Home defense recomendations

Personally I chose a shotgun near at hand by the front door and a revolver at bedside. Less possible issues with a revolver when startled awake. .22, 45, 9mm, no matter at that range. I keep a little .25ACP semi-auto in my desk. Cheap ammo and plenty for close range in self defense. Also cheap to kill cans with for fun.

Partly its for scare value at bedside. I keep a long barrelled 45 Colt in my bed-stand and the sight of it sends the appropriate message. You just broke into the wrong damn house, so run and run fast.

For long range I stick with either a 7mm mag or 30-06 since they are appropriate for most game and are excellent at long range. I actually prefer a bolt action to a semi-auto. If I can't hit something in one or two shots, there is no point in pulling the trigger anyway. For protection I don't see any true upside to expensive sniper weapons or cheap assault weapon knockoffs when your hunting rifle will do just fine.

a reply to: redmage

A mossberg 500.
its reasonably priced, easy to use, requires almost no training and being a shotgun its a true point and shoot firearm.

Load it with buck shot or turkey load there is also personal defense rounds but those are nasty.

The beuty of a pump shot gun is that the sound of the pump loading a round is enough to scare basically any would be intruders, the ones that stick around after the sound of a racking shotgun are truely dangerous and require no hesitation.

originally posted by: NWguy83
I'd really like to have this for home defense. It's smaller than a P90 but more deadly.

H&K's PDW/MP7

[edit on 12-12-2005 by NWguy83]

I'm not sure thats a great Idea for homedefense, an MP7 fires extreme high velocity armor piercing rounds at a considerably high ROF. Meaning any rounds that miss may very well kill your neighbors next door, and even rounds that hit the target could pass on through slowing just a bit being almost as deadly as the misses.

Personally I love my Taurus Judge which shoots either 45s or 410 shotgun shells. I have mine loaded with 410 personal defense rounds which (based on my tested patterning) nobody is getting up from, even if I miss a little. I have it stored in a biometric case next to my bed which only opens with my or my wife's fingerprints. I also have a Walter PPS 9mm in the same case which is also my conceal carry.

Hoping to get a biometric vault for my shotgun. A shotgun is the best home defense.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Cheap assault weapon knockoffs?

I take it you mean AR15's?

You do know that for a lot of people that is their hunting rifle too right?

Take me for example, I took my deer last year with my 14.5" barrel with pinned and welded compensator 5.56 AR loaded with my standard 77 grain imi razorcore defensive ammunition at about 200 yards shooting uphill.

That deer hopped about 30 yards and dropped like a rock after I fired my one shot.

Not bad for an "assault rifle knockoff" right?

AR15's are phenomenal sporting and general purpose guns that will do everything and more than most people will ever need in a long gun. This is why they're so popular, not because they're "assault rifle knockoffs"!

They're light, handy, and very easy to use very well.

a reply to: roguetechie

You really think that would be a sensible weapon of choice for hunting then? I frankly can't see using one for a 300 yard shot at a big game animal. Is it accurate to within a hand spread at 300 yards and reliably so?

Don't get me wrong here, I have zero issues with people owning those guns, it's just not what I'd chose.

Now for a deer, even a saddle gun like a 30-30 would be fine in the right circumstances, but it would be a bad choice for anything but a shot under 100 yards.

Knowing the strengths and weaknesses, I see a better overall choice to be purpose built hunting weapon. Very accurate. Great at long range.

You hunting small whitetail or blacktail or something at close distances? I could see it if your hunting in brush or heavy forest or hunting from a blind. A bow would do in those kinds of hunts also. Depends?

Don't take it personal or a dig at those who own and like those. You won't find a guide or experienced hunter using them though. Although most probably have one, but mostly for recreational shooting.

Hunting is more akin to what a sniper rifle is used for. Sniper weapons closely resemble a good hunting rifle for a reason and I don't think you would find a sniper using an AR15. Now if I were hunting pigs say, in brush or other cover, I'm with you. That would be a great choice.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Those are all good points, but I do go back to the OP's premise about little recoil for other members of his family and his budged which points to one all around rifle.

I planned our long rifles around our families size and ability hence the 10/22 for the wife who is 5' and weights 100 pounds. My son and I can chose between the 308 Ruger or the Sig 716 which is a AR-10 platform. Plus an AR-15 on the side

a reply to: FredT

I've never been a weapons collector and only keep what I need. I've never been much for small game hunting, since I only hunt for food and prefer deer, elk, moose of which I've taken quite a few over the decades. I don't even do that anymore, but still have the right guns if I do need to hunt for food.

A Ruger Mark II M77 308 is a great hunting weapon. Changing the stock and form factor does not change that at all. I've had a Ruger at one time I really liked. Now I have a Winchester Model 70 30-06 and it's old but in perfect condition. I like the variety of ammunition and it's easy availability for a 30-06. I used to hunt with a 7mm mag which shot a bit flatter, but in use they both are good choices.

Moot point these days with my health concerns and they sit in a closet. I do get about family members. My first wife, even with good instruction ended up with a nasty black eye after her first time shooting my old 7mm mag. I switched her to a 25-06 for deer hunting, but she never tried to take one. She liked to dog for me though, so we got our meat. I'd sit point and she'd walk through stands of trees and talk to her friend driving them to me with the noise. Got a nice buck that way.

I like to hunt deer in groups of three with two dogging and one sitting point until all three get a nice buck hanging. Learned from a group of guys who had ran a hunting lodge. They showed me how they could guarantee a nice buck for clients, by teaching me how deer think and how to outsmart them. They took me with their group three years in a row and I learned a great deal about deer and elk. Never came home without meat after that, which was in the mid-70s. Usually took a nice buck the first morning and we would camp out the night before to be on point at daybreak. Last time we went with 8 people and 7 days later came out with 7 trophy sized bucks and one smaller one.

I'm way off topic here, sorry OP.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Depending on how large your large game is you might want to jump up to an AR 10 in 6.5cm or your other round of choice, but yeah any reasonably competently built AR10 or AR15 with good ammunition is mechanically capable of 2 moa at absolutely worst. A large percentage of them will actually shoot 1 moa or a little less.

P.s. I fairly regularly shoot my little 14.5" barrel AR to 500 meters at torso and head silhouette targets. If I were a better shooter I could put all my shots into more or less the fatal zone even at that range. This is with a gun more set up for 0-300 meters with the only concession to working further out than that being the nx8 1x-8x LPVO i run as my optic.

As to the guide gun thing, those guys run little bolt actions because they're going to be carried much shot very rarely and there's bolt guns that are lighter than ar10's, not because AR10's and 15's are in any way less good for "sniping".

The reality is until you get into really premium and thus expensive territory for either bolt or AR style guns that get freakishly good accuracy (under .8 moa) an AR can do everything a bolt gun can do only faster while being slightly heavier.

a reply to: roguetechie

If I were younger and still inclined, I'd likely have a weapon like that, just to play with. I think I'd still use a purpose built weapon for hunting though. It's all personal choice. The main thing is accuracy and ability at the longest distance you might encounter.

Normally I'd pass up on a 300 yard shot and I don't think I've ever needed to make one like that to take home meat. More normal would be maybe 100-150 yard shot. Often less if I've read the terrain right and I'm sitting point where I should be.

a reply to: Blaine91555

I get personal preference and sticking to what you're comfortable confident and competent with. I've been building and shooting AR's AK'S & etc since I was a kid, and I haven't been a kid for 20 years!

I actually use an AR as my primary HD gun because of it's reduced overpenetration risks. If I fire it in the house I'm going to damage my hearing and I accept that in exchange for that reduced over pen risk since the chances of needing your HD gun are pretty small.

That's backed up by my g19 and s&w shield on my night stand and headboard just in case.

I cannot recommend against shotguns of any sort enough though!

Here's just a couple of the best reasons why

1. Any shotgun payload that individual pellets or etc can kill you from is going to overpenetrate internal sheetrock and framing to a very unacceptable degree spreading its individual lethal elements randomly over a large area vastly increasing your likelihood of injuring or killing someone behind your attacker/aim point than a single round of any other type every time you pull the trigger.

2. At the ranges we're realistically talking about a shotgun is not any more or less point and shoot than any other option! I cannot stress this enough. You're just not going to achieve much if any spread with most shotgun loads.

3. This is the good news, EVERY GUN is a point and shoot weapon at these ranges!
If you have the front sight or shotgun bead lined up with your target you're going to hit it. Doesn't matter what it is whether pistol rifle or shotgun, if your front sight is on it you're gonna hit it.

Between those 3 things, recoil levels that will keep some people from using them and make many others hesitate before shooting, and the much larger overpenetration danger & danger area shotguns are really not worth any perceived or actual benefits they may possess.