What particular brands are you guys using in your shotguns...!?

Right now I have 250 rounds of 2 3/4" Nobel Sport Law Enforcement 12 pellet with a muzzle velocity of 1,290 fps...



...and 250 rounds of 2 3/4" Sellier & Bellot 9 pellet with a muzzle velocity of 1,180 fps.



Both are well suited for personal defense as well as hunting small size game from my double (side by side) and pump action 12 gauge shotguns.

What brand 00 Buck do you use...and why ?!

I have a whole bunch of the Military 00 buck, that I use for self defense. As far as the rest of my 12 gauge ammo, it is a mix of bird shot for clays and #4 shot for rabbits. I like the #4 for self defense as well.

Hi, guys.

There is some validity in using a high-brass #4 shell for self defense at really close ranges. Like under 3-5 yards. The Winchester olive-drab mil buckshot is just fine for short ranges.

If I were to keep a loaded shotgun handy for home defense I think the best type of load is either a premium 00-buck load that patterns tight, or a 1-oz foster type slug. My reason for mentioning the slug is because inside of twenty feet a buckshot load pattern can be so small that you can possibly miss so why not just shoot a slug? And at 30-yards buckshot will be expended of most of its energy but a slug will still have a good head of steam.

I agree with the slugs as a good self defense round nitesite...

I dropped my first Pennsylvania whitetail with "pumpkin ball" loads made by Brenneke during a special tag hunt on state prison grounds with a double barrel shotgun. My second deer was taken with the same shotgun using Foster slugs.

I was just posing this question to see what other brands of 00 Buck were out there that I haven't tried or heard of yet...

...and because I was hoping this question would help change the tone of this forum...as it has turned into a Remington bashfest with all the recall threads dominating the subforums.

I use super x for most of my ammunition choices. They yield consistent patterns and the price is very decent. For defense I use a 00B high velocity but I also have bean bags and slugs on my side saddle and speed feed stock. I have them glow taped different colors so I can tell the difference in the dark in the light they are already color coated.

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The silver boxes of Winchester Super-X are pretty decent 00-buck that can be found at most sporting good stores. I've used it for years and it's been pretty satisfactory. It's buffered I believe.

Estate buckshot in the green box (made by Federal Cartridge) makes a good practice buckshot load and it'll work for home/self defense in a pinch but isn't buffered and it can throw a fairly wide pattern at 35-yards, but inside living room distances it can be mighty effective.

Federal "Classic" Power-Shok Buckshot F127 00 is a good reduced velocity buffered shell that cooks at 1325-fps. I like it pretty well.

SHOOTER13 wrote:...and because I was hoping this question would help change the tone of this forum...as it has turned into a Remington bashfest with all the recall threads dominating the subforums.

I hear ya, man. Let's have some fun and positive discussion and bounce ideas off one another!!!

Those short buck shells that are only like 2-inches have always made me wish that they would work in an unmodified pump gun. Supposedly you can stuff a lot of them into a tubular magazine and they will clock like 1250-fps or something.

Anybody know anything about them? I think they are Aguila out of Mexico but I'm not sure.

Fill me in, guys!!!

I'm not sure about the shotgun shells but some guys on other threads were looking for Aguila ammo for various calibers; some said they stopped manufacturing, some say they are just really back ordered, and some said they had their permission to export here revoked..... I haven't really looked this info up so I would just say inconclusive.... I have heard 2" shells were great for break action short double barrels. I haven't even seen any that size since early 2000s. I'm sure you can find resources to reload. That would be fantastic to do since you could control how much of what you could put.

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I prefer #4B for home defense, but I do load 00B for protection in the woods or on the road. My first choice would be Remington, their buckshot is high-quality and performs very consistently.

nitesite wrote:Estate buckshot in the green box (made by Federal Cartridge) makes a good practice buckshot load and it'll work for home/self defense in a pinch but isn't buffered and it can throw a fairly wide pattern at 35-yards, but inside living room distances it can be mighty effective.

I think you might be confusing the green-box Estate buckshot with the white-box, or maybe things are different in your area. Around here, the white-box Estate 00B is unbuffered and roll-crimped, while the stuff in the green boxes is buffered and fold-crimped, and patterns pretty well (at least out of my shotgun). I shoot a lot of this Estate for practice/fun because the 25-round boxes are less than $20 in my area.

nitesite wrote:Those short buck shells that are only like 2-inches have always made me wish that they would work in an unmodified pump gun. Supposedly you can stuff a lot of them into a tubular magazine and they will clock like 1250-fps or something.

Anybody know anything about them? I think they are Aguila out of Mexico but I'm not sure.

Multiple manufacturers offer short shells. There's a lot of 2.5" 12ga ammo out there, especially from brands east of the Atlantic where there are still a lot of older shotguns with 2.5" chambers. 2.5" shells can let you squeeze an extra round or two into a magazine and should function reliably in most shotguns, but it's hard to find 2.5" buckshot.

Real shorty (2.25" and below) shells are a neat concept, but a lot of repeaters have issues with them because they're so much shorter than the shells they were designed to cycle. Depending on the gun and the actual unfired length, these shells can fall through shell carriers, hang up outside chambers, fail to eject, and/or get turned around inside receivers.

It's pretty easy to determine the minimum shell length that a specific shotgun can reliably handle through testing with cut-down hulls, but unfortunately a lot of the manufacturers making these shorty shells don't specify their actual unfired length.