On 17 September 2011, Defensive Concepts North Carolina (DCNC) taught our 1 day Defensive Shotgun course in Carthage, NC. The weather was a mixture of mist and light rain for most of the day with the temps remaining in the high 50’s- low 60’s. With only 3 students in attendance, we were able to quickly cover the core material and then expose them to some intermediate material as well. Here’s a breakdown as to how the class ran.
The course began at 0800 with the signing of waivers, instructor and student introductions, review of safety rules, and a briefing on the steps to be conducted in the event of a medical emergency. With the preliminaries out the way, everyone grabbed their guns and went out on the range.
The first topic covered was proper loading and unloading on the shotgun. Due to the limited capacity of the tube fed shotgun, proper loading technique is a vital skill to have in order to on top of ammo management. The key to loading the shotgun effectively is round placement in the hand and students were given plenty of chances during this portion, and throughout the day, to perfect this.
With loading complete, we then moved on to how to unload the shotgun without simply cycling rounds through the action. While more of an administrative task, it is still important to know how to download the gun in a safe manner. Cycling shells through the action set the shooter up for a potential unintended discharge each time a round enters the chamber and the ejection of the rounds could lead to them being lost or damaged. All loading and unloading training was done with the use of orange dummy shells.
Once loading and unloading was covered we moved own to patterning of the shotguns. For those unaware, every shotgun throws a unique pattern and the end user must be aware of how his gun will perform with a given load. We fired rounds from 5 yards, 10 yards, 15 yards, and 25 yards in order for each student to have an idea of how their load would perform at a given distance. Everyone was surprised at how their loads performed and most began to understand how the shotgun is a lot more complex than they realized. One student that uses #4 buck as his home defense load was unable to keep all of the pellets inside the head area of a standard cardboard IDPA/IPSC target. By the time we moved back to 25 yards, less than a quarter of the payload was striking the target. The 00 buck users, while not seeing as drastic spreading of shot, still saw how wide their patterns opened up at 25 yards and began to view their guns and current duty loads as being good for only 15 yards and in. Each student was allowed to keep their targets so they could more easily remember how their loads performed.
After each student had patterned their individual guns, I provided each of them with several rounds of Federal LE132 9 pellet 00 buckshot to try. This load, which features Federal’s Flite Control wad, has proven to be an extremely tight patterning load and I felt it was appropriate to expose the students to it. Each student was able to produce 15 yard patterns that were well under fist sized from their individual guns. Most made the comment that they were going to replace their current duty ammo with the LE132 once they had an opportunity. The load, without question, is phenomenal.
After patterning the shotguns, we moved to the 15 yard line and began practicing put hits on steel from the ready. Students were permitted to use the read position of their choosing with all using the conventional low ready. During this block of instruction, students were introduced to the idea of “shoot one, load one”. This theory is that for every shot you fire, you need to replenish an equal number in the magazine tube. Doing so helps to insure that gun doesn’t run empty in a rapid manner. During this portion of training we also covered stance, hand positioning, and methods of recoil management.
At this point we took a one hour lunch break and returned to the range at approximately 1300.
The first topic covered once we returned to the range was malfunction clearing. The two types of malfunctions covered were the Type 1 (failure to fire) and the Type 2 (stovepipe/failure to eject). Both of these malfunctions had occurred to students through out the day and most had already figured a way to clear them on their own. We did refine the method of clearing the Type 2 which made the students more efficient in their movements when clearing the malfunction.
Next we moved on to a bit of slug work. The ability to use slugs is the primary method of increasing the effective range of the shotgun. With that being said, you need to make sure your marksmanship fundamentals are in place and you have to know how to introduce the slug in the loading process in order to make use of. Both of these topics were covered with the introduction of the slug being covered through the use of “select slug”. Students were able to practice this by engaging a steel target with a shot load then loading a slug and engaging a target approximately 30 yards away.
With slug work complete we moved to the 20 yard line and worked shooting from a kneeling position and proper use of cover. Training at this range was completed with a “battlefield pickup” drill which involved some running, carrying a sandbag, and a shotgun in an unknown state of readiness.
From here we worked some one arm shotgun manipulations using the dominant and non-dominant arm and finished off the instructional portion with some shooting on the move.
With the instructional portion of the class complete the students went to a holding area while the DCNC staff set the range up for a final skill evaluation. This “final drill” involves, running, carrying a sandbag, and multiple stations that each test a different skilled that was covered during the day. Students were limited to 2 slugs and 20 rounds of buck shot for the final drill. Everyone performed well, but all saw places were they still needed to improve.
With the final drill in the record books, certificates were handed out and a quick course debrief was conducted. Once this was done, empty hulls were picked up and the students left the range for their trips home.
The final round count for the class was approximately 425 rounds of birdshot, 25 rounds of buck, and 20 slugs. Note: students were told to bring more than the listed 325 rounds of birdshot due to the low number of students that would be attending.
Firearms and Issues:
Guns in attendance included Remington 870s and a Mossberg 835. For the people that think the shotgun can tack a beating and keep on ticking, this class would prove them wrong. We had one 870 that had multiple stuck casings which required the gun to be slammed against the ground in order to open the action. The Mossberg also encountered this at least once. The problem can be traced back to the use of “cheap” bulk pack ammo. The lower QC of these rounds tends to lead to the stuck casing issue much more often than is seen higher quality loads.
Each of the guns also saw numerous Type 1 malfunctions during the day. These malfunctions were not ammo based, but were caused by the shooters failing to fully cycle the action. This is easily the most common seen issue encountered with the slide action/pump shotgun and is one of the reasons it isn’t highly recommended as a home defense tool to novice shooters.
