Shotguns?

[Hollow Point]

On the range thing, I don't want to wait until a zombie is within pistol range. Or shotgun range. Destroy the threat at a distance and it's not a threat at close range, where zombies do their damage. In other words, drop a 5.56mm slug in it's head at 100 yards and you won't have to deal with it at 3 feet, where it's close enough to bite you.

Do you plan on standing around while in the open with zombies around?

My plan is to hole up in my apartment, but anythign is possible in the zombacalypes.

My point is that if a zombie is 100 yards away, especially if they're the classic slow moving type, why even bother with it?

Because it's a zombie, and the more zombies I kill today the less there are around to threaten me or other survivors tomorrow.

Continue walking whereever you're going at a leisurely pace and you won't have to deal with it at all.

Yes I will. Somehow, some why, some day, I or another human will have to deal with that deader. Better now, while I can while it's too far away to bite me.

Firing at a zombie 100 yards away will just alert any nearby that haven't seen you yet and use up ammo.

You assume other zombies don't already know I'm there and are moving to get me. I personally think zombies respond to stimulus like a dog in a backyard that sees a cat and starts barking. The dog next door, or across the street didn't see the cat, but they start barking because they hear the other dog barking. And pretty soon, every dog in the neighborhood is barking. Besides, silencers aren't hard to improvise, and Wolf .223 is under $100/1000 rounds. Stock up now, if your guns will shoot Wolf without problems.

I wouldn't shoot a zombie if I'm in the open unless it's close enough to actually be a threat.

Your choice. But leaving an enemy behind you is a bad idea. What if you have to come back that way in a hurry? The deader and his friends will be waiting for you and you won't have the options you had when you passed him the first time around most likely.

If you see a horde of zombies at 100 yards, are you going to stand there and carefully pick each one off, or are you going to keep moving and try to avoid them?

Depends on what I'm doing. Guarding a supply run, or search and destroy, or guard duty, yeah, unless there are zombies closer to me than that horde, plan is to stand my ground and waste the MFs. If I'm low on ammo, the mission went bad and we are doing the run and gun out of the area, no, I'll do as Barb did in the Night remake. Shoot the ones I have to and move. Pick your battles. If I can engage in zombat with minimal risk to myself then I'm going for it. If I can engage in zombat with great risk to myself, fight a running retreat to safety and fight again some other day.

Now, if you're in a fortified position and have the luxury of being safe and having time, that's another story. I'm talking about when you're moving around on foot and may come face-to-face with a zombie at any time.

Like I said, my primary plan is to bug in and hole up. Probably plink the reanimate hordes with a .22 to pass the time and thin them out some. But if I'm in the street, and have the ammo, or other weapons, and time, I'll waste every zombie I can see out to the effective range of my weapon or my personal skill, whichever is shorter. The deaders I kill today won't bother anyone tomorrow. And eventually, I'll run out of deaders.

[Lishark015]

i'm not trying to knock the shotgun, and i do agree that it is a good weapon for most newbie shooters. it is true, there is no "perfect weapon," but in the PAW, i personally would rather (if i was on foot) have a sack full of 30-round magazines than an equal amount of shotgun shells (which would suck massively to haul around), and since i'm not exactly a "poor" marksman, i'd just rather have the ammunition capacity of an automatic

[ednemo]

Rifles have their place...and that place is as an all around battle weapon. A good rifle should be able to shoot accurately 200 yards and be able to perform perfect head shots at 100 yards without going prone. However, a shotgun offers extreme close up support that the rifle doesn't. There is also the benefit of being able to switch for slugs that will take the head off of anything out there...be it zombie or grizzly.

[thrash242]

Ok, about the spread of a shotgun:

Here's a good site : http://www.theboxotruth.com/Shotgunotruth/index.htm

He used a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun with about a 19" barrel (a common combat/defense length) and from 12 feet away the spread was about 2-3 inches. That's not something that's going to hit multiple targets unless you're really far away, in which case only a few pellets will hit and they won't do much damage.

So blowing away multiple targets at close or medium range is pure hollywood/video game BS. A shotgun will do quite a bit of damage to one target, but not to multiple ones. If it spread out enough to hit two human sized critters, it wouldn't hurt them too much.

Resident Evil 4 is really bad about this...at close range the shotguns will knock down (problem number one) about 3-5 possessed human things (problem number two).

That and the magnums about about 20 times more powerful than a nine-millimeter pistol, and about 3 times as powerful as a 12 gauge shotgun.

That and...ok, I won't get into it, I'll be here all day. Cool game,though.

[ednemo]

Heh...I do a lot of shooting. A whole lot! I shoot with FALs, HKs, Shotguns, Revolvers, and Pistols...at least twice a week. If you really want to know the difference in power between these animals, take them to the range together. The joke about the shotgun is: when you take out your pistol and pop off a couple rounds into your target, you get neat little holes where you were aiming. The same goes for the rifle. The rifle is just more accurate. However, on the same target, take a shot with the shotgun. You will put a hole in it the size of your fist. And pepper the surrounding target with steel shot. I do my SD shooting at 7 yards (21 feet). I then move it back to 15 yards (45 feet) The shotgun still makes the same pattern with a slowly widening spread. I back it up to 25 yards (75 feet) and it does the same. Now 25 yards is the max I shoot shotshells out of my shotgun at. Plus, it's as far as the indoor range goes to. So, it's time to move outside. Start with the target at the 50 yard area and pop off a few slugs. Ah, nothing like a 17mm piece of copper totally destroying the target. Use the revolver and the rifle as well. And see the difference. (Let me add at this point...I use a Copstock folder and ghost rings on my shotgun to target. The bead site can be used, but is nowhere near as accurate for distance.) Next pop it out to 100 yards. Bam...dead on. Granted...I shoot a lot. I also keep practice with the rifles. I don't shoot my shotgun any farther than 100 yards. In fact, unless I'm practicing with a sighted for long range rifle I don't go further than this. I don't have tio worry about popping someone over a football field away usually. But, I still keep in practice. A shotgun is the absolute best all around gun in my opinion. If the SHTF, this is what I would throw over my shoulder...among other things.

[djphydoux]

Ive read a lot of posts on the pros/cons of shotguns, and practically everyone agrees that they are a good thing to have, either for short range kills or for hunting. Granted a rifle has far more range, the shotgun has by far the simplest operation. Remember if you do encounter any humans you will have to arm them with something, might as well be somethin easy to use. My question to all of you is... If I were to use a shotgun, for whatever reason (perhaps that was all i had at the time), what would be the ideal load for a 12 gague shotgun. Keep in mind the weight of the ammo (buckshot-heavy), but also the effective power needed to inflict sufficient skull/brainmatter damage.

[randomusername]

Within 10 ft use buck shot, outside of that just use slugs. Accurate up close and up to 50ft depending on your shooting abilities.

[Bear_B]

Within 10 ft use buck shot, outside of that just use slugs. Accurate up close and up to 50ft depending on your shooting abilities.

10 feet? Dude... geeze...



Listen, I have taken large bucks with 00 Buckshot at 35 - 50 yards. Keep in mind these are not pussy little bambi deer, but West Virginia white tale... and the WVWT is a HEALTHY sized animal. So no doubt that the same load will do sufficient damage to a brain/skull at those same distances.

If youre going to use nothing but slugs you loose half the advantage of having a shotgun in the first place...

My suggestion is to keep a variety of ammo on hand. Lighter loads can be used for hunting smaller game, and birds, and heavier loads like 00 buckshot for larger game and defence, and zombies.

Yes keep some slugs on hand too. Shotgun ammo is too cheap NOT to have a bunch on hand.

But comon... 10 feet? Dude, learn your shotgun ballistics before giving bad info to someone.

[randomusername]

Thanks for the tip Bear, i have never hunted in any capacity, so experience lends a great hand here. i stand corrected. And also as bear said, a variety of ammo is nothing but a Pro, i have slugs and buck on either side of my shotgun ready to be loaded.

[ednemo]

If you are looking for long range accuracy with a shotgun, try a compensated stock and some sort of sights, (other than the bead sights). I have used reflex sights before and they worked pretty damn good on the shotgun. Personally, I use ghost ring sights and they do a great job without spending a ton of money. As for the stock, Knoxx Industries makes a Compstock which will eat up a ton of recoil, making it possible to shoot slugs and shells accurately even with smaller statured shooters.

Edited to take out the word barrel, because I am a moron.

[Bear_B]

Thanks for the tip Bear, i have never hunted in any capacity, so experience lends a great hand here. i stand corrected. And also as bear said, a variety of ammo is nothing but a Pro, i have slugs and buck on either side of my shotgun ready to be loaded.

Hey, not a problem.

I consider the Shotgun the single most versitile weapon in the world.

Also keep in mind if you dig capacity, go for the drum. You can get high capacity drums for most major shotguns (remington 870s, Mossy 500 etc) and have rifle-like capacity now that the ban is over. But of course a drum is larger and heavier than an AR magazine. That is the draw back to larger weapons. Everything about them is bigger and heavier than the smaller counterparts.

Personally I like Ghost Ring sights on a shotgun. They will keep your rifled slugs accurate at 100+ yards with no difficulty. And in my opinion you really shouldnt be shooting at anyone at anywhere near that distance in a PRE-PAW situation. And of course if youre shooting 3 inch 00 buckshot, you dont need to be dead on the target thanks to the scatter pattern.

But its nice to know you CAN if the situation were to ever arise that required it.

And keep in mind... the finger sized slug you shoot from your shotty is a HELL of of lot bigger than a .223 or a 7.62 round.

Yes... you do have the disadvantage of heavier ammo. So its definately a trade off.

Also... the pump shotty is a very very simple machine. There is not a whole lot that can go wrong with it, and for anything that does go wrong usally anyone with some basic firearms knowledge will be able to properly identify and correct the malfunction.

Shotguns also tend to be less expensive than rifles. I just bought a brand new in the box Mossy 500 for $250 bucks. Yes there are models out there that can run as much as a quality AR, but in point of fact you can have a TOP quality shotty for less than 300 bucks.

Shotguns also come in a variety of styles too. You have basic single shot shotguns that can be had a walmart for 75 bucks. A perffect gun for a new shotgun shooter, or for those who just dont have the funds for anything more expensive. With one of these I can get 10 aimed shots off every 30 seconds with little difficulty.

You have double barreled shotguns.

You have the ever-popular pump shotgun.

You have auto loaders.

You have the harder to find but still out there magazine fed shotguns in bolt action or autoloader.

And of course the even harder to find lever action shotgun (as seen in the movie Terminator II used by Arnold)

And of course lets not forget that you have a variety of calibers available as well. The most common and popular choices you will find are the 12 ga, the 16 ga, the 20 ga, and the 410.

Lets not forget the "over/under" rifle shotgun combo. A rifle barrel on top in some kind of 30 caliber and the bottom is a 12 gauge shotty.

I have also seen it with smaller calibers. .22 on top, and 410 on bottom. They are common in most well stocked gunshops.

ALSO (geeze I am an oil tanker of knowledge) you can get the "shorty" shells. These are shotgun shells that are half the size of regular shells, and are not really very powerful beyond 20 yards or so, but they can double your capacity. These can be difficult to find and some shotguns wont feed them reliably. In fact the only place I have seen them recently was a gunshow here in florida.

If I was permitted only ONE gun to survive with, either PRE or POST PAW then I would most certainly choose the 12 gauge pump shotgun with a variety of ammo types.

I dont belive in the "perfect" gun. There is simply NO such thing.

However, as far as long guns go I believe that the 12 gauge shotgun is the most versitile and useful of them all.

It has its limitations, and advantages just like ANY type of weapon, but if your covering your bases I believe you can cover the largest number of them with a quality 12 gauge shotgun.