RE: Basic Guns Part 3: Shotguns

My recent post on shotguns in the basic guns series drew a comment worth replying to. It already got a pretty good response but I'll take a shot at it also. Here it is, I will reply after each piece in italics.
"Let's see...
* Heavy, bulky ammo
How much ammo do you plan on carrying? For a normal home defense or siting on the porch after a Hurricane type scenario I'd be quite comfortable with what's in/ on the gun and 40-50 rounds which is not excessively heavy. True 150-250 rounds of buckshot or slugs would weight a lot but if you're trying to do that it's likely not a problem that can be solved with a shotgun anyway.
* Short range
Short range in comparison to what? [This is a systemic issue of the comment. Nothing is defined or compared to another alternative.]  Figure buckshot is good to 30 meters or so which covers probably 90% of home defense type situations. Slugs out of a standard open cylinder barrel with a bead sight are good to about 100m (if the operator does his part) which probably covers 99.9% of civilian defensive situations.
* Ineffective against even the cheapest armor
So are all but a few oddball pistols but you don't see folks running away from 9mm, .357mag, .40 and .45. The comment to use slugs is valid. Then again rifle plates that stop everything up to 30'06 AP are common place and can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. So that thinking eliminates the advantage of .223, 7.62x39 and .308 also; you would really have to move to .338 Lapua or other anti materiel type rifle that will either blow through a plate or create so much energy it would do a person in through blunt force trauma. Honestly while Goblins wearing body armor is a valid worst case scenario for home defense the real odds of it happening are probably pretty low. If a round to the plate does not do somebody in (or you see vests) transition to 'hips and heads'. In plain English if you suspect folks might have vests shoot them in the hips and then in the face. Heck given the slim but reasonable likelihood that somebody has a vest these days starting with 'hips and heads' isn't a terrible idea.
* Crap sights
Honestly I have never really had an issue with the plain old single bead. Given the realistic ranges for employing a shotgun I find them sufficient. Rifle sights, ghost ring sights or a red dot are all better and valid options but they cost money.
* Crap accuracy
If a person cannot use a serviceable shotgun to accomplish realistic shotgun tasks the issue lie in the operator not the weapons system.
* Awkward, slow reloads
 In comparison to a modern magazine fed weapon that holds 20-30+ rounds reloads are slow and awkward. On the other hand if we are comparing it to a bolt or lever action rifle I would call it a wash.
So why would I want to buy a shotgun again?"

Further commentary:  The systemic problem with this comment is that it does not compare shotguns to another option by weak point or to propose another weapons system as an all around better option. Maybe I am being too hard on this but it has it's been pounded into my head that you bring up a problem AND A BETTER OPTION.

I am a pretty harsh critic of shotguns for home defense. This guy would take an AR/ AK/ Mini 14/ Whatever over a shotgun every day of the week and twice on Sunday. $1,500 Project AR with a $500 optic blows the old 870 out of the water in about every possible way. A Mercedes or Porche SUV blows my Asian SUV out of the water and $120 a bottle Scotch beats $18 a bottle stuff. The problem is that a comparison between them that does not consider economics is invalid. 

At the time of this writing AR's run $1,200 for low end guns. AK's are running almost a grand for low end ones.  A quality shotgun costs 1/4 to 1/3rd of either. Many people are priced out of modern defensive rifles these days but any semi functional adult can pull together $250-300ish to get a good pump shotgun. Also today they are still widely available both in stores and on the private market. Think I've beat the cost thing to death.

The other big benefit of a shotgun is versatility. A rifle can do some things better than a shotgun but there are many things a shotgun can do that a rifle fails completely at. As discussed before any sort of jack of all trades is not the master of any but in this scenario a gun that does a lot of things acceptably is very useful.

Instead of comparing a shotgun to rifles that cost 3-4x as much ones in the same range might be a more equitable comparison. We will get to rifles later but the playing field between bolt action deer rifles, lever guns and old milsurp Mosin Nagants and the shotgun is a whole lot more level.  A reasonable person could choose to go rifle first then shotgun down the road but it's still important to compare apples to apples.

Considering this is the Basic Guns series and we are talking about affordable but still reliable guns that will fill a lot of roles I consider the shotgun worthwhile. 

Thoughts?

Admin Note- Comment Moderation and Spam

Hey All, The Spambots seem to have caught onto our lack of word verification or comment moderation. In the last couple days a trickle turned into a flood. Some of the stuff was SEO mooching or gibberish but a lot was sexually explicit and or seemingly links to porn. I went through and deleted what I could easily find but some almost surely slipped through the cracks. On a positive note I am pleased to say that blog readers behaved like the decent adults they are during this period of 'wild west' commenting. I sincerely thank you for that.

In any case I reinstated the word verification as well as comment moderation for posts older than 7 days. Hopefully the word verification is not too much a hassle for you all.

New Pages and Formatting Changes

I gave the blog a bit of long overdue attention. Also I did something that has been in my head for a couple weeks. I put together pages for the Thoughts on Insurgencies Series and Guerrilla War stuff and another for fitness (a link to my other blog). While the Thoughts on Insurgencies Series already existed this will make it easier to find them. Hopefully you enjoy the new changes. Please let me know if you are having issues with seeing things on different platforms, with dead links or whatever.

Have a nice day,
Ryan

Over One MILLION Page Views!

Today the blog passed one million page views. This is a pretty big milestone for me. Coming into this with some useful skills helped. Also at the time things got going I had a lot of spare time which was very useful. If you can't work smart then working HARD is a decent alternative. Between my efforts and the help of some great bloggers like Jim Rawles of Survival Blog and Commander Zero and too many more to list things grew over time.

Over the last several years my life has changed a lot. Graduated college, married a great woman I totally do not deserve, went to "the dark side", learned so many things I don't know where to start, had a son and deployed again, this time to Afghanistan.

A lot of my growing up has been reflected in the blog. It may be a little less fun sometimes as rants are rare these days heck I can't remember the last time I cursed at somebody on here. However it is probably a more productive place in terms of helping people get prepared.

It has been a long, strange and wonderful trip.I have really enjoyed meeting some great people who happen to be really serious survivalists. Almost every day I learn something cool. I learn so much cool stuff from you guys that there is just no way to action it all. In a mess of word files and tables I have all sorts of ideas just waiting for time and money to action them. If you all have picked up half as much good info as I have then my job is being done well here.

At times like these it is good to look forward. Things are moving in the direction of gun stuff because firearms training is going to be a bigger part of my life for awhile. Food storage is where a lot of our money and a decent amount of our time is going. Being able to bring you all cool contests is something I enjoy and hope to keep doing better and better.

Well I am pretty happy about this. Back to normal posting tomorrow.

Be Advised

I am  going to be on the road for the next few days traveling from the wonderful PNW to Arizona. Depending on if the flee bag reasonably prices motels I stay in has the web I might not be on few days. Posts are scheduled for this period. Once down there until I get established convenience and my schedule will dictate internet usage. So if it is a hassle or I am busy then I won't be on much. 

Don't worry that I got murdered by creepy mutants in the desert if I don't reply to an email for a week or maybe two. If you don't get a response in a week or two resend because it might have slipped through the proverbial cracks. Then if you don't hear anything maybe I did actually get murdered.

Anyway I wanted to let you all know.

How To Not Get Killed In a Riot- Random Repost

For whatever reason this post has gotten a ton of hits lately. Maybe folks are getting scared or it got into a forum/ email type chain. Anyway it is a pretty awesome post if I do say so myself so you should check it out.

Blah

I have been banging my head against the wall with blogger for a few days. Brute forcing technology can be a real exercise in frustration. Today I finally got it figured out, well at 95% solution anyway. The rest I know how to do and can knock out tomorrow evening.

Normally today would get "What did you do to prepare this week?" but not a lot is happening here. Between time and energy being spent on getting ready to move and generally being in limbo some stuff is on hold. Once home for vacation I will order some rifle plates. Additionally I am trying to sell the M1 Garand and 1911. Both have potential buyers. However if they are serious, have the cash and we can agree on a deal is to be determined. Hopefully both sales go through and I can put some cash toward pretty important accessories and a bit towards a vital survival tool new toy. Worst case if I can't sell the 1911 it will probably  be my PNW pistol for the foreseeable future. The Garand would get hauled along to sell/ trade at our next location.

This week I will keep running, lift some weights and hopefully tighten up my diet. The running/ rucking half of the August Challenge is going well but the weight loss half is almost totally stalled. Hopefully being a bit more intentional and keeping better track of what I eat will help here. It had better because it isn't fun.

Anyway I am going to surf the web a little bit and turn in early. Despite having no good reason for it I am pretty tired today.

Blogger Fail

Sometimes I schedule a post and forget about it then write another post post. If I am running low on extra stuff I then shuffle things around which is a minor hassle. Other times I just don't bother. In any case you all get an extra article today.

Seeking Advertisers

We here at the Rantfest are actively seeking out new advertisers. If you sell firearms or firearms equipment, outdoor stuff, strait up survivalist stuff or precious metals advertising here would be a great fit. We are flexible and work with folks to meet their unique needs. Also if you know someone whose business could benefit from advertising here please suggest that they check out the blog and shoot me an email at theotherryan@yahoo.com.

Invisible Friends

My Mother In Law is pretty active in an online community, which one doesn’t matter. She calls the people she knows there “Invisible friends”. I like the term. Invisible friends are a big part of the fun of being involved in an online community. Invisible friends are people who have a lot in common with you if in a narrow sense that can give advice and encouragement.

I have found that in places where people gather to discuss a specific range of interests (could be firearms, survivalism, fitness, a hobby or whatever) people are on the whole quite honest. I take folks at face value and their word until given a reason to do otherwise. Every once in awhile there is a troll or somebody who wants to push things in the direction of their alternate agenda. Only one time that I can recall have I stumbled into a total liar.

That being said I do take some precautions. I quite intentionally don’t go into detail about parts of my life, show pictures, etc. Giving anybody you hardly know actionable intelligence to rob or harm you is just not smart. Somebody I have been talking to for regularly for months could, given an iron trap memory or good data management, probably have pieced together a whole lot about me but I don’t worry about that too much. It is one of the risks of getting to know people and has been more than worth the payoff of some interesting and rewarding friendships.

There is one thing I am particularly careful about. I try very hard not to say anything on the computer (blog, email, etc) which I would not want read back to me in a court room. I am even more careful about what I say to folks I don’t know well. 

In the Sopranos there is a young female FBI Agent who was tasked with going under cover to get close to the delightful Adrianna Laserva. This gal changed her appearance and her voice and happened to bump into Ade. They liked the exact same things and had the same hobbies and interests and totally clicked. Over time through idle conversations and observation the agent got some dirt on young Adriana. You get where this is going and it wasn’t pretty.

Now I am not saying this has happened or will happen to anybody like boring old you or me. First this is probably tin foil hat stuff. Secondly I seriously hope our government can manage its time and resources better. Third I don’t really do anything interesting.

That being said if an invisible friend ever once talked about committing a felony, especially if it involved illegal firearms or explosives I would run, not walk away. (I am excluding morbid but obvious jokes like, “and that makes me want to start burning down liquor stores.”) There is a saying that if you are at a group/ political type meeting and 3 people are advocating criminal behavior or violence they are all probably undercover agents for somebody or another has some truth to it. Some folks have different concepts of ‘conspiracy’ and ‘entrapment’ and I do not feel like having my life ruined. The best case is that my invisible friend has a couple of screws loose and is planning something bad. That is still really not a situation where I want to be involved.
Aside from a little bit of caution for the sake of OPSEC and being careful about what sort of conversations you get involved in there is no reason not to interact with and enjoy invisible friends.

Beside, you aren’t going to make any real friends sitting at your computer all day wearing a with a tin foil hat so you might as well make some invisible friends.