as #2, not a high number like 7.

A semi-automatic will have enough weight that it will kick less, especially compared something lite weight like a single shot. Most semi-automatics will hold 5 shells.

Years ago a friend of mine bought a single shot 12 gauge 3-inch magnum and a box of three-inch magnum shells for home defense. He went out with us to a shooting range, and that [censored] thing kicked like a mule. Later, he showed his wife how to use that gun for home defense but he never let her fire it. He said if she ever fired that thing once, she would never fire it again. That gun was the exact wrong combination, lite weight, and magnum shells.

If you do go with a 12 Ga. you can fire 2 and 3/4 inch low brass shells out of a 12 Ga. 3-inch gun.
 
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Learn with a regular stock and grips and move up the hokey paramilitary stuff after you learn how to shoot.

A 20 gauge is more than capable of laying waste to whatever is on the other end.

I could easily handle my 12 gauge as a youngster but I was pretty athletic- your call.

Lots of good choices in 20 or 12 Mossberg, Ithaca, browning-

my fav design is the 870 wingmaster pump- It has websites devoted to it.
I believe all the 12 gauge accessories fit on it so there is a TON of aftermarket parts for it.

The cops and generations of shooters are not wrong about it.

Mine came from dad to me and will go to my son.

UD
 
I have both the Mossberg 12 and 20 gauge. I have no issues with either, but the 20 ga is lighter and easier to swing around in tight quarters. Kick is irrelevant in a home defense situation as you will be pumping so much adrenaline you won't even feel it (until later).
 
Originally Posted By: TheOnlySarge
Originally Posted By: FirstNissan
Hi I am interested and getting a shotgun to add to my home defense gear. I am on the smaller side at five foot seven and 150 pounds so I'm looking towards a 20 gauge. I was wondering if a pistol grip would be a feasible choice or if the recoil would be too much of a problem. Thanks

Home defense as in the house? I would recommend a .410 with 00Buckshot. Powerful light to blind the intruder. 20 Gauge gonna kick if your recoil sensitive (that's OK)......410 will/does make a mess out of flesh. 2 legged or 4. Look at Mossbergs. They are easily converted from a stock to a pistol grip and lots of light attachments available. Get the gun your comfortable with. Dont get caught up in what others feel comfortable with.


That powerful light will also blind the shooter in a dark room. 410 is not recommended. Too small of a shell so you have fewer pellets and less powder to propel them. 410 is a rabbit or squirrel gun, not one I would use on two legged intruders. Sure it is better than a stick, but its at the bottom of the barrel for shotguns. Any man in good health should be able to handle a 20 gauge. The only 410 I would use is a slug, but at that point I would just recommend the person use a more effective rifle in something like 223.
 
Originally Posted By: Robenstein
Originally Posted By: TheOnlySarge
Originally Posted By: FirstNissan
Hi I am interested and getting a shotgun to add to my home defense gear. I am on the smaller side at five foot seven and 150 pounds so I'm looking towards a 20 gauge. I was wondering if a pistol grip would be a feasible choice or if the recoil would be too much of a problem. Thanks

Home defense as in the house? I would recommend a .410 with 00Buckshot. Powerful light to blind the intruder. 20 Gauge gonna kick if your recoil sensitive (that's OK)......410 will/does make a mess out of flesh. 2 legged or 4. Look at Mossbergs. They are easily converted from a stock to a pistol grip and lots of light attachments available. Get the gun your comfortable with. Dont get caught up in what others feel comfortable with.


That powerful light will also blind the shooter in a dark room. 410 is not recommended. Too small of a shell so you have fewer pellets and less powder to propel them. 410 is a rabbit or squirrel gun, not one I would use on two legged intruders. Sure it is better than a stick, but its at the bottom of the barrel for shotguns. Any man in good health should be able to handle a 20 gauge. The only 410 I would use is a slug, but at that point I would just recommend the person use a more effective rifle in something like 223.

A buckshot pellet from a .410 has the same energy and lethality as a buckshot pellet fired from a 12 gauge. It is simple physics. In either gauge, the pellets are flying at ~1200 fps. Whereas a 12 gauge with 000 buck will have 8 (or 9) pellets in it, the .410 will have 5 (or 3 if it's a 2.5" shell). In a typical home defense range, you are giving up aboslutely nothing by not having those extra 3 or 4 pellets.

At typical home defense ranges (up to 7 yards or so), the .410 is every bit as formidable and lethal as a 12 gauge, yet the recoil and smaller flash enable better follow up shots. At those same ranges depending how the .410 is loaded, it has more energy than a 9mm, .45, .357 and right on par with a .44 magnum pistol rounds; no one would ever say you are under gunned with either of those pistol rounds for home defense, but for some reason if you're using a .410 it's not enough. Truly bewildering. Keep in mind that a 000 buck pellet size is ~9mm, and with every trigger pull you're sending 5 of those downrange in an extremely tight pattern. With only a 3 shot magazine, you could have 15 pellets on the target in about 2 seconds. A .410 is lethal.
 
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Originally Posted By: TheOnlySarge
Originally Posted By: Robenstein
Originally Posted By: TheOnlySarge
Originally Posted By: FirstNissan
Hi I am interested and getting a shotgun to add to my home defense gear. I am on the smaller side at five foot seven and 150 pounds so I'm looking towards a 20 gauge. I was wondering if a pistol grip would be a feasible choice or if the recoil would be too much of a problem. Thanks

Home defense as in the house? I would recommend a .410 with 00Buckshot. Powerful light to blind the intruder. 20 Gauge gonna kick if your recoil sensitive (that's OK)......410 will/does make a mess out of flesh. 2 legged or 4. Look at Mossbergs. They are easily converted from a stock to a pistol grip and lots of light attachments available. Get the gun your comfortable with. Dont get caught up in what others feel comfortable with.


That powerful light will also blind the shooter in a dark room. 410 is not recommended. Too small of a shell so you have fewer pellets and less powder to propel them. 410 is a rabbit or squirrel gun, not one I would use on two legged intruders. Sure it is better than a stick, but its at the bottom of the barrel for shotguns. Any man in good health should be able to handle a 20 gauge. The only 410 I would use is a slug, but at that point I would just recommend the person use a more effective rifle in something like 223.

A buckshot pellet from a .410 has the same energy and lethality as a buckshot pellet fired from a 12 gauge. It is simple physics. In either gauge, the pellets are flying at ~1200 fps. Whereas a 12 gauge with 000 buck will have 8 (or 9) pellets in it, the .410 will have 5 (or 3 if it's a 2.5" shell). In a typical home defense range, you are giving up aboslutely nothing by not having those extra 3 or 4 pellets.

At typical home defense ranges (up to 7 yards or so), the .410 is every bit as formidable and lethal as a 12 gauge, yet the recoil and smaller flash enable better follow up shots. At those same ranges depending how the .410 is loaded, it has more energy than a 9mm, .45, .357 and right on par with a .44 magnum pistol rounds; no one would ever say you are under gunned with either of those pistol rounds for home defense, but for some reason if you're using a .410 it's not enough. Truly bewildering. Keep in mind that a 000 buck pellet size is ~9mm, and with every trigger pull you're sending 5 of those downrange in an extremely tight pattern. With only a 3 shot magazine, you could have 15 pellets on the target in about 2 seconds. A .410 is lethal.


Any gun is lethal...so that argument is a non starter. The math working against it. While the diameter of the pellet is similar to a 9mm, the 000 pellet is much lighter, usually being around 70 grains if I recall correctly (similar to a 32acp), and so you are looking at roughly 380 handgun performance (aprox 220 ft. lbs. of muzzle energy in a pellet on the high end). That is why you would want more pellets of a 20 or 12 gauge to make up for the lack of expansion and mediocre muzzle energy. If the 410 was so impressive, Law Enforcement would be using it versus larger gauge weapons.

If a 410 is all you can handle and/or afford, go for it. Any gun is better than no gun. But there are better options out there for long guns.
 
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A shotgun is an excellent choice in a home defense weapon..... But not with a pistol grip. They're just not practical. They sell a lot of them because kids think they're, "Tacticool", and they're used in TV and in video games and such. They basically take a good weapon and screw it up to the point of making it useless. Some years back a guy showed up at the Trap range with one when I was shooting there. He went 0-25 with it. As I said, useless.

Just to give you an idea, these are a few home defense shotguns I keep around. The top 2 are a Mossberg 590 A-1 Mil-Spec, and Mossberg 500. The 590 A-1 is built a bit more stoutly with a heavy wall barrel, and a metal safety selector switch and trigger guard that are plastic on the 500 Model. It also has a bayonet lug to accommodate a M-9 bayonet, if you're into that sort of thing.

The bottom 2 are Rock Island Armory M-5's. One in satin Nickel, and the other in a Parkerized finish. These guns are a very good choice for someone who is on a limited budget. They can be had for a street price under $200.00, (Parkerized Model), at some of the big box stores like Big 5, ****'s, and Academy Sports.

They are built on a all steel receiver, and are based on the old High Standard Flight King design. It has been well proven over many decades under that name. And also clones built for Western Auto, (Revelation), Sears, (J.C. Higgins), and Wards, (Western Field) over the years. All are the same proven design as the Rock Island Armory M-5. Any or all of these guns would serve you well in a home defense role, and will outlive you. All the guns shown are in 12 Ga. with 3" chambers.





 
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