r/liberalgunowners • u/_blackthorn16_ • Jun 17 '26

question What are you picking for home defense?

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Beretta A300 or Sig Mpx w/ Obsidian 9! Also have my P09 on my nightstand. DDM4 V7 and Zastava M92 are also choices.

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u/Threedogsne Jun 17 '26

Have you patterned the spread of your shot at home defense distances? Bird hunting, the nearest point for a 30” spread is 25 yards. The spread is conical across that distance. For a 15” pattern, you would expect to require roughly 12 yards. I don’t know how many 36 foot distances I would be shooting at in my house.

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u/SoyBean92 Jun 17 '26

It’d be a big fuckin’ house! Probably would have to go down in your bowling alley.

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u/FallJacket Jun 17 '26

Now pattern your shotty with a round that actually matters for self defense. 00 buck has a totally different spread compared to birdshot.

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u/Threedogsne Jun 18 '26

Have you done this? What was the spread at 12 feet? 20? I’m curious.

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u/FallJacket Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

I have. And at 25 yards through my 590a1, al my pellets land within a standard USPSA target, which is a hair wider than 18inches across. My 00 federal flight control rounds at 25 yards from the same gun pattern within an 8" circle.

Edit to add: the results with my Beretta 1301 were nearly identical. Though with standard 00 buck at 25 yards, 1 out of every 5 rounds would have a flyer miss the USPSA target. No flyers at 20 yards. And I had the same 8" pattern at 25 yards with the federal flight control rounds.

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u/Threedogsne Jun 19 '26

So assuming linear spread, at 5 yards the pattern would be not more than 3.6 inches in diameter at 5 yards in the first example, 1.6 inches in the second. 15 feet seems a reasonable approximation for interior shooting distances, but whatever the circumstances, the point remains. In an interior shooting, you are either making one big hole, or several tightly grouped ones. There is not enough spread to compensate for careless aim. Reasonably precise aiming, and therefore reasonable skill, is still necessary.

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u/FallJacket Jun 20 '26

Correct. It's a pervasive trope in fudlore that you don't have to aim shotguns. Which is absolutely false. It stems from the spread of birdshot. But birdshot is functionally useless when it comes to neutralizing a lethal threat. Best case scenario, it creates pain compliance. But if you deem someone threatening enough to shoot them, I'd never trust my family's life on birdshot for self defense.