Myth Busted: Shotguns Are Not Low Capacity Self-Defense Weapons

As a guy who enjoys shotguns and talks about them on the internet, I constantly run into lots of bullshit about them. One of the biggest pieces of misinformation comes down to capacity. Capacity is often discussed as a downside to shotguns, and it’s used by both shotgun enthusiasts and detractors to dismiss them or to justify some rather silly solutions.

The Reality

When you look at repeating defensive traditional shotgun capacity—meaning tube magazines—we see common numbers between four and eight 2.75-inch rounds. Some have more, some have less, depending on the gun and its purpose. We’re discussing defensive shotguns here, so crazy gamer guns and hunting shotguns are excluded.

Four to eight rounds doesn’t seem like a lot when an AR can hold 30 rounds and most modern handguns hold in excess of 15 rounds. Shotguns use bulky ammo and magazine tubes are limited by their length. It’s a balancing act to create a shotgun that’s maneuverable and has enough rounds.

Compared to other types of guns, the capacity certainly seems low. We can say the same about ARs compared to the M249 with 200-round drums. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to compare a rifle to a light machine gun, right? They each serve a different purpose and do different things. Comparing an AR or a handgun to a shotgun is sort of the same. They’re very different weapons and are designed for different things.

Shotguns are designed for close-range use and are shoulder-fired. Within a shotgun’s effective range, it can be tough for a trained shooter to miss with any shoulder-fired weapon, but we should look at missing in two different ways. First, there’s completely missing the target, which is unlikely at shotgun range. Second, there’s missing the vitals.

Buckshot Covers a Multitude of Sins

Shot placement is always critical in stopping a threat. You have to hit something vital to end an attack. With a shotgun, you have more leeway in the fundamentals of marksmanship. You still have to aim the gun — patterns aren’t as big as many people think at personal defense ranges — but if you flinch or have a crap sight picture or any number of marksmanship errors, you are still likely to have a good effect on the target due to the nature of buckshot.

When you’re using a shotgun within its effective range, it’s less likely that you’ll fire more than one round as long as you don’t completely miss the target. Multiple shotgun blasts to one bad guy are statistically fairly rare. Greg Ellifritz’s research on one-shot stops indicates that the shotgun stops threats with a single shot 86% of the time.

This data included all shotgun bores, but states that 90% of the incidents were 12-gauge. It doesn’t break down the data by the round type used, so we can’t account for buckshot, slugs, or birdshot being used.

So statistically, a shotgun usually only needs one shot to stop a threat, and I have four to eight rounds in my gun. In the event that I do need two shots, I still have three to seven more in the gun. That’s my main argument as to why shotguns shouldn’t be considered low-capacity weapons.

The Pellet Factor

My secondary argument comes down to the number of pellets my shotgun packs. For defensive use, I advocate buckshot. Birdshot is, well, for birds and if I wanted to shoot solid projectiles (slugs), I’ll use a rifle. I like the coverage and the little extra guarantee buckshot provides. When using buckshot, we’re firing multiple pellets per trigger pull.

I stick to Federal Flitecontrol 00 buckshot—the low-recoil, eight-pellet variety. Whenever I squeeze the trigger, I’m firing eight .33 caliber rounds with one trigger pull. My home defense shotgun holds seven rounds, so if I did my “Math For Marines” right, 8 x 7 = 56 pellets. That’s a lot of lead for a supposedly low-capacity weapon.

When buckshot strikes, the pellets often create different tracks through the target. This increases the chances of a vital hit…or multiple vital hits. There are no secondary wounding factors that we’d see with a rifle, just direct impact.

Admittedly, if I miss with an AR, that’s only one round out of 30. If I miss with a shotgun, that’s eight pellets out of 56, so a miss hurts more. It’s kind of like a battle axe; if your swing misses, you have wasted a lot more energy conducting it. However, if it hits, you’re inflicting massive damage. And as we’ve covered, within a shotgun’s effective range, it’s generally hard to miss.

What About Multiple Attackers?

My shotgun holds seven rounds. What happens if my home is invaded by eight people? That’s not really realistic for a lot of reasons, and while I’m sure such an event has happened, it’s about as likely as winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.

First, the most realistic thing that would happen if my home is invaded by a number of armed assailants is that I’m dead. Multiple people with guns attacking my home likely means I’m not going to make it out. I might fight like hell and take a few down, but numbers matter.

Let’s say that doesn’t happen, though. My bedroom is a bunker and I’m the spawn of Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickok. Not only that, but the multiple attackers are only carrying rolling pins. I fire seven rounds, leaving my shotgun empty. I’ll probably still have time to reload because any remaining bad doods are going to be climbing over a pile of their dead friends to get to me.

Let’s be realistic here. If multiple attackers storm your home, they’re not going to be so determined to kill you that they’ll watch their friends die beside them and continue the assault.

Capacity Solutions

As you can probably tell, I don’t believe shotguns are low-capacity weapons. At least, not modern repeating shotguns designed for tactical applications. However, a lot of people still do. That’s okay because industry has responded and offered alternatives to the shotgun capacity problem. They come down to magazines and mini shells.

Magazine-Fed Shotguns

An easy solution to the shotgun-capacity issue is replacing the traditional tubular magazine with a box magazine. Boom. Now you get more ammo in your gun without extending the tube, right?

If only it were that simple. I’m not entirely opposed to magazine-fed shotguns, but the idea has its problems. The plastic used in shotgun shells can easily deform. When pressed together in a magazine, that can happen. They deform and flatten out due to the pressure from the follower.

That creates reliability issues if the magazines are left loaded for extended periods of time. Some shotgun magazines do better than others. The Iron Horse Sentry 12 leaves extra room in the magazine, almost a full shell’s worth, just to reduce the pressure in loaded magazines. Their mags top out at eight rounds, which brings us back to a basic shotgun loadout, just with faster reloads.

Another decent option is the Mossberg 590M series. These double-stack mags seem to spread the pressure out, which helps with the deformation problem, at least a little. The Mossberg magazine capacities range from five to 20 rounds. A shotgun with 20 rounds sounds great, but the magazines cost over a hundred dollars and get quite heavy and long.

The last problem is that so many magazine-fed shotguns are pieces of junk imported from Turkey. That’s less of a problem with the magazines, though, than it is with the quality of the guns themselves.

What About Mini Shells?

“DoEs It tAkE mInIsHeLlS?” has rooted itself in my brain. I hate seeing it. It’s the new “Does it take GLOCK mags?” That’s seemingly the number one question asked about the new 990 Aftershock, and I can’t believe people don’t understand that mini shells won’t cycle in a semi-auto.

Mini shells increase shotgun capacity without the need for magazines. That’s true. If you get a Mossberg 500/590 and an adapter, they can even run reliably. That’s great. But they’re still a novelty, especially for defensive use.

If I were forced to use mini shells, I’d stick to slugs. Their weight and speed match that of a standard 2.75-inch slug. They hit hard. But that comes back to the idea that if I wanted to launch a solid projectile, I’d just use a rifle. Plus, mini slugs are nowhere near as accurate as slugs from a 2.75-inch shell.

The mini shell buckshot loads don’t impress. We get No. 4 buckshot and a mix of No. 1 and No. 4. Number 4 buckshot doesn’t have great penetration and consistently falls short of the FBI standard. No. 1 buckshot works, but we get only a few No. 1 pellets. So we’ve reduced our effective payload substantially and have lost the plot on why we use a shotgun in the first place. Not to mention the patterns from mini shells suck compared to purpose-built tactical buckshot loads.

The Bottom Line

Shotguns are not suppressive weapons. They don’t work well to pin down a threat to allow you to maneuver. Shotguns are short-range, decisive self-defense weapons that excel when you need something that will stop a threat with a single shot. To quote Clint Smith from Thunder Ranch . . .

Pistols put holes in people. Rifles put holes through people. Shotguns, at the right range, with the right load, will physically remove a chunk of shit from your opponent and throw that shit on the floor.

Shotguns, with four to eight rounds, are not low-capacity weapons.