ROLE OF THE SHOTGUN

Let me begin by saying that I have used shotguns against live fighting adversaries several times. Moreover, I received the classic training in this weapon at the academy which birthed the "modern technique" of the shotgun.


Training and reality sometimes conflict. While the so-called “modern school” of the shotgun seeks to equip the weapon like a rifle (sights and slugs, and choking), and promote its theoretical versatility due to ammunition types available, these notions are foolish. I will show you why.


The shotgun comes into its niche in "expected" very close range fights, often in reduced light where the tempo of events does not favor traditional rifle marksmanship principles, and where devastating damage needs to be inflicted in as short a time as possible with minimum number of shots. An additional asset of the shotgun is that the nature of buckshot, and its pattern of impact, lends to hitting adversaries in time frames and in situations that might otherwise not allow hitting with a single projectile weapon such as a rifle. The rapidly decreasing velocity and low penetrative characteristics of the ammo tends to minimize collateral damage that may result from rifle fire. That, my friends, is what the shotgun is for, and what it has been used for since the first shotgunner picked up his smoothbore to go kill other men.

The current trend has been to say the shotgun is a versatile weapon. In truth, in combat it is not versatile at all. That you can load it with a myriad of ammunition types is uninteresting since for shooting human adversaries there are really only two choices – buckshot or slugs. We have all heard the issue of using birdshot for home defense at some point. That may be an option for those who live in thickly populated urban environments surrounded top to bottom with neighbors, or for use on the training range so target systems are better preserved. But bird shot is a horrible choice for anything else.

Similarly the police issue of using less-lethal or gas rounds has little to do with anything outside that special purpose. Agencies that use such munitions now have specialized dedicated shotguns for them. For the private citizen (for whom this is intended) gas rounds, breeching rounds, and/or less lethal rounds are typically useless. Why would you “bean bag” a man who is trying to shoot you? Even the police only use this sort of thing because of forced policy changes…and even then, only when accompanied by another officer armed with a real firearm.

My biggest point of contention is the over-choking of the shotgun barrel. This is usually done in hopes of tightening the pattern’s impact at longer distances. The trade-off is that one will have in essence the same problem as if he was firing single projectiles. Rather than a fist-sized pattern impact at 25 yards, what we need is uniformity of pattern, and that does not require over-choking the barrel. It can obtained with the purchase of high quality ammunition.

Another point is the use of slugs. When Jeff Cooper began promoting the shotgun at his school in Paul den , AZ , he sought to convert the “erratic” shotgun into a weapon he understood better, the rifle. On came the ghost ring sights, in went the slugs and the chokes…even a shotgun shooting sling, all in the hope of reaching farther and hitting with greater precision…like a rifle. But no matter how you seek to equip a shotgun, it will never do as well at the mission of a rifle, as a real rifle. Eventually someone will ask the very pertinent question – “Why not just forget all of this and simply use a rifle?”


Why not indeed?!

Any attempt to make a shotgun do the rifle’s job makes for a poor rifle and a useless shotgun. Even the poorest rifleman can outshoot the best shotgunner in a rifle problem, and any off the rack shotgun can match the “modern technique” shotgun for true close range shotgun problems. So again…what is the point?

The only viable reason for this forced metamorphism would be for the poor cop whose agency has denied him the ability to have a rifle and must make do with the only long gun permitted, the shotgun. Or the similar situation of some oppressed subject living in a nation or state where rifles are prohibited, but shotguns are allowed. But I would say that those two situations are rather special cases. Unless they are the only folks interested in shotguns, we have left a great number of interested parties out of the discussion.

For those with access to rifles, there is no need to so modify the shotgun trying to build a rifle. Doing so is akin to putting a Ferrari body on a Unimog chassis.

The natural choice in ammo for the shotgun is buckshot. Buckshot’s pattern impact allows you to hit adversaries in time frames and situations where you would probably miss with any other weapon. Usually right about now someone will bring up the issue of errant pellets. The liability-fearing police world demands that every single shot fired hit its intended mark. Yet this rarely happens in anything but a police ambush. It is in fact impossible in anything resembling a reactive gunfight. The hit ratio, by the way, in spite of the ongoing "guarantee every shot mentaility, is still only 51% hits. Its not that cops are bad shots, its that gunfights are vastly vastly different than range training and no matter what the desired results are, you can't ignore nature of the dynamics of conflict.

Anyone who would dispute this is either trying to push an agenda or has never been in a gunfight in the dark, close in, against men who were actually trying to kill without being killed themselves.

So if it is impossible to do with pistols, rifles, and submachineguns, why would we think it could be done with a shotgun? Rather than seeking to customize the shotgun to fulfill an impossible demand, we should focus instead on how to use it well and center the bad guy in the pattern of buckshot.

Again, this allows you to hit him when you would otherwise miss. That, my friends, is what the shotgun is for. Can you do that with slugs? No.

Disagree with this statement? Show me. And if are a shooting machine, and you can, then show me what the ability to do so will give you that the same great skill with a regular rifle will not also give you.

What is important with a shotgun???


1). Know tactical advantage and Liabilities of Shotgun and their ammunition
2). Develop sound Firing Positions, Ready Positions as well as Ready Carry positions
3). Learn Reality Based Marksmanship that takes advantage of the standard shotgun pattern
4). Learn tactically appropriate Gunhandling Drills & Transition to Pistol if suitable.
5). Learn CQB Responses to any point along a 360 arm's length to 7 yards. Its important to focus on fast close shooting because this is where you will use the weapon, not at the mythical rifle ranges some schools are suggesting..
6). Learn the ability to retain/recover/and fight with the weapon in body to body fight (including alternative force issues)
7). Learn Shooting in diminished light and the use of assisted lighting, as well as the use of Tactical Point Shooting.
8). Learn Shooting on the Move (in anything but firing from ambush you must move or get hit).
9). Learn Reality Based Multiple adversary responses (not simply shooting at five pepper poppers).
10). Learn YOUR natural body speed and shoot as fast as YOU can guarantee the hits (not on how fast some "master" shot with his souped up $3000 Benelli back in 1990).

Develop these attributes and you will do well with your shotgun in any fight. Isn't progress wonderful?!


Gabe Suarez
Suarez International USA, Inc.
One Source Tactical
info@suarezinternational.com
Office 928-776-4492

Spaniard by Heritage
Cuban by Birth
Christian by Grace
American by Choice