Bird Shot Penetration in Gel

[Altair]

How much penetration does regular bird shot give in calibrated ballistics gel in a standard 10' FBI test? Typical sizes like #8, #6, and #4?

I'm just looking for hard data for the frequent "use bird shot for home defense" debates that seem to pop up from time to time.

[Grand58742]

There is this .pdf

http://www.brassfetcher.com/12%20Gau...ry%20Table.pdf

Along with some videos here:

http://www.brassfetcher.com/index_fi...ugeShotgun.htm

Funny because the #8 bird shot videos show the most energy expelled in the first inch to inch and a half of the gel and going drastically downward from there.

The last time I heard this whole "use bird shot" crap comes up since "women can't handle a full power load from a shotgun," I told the girl "hey, that round won't even penetrate more than five inches into Jell-O, what makes you think it's going to save you from being raped?" before telling her she should also find a boyfriend that actually cared enough to teach her to shoot effectively.

I know it's not exactly the same, but tends to get folks attention...along with dirty looks from said boyfriend and causing a gun counter clerk to almost choke on his coffee.

[bernieb90]

3-5" is about right. Add some heavy clothing, and a jacket, and it will be even less. Also note that although birdshot hits together as a mass of shot the total penetration is dictated by the mass of individual pellets (which is very small).

The funny thing is that low recoil buckshot recoils about the same as a promo birdshot load.

[Altair]

I'm just looking for facts to point to. It is difficult getting someone to understand when they've been told something false by someone they think knows what they are talking about (gun store clerks, for example). It is easy for me to say birdshot is a bad choice, but I find it is more effective when you can point to data that shows why. At least it is more effective when dealing with intelligent people who really want to learn.

Thanks for the links, they are useful.

[200RNL]

" I told the girl "hey, that round won't even penetrate more than five inches into Jell-O, what makes you think it's going to save you from being raped?"

Bleeding all over the place might change a rapists mind and make it too slippery to hold on to a potential victim, but I'm just speculating a little.

[sammage]

Bleeding all over the place might change a rapists mind and make it too slippery to hold on to a potential victim, but I'm just speculating a little.

"Changing a rapists mind" might be well and good, but stopping the threat should be the goal.

[Grand58742]

Bleeding all over the place might change a rapists mind and make it too slippery to hold on to a potential victim, but I'm just speculating a little.

The only "changing" of a rapist's mind that I would encourage would be from on to off.

Point is this douchebag had already decided everything from .32 on up was "too powerful" for her to handle. So douchebag's idea? A .410 shotgun with bird shot since "it doesn't have to be aimed" and "you can handle the recoil." Yeah, that's a great idea. We are talking a 5'6 110, 120 lbs female who looked to be in decent enough shape to handle any number of compact sized 9mm pistols. So instead of being a royal douche and thinking she was too "weak" for a 9mm or even a 20 gauge with buck and slugs (as the gun store counter worker suggested), they could have picked out a firearm and gotten shooting lessons together since he, by the way he looked while handling the pistols, needed the training as well.

Instead of teaching her to protect herself and encouraging her to learn to master a pistol that could potentially save her life or maybe even his, he decided to be the aforementioned douche and think she was the weaker sex. Counter worker asked if she had ever shot before and she stated she hadn't but wanted to learn "to protect myself." She took an active interest in the selections and handled several pistols only to be told "I don't think you can handle the recoil on that," but had no clue she was being taken along for a ride by your typical idiot that believes everything they saw in a movie and comes in with preconceived notions of how great a shotgun is because "just the sound of the slide racking will make someone shit their pants."

It probably wasn't my place to butt in, but frankly, I'm too ornery and outspoken to have to listen to someone who has limited knowledge attempt to convince a grown woman who doesn't know any better she is too weak to learn to shoot effectively. It's the 21st century and if he can't understand women can protect themselves just fine and learn to shoot just as well as men, he doesn't deserve said woman. And with continued attitudes like that, possibly ends up with a significant other with serious emotional and physical trauma from a sexual assault because he convinced her she was "too weak" to learn to properly defend herself.

Apologies to the OP for the thread drift.

[NCMedic]

Bird shot is just fine....
For birds.

Sent from this... Using that...

[Alaskapopo]

Bleeding all over the place might change a rapists mind and make it too slippery to hold on to a potential victim, but I'm just speculating a little.

Then again it may just piss him off and he could take the gun and disarm her kill her with it. Using bird shot is stupid.
Pat

[SoDak]

The funny thing is that low recoil buckshot recoils about the same as a promo birdshot load.

A few weeks back I tried out some low recoil buck I had along with some light game loads. I was genuinely surprised the recoil wasn't that much worse. It certainly made me think maybe a shotgun could have some use for me (My last shotgun experience was using some 3" buckshot loads. I almost swore off shotguns after that.).