The coach gun has always intrigued me. It seems reasonable to me that with a Leather buttstock shell holder and some practice, it might be a formidable package. Is it feasible as a defense weapon or is that Old West nastalgia talking?
ETA: I had an 870 all setup like anyone could want thier typical HD pump 12GA, but it never did much for me. Too long, heavy, and unweildy for me to consider it as a primary. Even so, my AR would still be my primary since it has a light, but there’s just something appealing about the SXS short 12.
I like the look of the coach guns and in most HD / SD situations they would be adequate. They do not match up with modern pump’s or semi’s due to being limited in capacity. Reloads even if practiced will take significantly longer. But the side by side worked well for Uncle Jesse:cool:
I don’t think I would call any antipersonel weapon that needs to be reloaded after two rounds formidable.
When you consider that possibility of missing a shot, the possibility of needing to shoot someone more than once, and the possibility of facing more than one attacker since criminals often operate in packs, it becomes aparrent that something that needs to be reloaded every two shots is grossly inadequate when compared to modern alternatives, be it a pump action shotgun that can hold 5+ rounds, a modern centerfire handgun in a duty caliber that can hold 10+ rounds, or a modern semiauto carbine that can hold 30.
Is it feasible as a defense weapon or is that Old West nastalgia talking?
If for whatever reason the double is all you have or all you can have, I would set it up as you described and go with it. I actually have one set up similarly, but I have much better alternatives for a defensive longarm.
There is something very neat about the mechanics and feel of a double barrel, as there is something neat about a Krag (even if it is one that was butchered and sporterized). They hearken back to an era long past. But neither are first or even third choices these days.
As I see it, it is a feasible defense weapon however the appeal of using one over a good pump action is “Old West” nastalgia. Its selecting something that is inferior although still will likely work for reasons beyond the pure use.
…especially when travelling in non-handgun friendly locals. Broken down, it fits in most luggage, so it won’t be noticed while checking in to the motel. More comforting than a folding knife in a motel room (loaded with the least penetrating shot possible d/t neighbors:)
With a bit of practice, you can get very quick in reloading that coach gun. I’ve been meaning to run some experiments on timing between 14 rounds from a pump vs. break open. Fooling around with a buddy a couple of years ago on a range, he got 6 rounds out of a coach gun almost as fast as I did on an 870.
Factor in ease of use, reliability, inability to short-stroke a pump and shortened overall length due to no-action to speak of and the coach gun provides some interesting benefits.
If you are travelling by air you will still need to transport it in a separate hard case (even though the regs allow you to lock a handgun in a hard case into your regular luggage). But once you get there, you can take it out of the hard case and put it into your regular luggage so it would not be noticed while checking into the hotel/motel.
The only place that I know that this applies to is NY State (though not NYC).
In MA, you need a license to possess any firearm, and in NJ, the laws are beyond confusing and written in a way that you could conceivably get arrested for a longarm in any number of circumstances, such as possession of a firearm outside of your residence and transporting it in a car to anyplace other than a range or gunsmith or hunting field. This includes tansporting it to and from the airport and checking it into the airport, and possibly even having it in a hotel room, though you could argue that a hotel room is a temporary residence. In any other state, that would be acknowledged as a valid argument.
Loading a double barrel requires you remove your hand from the gun and thus break your firing grip as well as take your eye off the threat, as opposed to simply pumping a pump gun during recoil and bringing the gun back on target and ready to fire. Most side-by sides don’t eject the fired case which requires you pull them out before loading a new round. There is also the potential to fumble a reload when trying to slip the round into the barrel. This is something that you must do every two shots with a double. I don’t see how you get close to the rate of fire with a double that you do with a pumpgun, plus you have to do a whole lot more every two shots.
Also note that there is no LE agency in the US that issues double barrelled shotguns and hasn’t been in some time. That should be a huge clue.
On p. 44 of his book Stressfire II, Massad Ayoob considers the double barrelled shotgun to be Obsolete for antipersonel use for a century. I may not agree with everything he writes, but I agree with him on this issue.
Really not a big deal…you’d have to remove your hand anyways to reload any shotgun, semi, pump, whatever. Like I said there was virtually no difference between getting 4 rounds off out of a pump than there was out of a double-barrel. I’d agree it requires more testing but it’s not the end of the world either.
The notion of removing your eye from the threat is as overdone as any other firearms cliche. If your gun goes down in a fight, MY number one priority is getting the gun back up. You can’t do that unless you can see what is going on with a gun. Is the gun empty? Is it a malfunction? Who knows…and you’re not going to know more unless you take a look at the gun. In many cases just fumblefucking with a gun will often induce a greater malfunction. You’re no more likely to take your eye off a threat reloading a double-barrel than you are a semi or pump.
There is certainly as much potential to fumble a reload for a pump or semi as well. Having a pump instead of a double doesn’t preclude that possibility. Accordingly there is the same potential for a miss with either as well. Added to this is the potential for short-stroking a pump which has its own problems.
Again I’m not saying that it’s the ideal solution, or that there aren’t some drawbacks, I’m simply saying that it’s not as unsuitable as one might think and there are legitimate reasons to have one in the arsenal. While I would prefer a semi for a tactical shotgun there are some virtues to the break open and one way or the other practice and training is key. I’d give the advantage to someone who practiced with a double-barrel over someone unpracticed either with a pump or semi. You may disagree.
As for Mas? Well Mas has some interesting ideas but he’s not the end-all be-all judge of what is appropriate or not appropriate for self-defense.
While I won’t claim that this is enough of an advantage to elevate it to the ranks of a “good choice” for HD, the one advantage I can see with a SxS is that it can be stored in a relatively unique state where it is ready to go at a moments notice, but has a 0% chance of being fired unintentionally.
What I’m referring to would be storing the shotgun with both chambers loaded & with the safety off, but broken open so that it can’t be fired unless you close it back up. Where I would give that storage state a slight edge over simply turning a safety to “ON” is that you don’t really have to ‘remember’ to close it back up, because it will be readily apparent from the second you see it that it isn’t ready to fire.
Take one hunting sometime or do something else that induces stressful loading.
While they aren’t prone to short stroking. They have their own quirks.
Many are designed to have the safety come on every time you close the action. Point and no click just WTF.
Not closing the action hard enough to lock. (That droopy feeling :D)
Not pushing the action release far enough over to unlock it.
Not opening the action hard or far enough to get primary extraction and cock the internal hammmers, try to do this when you are sitting down or in an akward position. You have to have enough room under the gun to break it open.
Not pushing the shells far enough into the chamber so that you can close the action if not somewhere you can get a gravity assist.
Trying to be cool and load 2 shells at once and dropping one or both.
I have hunted with an old Stevens 311 for a long time and it is alot of fun. I got pretty good reloading but I had all of the above happen at least once to me. That only cost me a shot at a crow.
Be aware of what you are getting into and be willing to train out your issues.
If you are in my area, come with me on a hunt
But I wouldn’t want to depend on it for defense unless I absolutely had to.
I do however, love the fact that I can look down the barrels and know that up to a wingspan across both is front trigger, across one is the rear trigger and having that tighter full choke is good for that oops, missed that 1st shot on an escaping bird.
I also tend to take better higher percentage shots with it because it is in 20 ga and I don’t have that 3rd Aw Crap shot.
Loading under pressure is a stressful activity, especially if you don’t practice it. This is as true for magazine loaded firearms as anything else. Ever been to a beginner class and seen the occasional magazine go flying? Or better yet after a reload the magazine drops out of the mag well?
While they aren’t prone to short stroking. They have their own quirks.
Totally agree…all firearms have quirks. These quirks are fewer and somewhat simpler on a break-open than on repeating firearms. That’s not to say they’re a better choice, only that they’re easier for a noob to train to.
Be aware of what you are getting into and be willing to train out your issues.
Totally agree, just saying that a break-open is as simple a gun to use as exists. This can be both a positive and negative.
But I wouldn’t want to depend on it for defense unless I absolutely had to.
Not my first choice either but I’d probably choose one over some other options.
You are being intellectually dishonest here. With a double barrelled shotgun you have to do this every two rounds as opposed to every 6 to 8 shots with a pumpgun. There is a huge advantage to a gun that holds 3-4 times the ammount of ammo.
Like I said there was virtually no difference between getting 4 rounds off out of a pump than there was out of a double-barrel.
If that is the case you are dealling with either one of the best doublebarelled shooters in the world running the double or someone who doesn’t know how to run a pumpgun on the pump.
The notion of removing your eye from the threat is as overdone as any other firearms cliche. If your gun goes down in a fight, MY number one priority is getting the gun back up.
Again you are being intellectually dishonest or just oblivious to the obvious. With a double barelled shotgun, you have to remove your eye from the threat and release your fighting grip to reload every two rounds, a fact that you are deliberately ignoring. A gun that you requires you to release a fighting grip and remove your attention from the attacker to reload it every two rounds is a major tactical disadvantage.
Since the end of the First World War, almost no US police department issued double barrels. That should be a huge clue to you. Neither did the US military.
There is certainly as much potential to fumble a reload for a pump or semi as well. Having a pump instead of a double doesn’t preclude that possibility. Accordingly there is the
same potential for a miss with either as well.
With a pump gun you can fire at least 3 times the number of rounds before you need to reload–this is a tactical dvantage over having only two shots before needing to reload.
I think you already had this conversation with myself and a bunch of other people and that thread got locked:
Someone apparently doesn’t like to have their assumptions challenged. :rolleyes: Rather than questioning another’s intellectual honesty you take the time to question your own assumptions and engage in a bit of critical thought.
Yes they hold 3-4 times the amount of ammo…but what happens when you have to reload 3-4 times the amount of ammo…one round at a time with a chance of fumbling, dropping or otherwise screwing up that reload.
So yes…you can probably shoot the first 6-8 rounds faster…but then that reload process becomes significantly longer. Most shotgun instructors I’m aware of teach reloads on a pump/semi is to reload one rounds at a time rather than going through a full 6-8 round reload. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrlsElWfnC0
With a break-open this process is at least comparable in terms of speed.
I didn’t say it was the best choice, or even my ideal choice…only that it represents a legitimate choice.
Perhaps you should engage in some of the intellectual “honesty” you value so much. Think before you post.
I am much faster loading singles with a auto than I am with a double.
Many times I have been swarmed by crows and I can drop a shell in the ejection port and hit my action release much faster than I can thumb over lever, break the gun, clear the chamber grab another shell and drop it in the left barrel and close it back up. I can load left handed with an auto/pump but I can’t do that with a double. With a double I thumb the release, while breaking the gun, hold the barrels with my left hand clear and load the chambers with my right hand, close it back up and bring the gun back into my LOS. I sometimes try to do that with 2 shells at the same time but invariably I hit the left barrel with the right shell or vice versa and I screw something up.
With the auto I bring the gun off my shoulder while grabbing another shell out of my pouch, turn the gun ejection port down, palm the shell into the ejection port, roll the gun back to the left slightly until I feel the shell slide into the port, level the gun back and hit the action release while sliding my hand back up to the forearm.
I don’t take my eyes off my targets to look at the gun with either action type, if I do, I lose them or I lose time trying to pick out another one to shoot.
I killed 18 crows like that one afternoon using my M1 Benelli. Man what a rush. I really ticked them off that day. Think “The Birds”.
I shot more than 18 rounds too.
The biggest hurdle in my experience is actually getting the gun open to do the reload. When your hands are sweaty or gloved the lever seems to slip off right before it opens and having enough room under the gun to complete the arc of opening can sometimes be a challenge in a blind or out in the heavy growth in the woods.
I would imagine that it would be just as bad or worse in a home where you are trying to move around and take cover.
I still love using it though. That *snickt-thunk" of closing just feels so cool.
Don’t get me wrong, my AR is #1 and my pistol is #2. I’m not looking to make the shotgun a primary HD weapon, but wanted some in put on whether or not it was totally ludicrous to consider it to be used in that role.
I’m not going to depend on something that only holds two rounds as a defensive piece, unless it was absolutely all I had.
It’s not 1880 anymore.
If you want one just because you want one, that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to buy one, just don’t kid yourself that it’ll be better than a good 870.
A coach gun isn’t really the same as a sporting or hunting SxS. It’s a good deal more basic. Norinco and Stoeger make them in the $300 range (± $50).
It’s simple, easy to learn to operate effectively, less prone to malfunction and comparatively compact. If it does fail, it also makes a fairly handy bludgeon. It’s discrete and doesn’t have a lot of the “scary” features that some people who might otherwise resist carrying a firearm dislike. It also kills.
There are far worse choices a person could make in an HD firearm.
I didn’t say it was “better” or “best” or in any way superior…only a legitimate choice depending on the person’s needs.
Think “The Birds”.