Defensive Carry banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Do you realize that a single 00 pellet has less energy and momentum than a .380?

88K views 166 replies 63 participants last post by  Tangle 
#1 ·
Because 00 buckshot is right at 9mm in diameter, actually 0.33" vs 0.354" (9 mm), we kinda think of 9 pellet 00 buckshot being equivalent to 9, 9 mm rounds. It isn't and it isn't even close, especially when the 9 pellet 00 is low recoil. Here's why:

The total energy delivered to a threat by a 12 ga load, say Federal LE13200 reduced recoil which consists of 9 00 pellets at 1145 fps, is an impressive 1413 ft-lbs. However the energy of each individual pellet is only 157 ft-lbs. A .380 Federal American Eagle, FMJ, has 203 ft-lbs of energy. How significant is all this?

Well, if a threat is shot a distance such that each pellet strikes a different place, i.e. no two pellets strike the same place, then the work done by each pellet, which reflects the ability of the pellet to penetrate, is all you get. A 00 pellet weighs 54 gn and is traveling at 1145 fps (actually that's muzzle velocity) and is very close in diameter to a 9mm. So in a sense it would be like loading your 9 mm handgun with a 54 gn bullet with a velocity of 1145 fps. Who would pick such a round for SD? Yet, that's what each pellet of 00 buckshot is.

Even the lightest 9mm loads, say a Federal American Eagle, has a bullet weight of 115 gns (well over twice the mass of the 00), a velocity of 1180 fps, and an energy of 358 ft-lbs. So 4 shots of such a 9mm load would deliver the same total energy, actually more 1421 vs 1413, than the shotgun. Then if you compare momentum of a single pellet vs a single 115 gn American Eagle 9mm, the 9mm has over twice the momentum. Momentum is the primary effect that knocks things around, i.e. recoil and bone breaking, not the energy. That's why a .223 with about the same energy as a 12 ga shotgun doesn't have nearly the recoil - the shotgun load has far more momentum.

Even a 90 gn FMJ .380 has more energy than a single 00 pellet and has 44% more momentum.

Hmmm, I wonder if I can get a .380 shotgun? :tongue:

Another interesting thing is a single 55 gn .223 @ 3240 fps has almost as much energy as the whole 9 pellet 00 buckshot load - 1281 ft-lbs. The .223 has the same weight as an individual 00 pellet but over 8 times the energy!

Anyway, this is just something to think about when you have nothing else to do, or want to go to sleep or something. This doesn't in any way diminish the power of the shotgun, but on a pellet basis, a 00 pellet is really pretty wimpy. And unfortunately it is the mass and velocity of the pellet that does the work and makes it penetrate.
 
See less See more
#109 ·
For those of you that think it isn't important to consider the ballistics of individual 00 pellets, because there are always more than one, I have this to say:
First, ALL the pellets behave the same as one as far as penetration goes. The problem is each pellet is a low mass, relatively slow moving, low energy bullet. I know, you still think that doesn't matter, but it is critical to understanding what you can expect from buckshot. Here's a real-world incident. I found this on another board that has some pretty serious members:

I'm not sure that the reduced recoil Flite Control buck loads have the retained energy at 40+ yards to do more than just poke nicely grouped holes in target cardboard. About a month ago, a local police agency here got into a gunfight with a murder suspect. Two of the officers involved had 870 shotguns loaded with issued Federal LE-132 9-pellet low-recoil 00-buck. A third officer had a 20-inch barreled AR-15 loaded with some kind of 55-grain ammo. The fight occured at about 35 to 40 yards distance.

The armed murder suspect was shot into submission in just seconds. At the ER, the bad guy had a shattered hand, and one of his femur bones was so completely pulverized that the doctors reportedly amputated his leg. As you would expect, that was a result of .223 rifle impacts.

However, when the paramedics peeled the suspect's cheap leather coat off of him, numerous 00-buck pellets fell out of the leather material onto the floor of the ambulance. Let that sink in a couple seconds. The low-recoil buckshot had failed to fully penetrate the suspect's outer garment, a leather coat, and the pellets were embedded and stuck in the material...
Granted, that's pushing the range for 00 buckshot, but why is it? LE 132 00 patterns very tightly and a number of the pellets actually hit the threat. So, it wasn't because of spread or pattern. And it's not because there weren't enough pellets hitting the threat - it's because the pellets that did hit, wouldn't penetrate the threat's leather jacket! And here we are, right back to my point - when pellets act alone, they aren't very impressive.

So with all that muzzle energy why won't the pellets penetrate? Because once the pellets spread, again, they become individual pellets against wind resistance. This is yet another reason to understand why the ballistics of one pellet apply to all pellets. Low mass, spherical projectiles, are pretty quickly slowed by wind resistance. 'Slowed' means rapid energy loss. How many think a .380 would not penetrate a leather jacket at 40 yards?

Also, before I leave this, let's compare the effectiveness of the .223 to the 00 buck at the same distance. This is quite interesting, because the weight of the .223, 55 gns, is almost identical to a 00 pellet, 54 gns. Yet the small caliber .223 devastated the threat. Why? Because, although it was acting alone, all the muzzle energy was applied to a single round, not divided up over 8 or 9 rounds. Also, the .223 is aerodynamic and is not effected nearly as much by wind resistance as a sphere.

So now we can see more clearly than ever why it is important, if not critical, to understand the ballistics of 00 loads at the pellet level.
 
#111 ·
You might want to consider this -this was an actual test performed with real guns with real ammo.

With the real world guns, we’d just shoot the three rounds of a given brand of ammunition, swipe the barrel with a Bore Snake, then move on to the next brand. We actually did all the tests on the real world guns first, since we didn’t have all the ammunition we wanted, and figured that this data would be more important than the drop off in performance between 18-inch and 17-inch barrel lengths (for example). Altogether we tested about 1,000 rounds of ammo over the course of three days

The data doesn’t lie. We were seeing 90 and 95 grain bullets moving at 900+ feet per second(fps) out of even the shortest barrels, beating everything else by at least 100 fps.

I think our results will surprise a lot of people who were skeptical about the effectiveness of this caliber in these very small guns, as they surprised me.
The rounds they refer to are the Buffalo Bore +P 90 and 95 gn bullets. They were fired from a 2" real gun.

Just so you won't again accuse me of making up outrageous numbers, here's where the data comes from:
Hornadyle.com - 12 GA TAP® Reduced Recoil™

and "Ballistics By the Inch",
BBTI - Ballistics by the Inch :: .380 Auto Results (2010)

Let's compare a much more docile .380 load, more of a standard load fired from a 2" barrel. We'll compare it to the Hornady TAP low recoil. I use Hornady because we know the barrel length they fire it from is 18.5". So we're taking a real world shotgun barrel and comparing it to the shortest real-world barrel in a real world gun firing a .380.

The representative .380 is the 90 gn Speer Gold Dot FMJ with a muzzle velocity of 852 fps from a real gun with a real barrel only 2" long.

Hornady lists the ballistics as 991 fps, 8 pellet 00. That yields an energy of 118 ft-lbs per pellet.

Now the .380. The .380 has an energy of 145 ft-lbs - that's a huge difference. Well the Hornady is a pretty light low recoil so let's use a more powerful low recoil load - the Remington LE 132 00.

The LE 132 00 manufacture lists this round as 9 pellet 00 at 1145 fps, and we don't know if that comes from an 18.5" barrel or not. The energy per pellet is 157 ft lbs which is only 8% more than the .380. IF those ballistics are from an 18" barrel. If it's not then the energy will go down.

BTW, Hornady lists the velocity from a 30" barrel at 1100 fps and out of an 18.5" barrel at 991, so length does make a difference in a shotgun. In fact the energy of a 00 pellet at 1100 fps is 145 ft-lbs (same as a .380 fired from a 2" barrel). The energy of a pellet at 991 fps out of the 18.5" barrel is 118 ft-lbs. Going from an 18.5" barrel to a 30" barrel increases the pellet energy by 23%.

And from the 30" barrel at 1100 fps it still only has the same energy as a .380 fired from a 2" barrel.

But again, when the 00 and .380 have exactly the same energy, the 90 gn .380 at 852 fps vs a 00 at 1100 fps, the .380 still has 25% more momentum than a 00.

The point of the thread is not to prove that every .380 load has more energy than every low recoil 00, but to establish the shocking truth about the energy in 00 low recoil pellets. The energy in each pellet of some 00 low recoil is in fact less than some .380s. At best, a 00 low recoil pellet energy is about 8% more than a .380 fired from a 2" barrel and still would not have as much momentum as the .380. However as you can see from the chart, there are some .380s even more powerful than the one I used. I just used this one because it didn't seem all that special.
 
#112 ·
FWIW, here's Corbon's .380 spec's - Notice the barrel length and this stuff beats full power 00, i.e. 00 traveling at 1325 fps (energy per pellet, 210 ft-lbs):

Caliber: 380 Auto
Bullet Wt.: 90gr CORBON Self-Defense JHP
Velocity: 1050fps
Energy: 220ftlbs
Test Barrel Length: 2.5 Inches

And here's a real-world test with that Federal I referred to earlier:

Source:
http://mousegunaddict.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-realistic-380-acp-vs-9mm-test.html

Diamondback DB380 380 ACP with 2.8" barrel

Actual measured velocity: 890 fps
Expansion: .515"
Penetration: 11.25" - - (that's through two layers of denim and SIM-TEST material)

Calculated energy: 158 ft-lbs (at 890 fps)

That's more than the Federal LE 132 00 load produces per pellet- 157 ft lbs. And we don't even know what barrel they attained that with.

I calculated the energy of this .380 round based on the chrono'd velocity from a 2.8" real gun to be
 
#114 ·
Let me think

I have a pump 12...18.5 inch barrel, loaded with 3 inch Winchester super x 00 buckshot. 5 to be exact. I have patterned this gun at 30 yards. Shoots a 2 foot circle at that 30 yards. Pellots go threw a heavy old type metal drum. Some pellots threw both sides. So im comparing this to a pistol. One shot from my pump blows 15 pellots at u in a 2 foot pattern. I have 4 shots left. Hamburg anyone? It's a simple choice to me.
I'm sticking to my pump.....😎😎😎
 
#119 ·
I have a pump 12...18.5 inch barrel, loaded with 3 inch Winchester super x 00 buckshot. 5 to be exact. I have patterned this gun at 30 yards. Shoots a 2 foot circle at that 30 yards. Pellots go threw a heavy old type metal drum. Some pellots threw both sides. So im comparing this to a pistol. One shot from my pump blows 15 pellots at u in a 2 foot pattern. I have 4 shots left. Hamburg anyone? It's a simple choice to me.
I'm sticking to my pump.....😎😎😎
You do realize this is a pellet to bullet comparison, not a .380 to shotgun comparison. The purpose of the thread is to see how the energy of a single 00 pellet compares to the energy of a .380 bullet - they're about the same.

The effectiveness of the shotgun vs a .380 pistol is not in question. But, we do have to wonder why a shotgun with such a powerful 00 load is only considered to be effective out to about 40 yards. The reason is because the pellets spread, so far less than the full pellet load strikes the target, the energy in each pellet that does strike is less than the energy of a .380 bullet since the pellets lose velocity much quicker than a .380 bullet.

So for any situation where only one pellet might strike the target, the 00 pellet has about the same energy as a .380 bullet fired from a 3" barrel.
 
#117 ·
I may be guilty of shallow reading but low recoil equals low energy in my world regardless of caliber. Typical caliber war, hot little one compared to downloaded big one. Unless I’m bird hunting I’m setting my 12 ga down and grabbing a rifle at 40 yds. I shot a box of 00 a couple weeks ago, nothing special, box said 1440 FPS
 
#121 ·
Again, this is about the performance of an individual pellet rather than the whole load. It was originally just intended to give some perspective to the energy in each pellet of a 00 load.

As for #1 or #4 buck, the total energy of the load will be divided equally over the number of pellets. So if the #1 or #4 load has the same energy as a 00 load, and there are 15 pellets, each pellet only has one fifteenth (or one twenty seventh) of the total energy. Penetration will be affected by both pellet energy and pellet diameter. Hence since the #1 and #4 pellets are smaller, it takes less energy to drive them into a substance. But they have less energy per pellet so it may be a wash.
 
#122 ·
Tangle, your opening post brings up an issue that many give little thought too. While there is sufficient evidence that a 12g loaded with 00 makes a good defensive weapon at close quarters there are still some drawbacks depending on the distance to and environment in front of the target.

Please everyone note I am not saying the shotgun is a poor choice. I am saying that it has its limitations.

As the distance increases the spread pattern of the buckshot will increate in diameter. That can mean fewer pellets hit the target. That means less mass and consequently less energy. With penetration being the greatest factor in incapacitation any loss of energy means incapacitation ability. Add heavy layers of clothing and the situation worsens.

In outdoor environments where there might be natural barrier in front of the target shotguns can loose their effectiveness to incapacitate. It does not take much barrier to deflect a 00 shot ball. Their energy can be absorbed quickly by shrubery, overgrowth, etc. in Nam we normally had one 12 gauge in each squad when in patrol in the bush. They did little damage to the enemy, but they did two valuable things. First, they were great for clearing away vegetation so you could see the enemy. Second, the absolutely distracted the enemy because of their loud bursts and vegetation debris flying evetwhere. But the fact is that most of the killing and wounding was done my M16s and grenades.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pete63 and Tangle
#123 ·
Tangle, your opening post brings up an issue that many give little thought too. While there is sufficient evidence that a 12g loaded with 00 makes a good defensive weapon at close quarters there are still some drawbacks depending on the distance to and environment in front of the target.
Exactly.

...Please everyone note I am not saying the shotgun is a poor choice. I am saying that it has its limitations.
Exactly.

...As the distance increases the spread pattern of the buckshot will increase in diameter. That can mean fewer pellets hit the target. That means less mass and consequently less energy. With penetration being the greatest factor in incapacitation any loss of energy means incapacitation ability. Add heavy layers of clothing and the situation worsens.
Exactly. This is why it's important to realize that at some point/distance we must consider the energy in each pellet rather than thinking of the impact as a full load. Most seem to think 40 yards is about max for 00.

...In outdoor environments where there might be natural barrier in front of the target shotguns can loose their effectiveness to incapacitate. It does not take much barrier to deflect a 00 shot ball. Their energy can be absorbed quickly by shrubery, overgrowth, etc. in Nam we normally had one 12 gauge in each squad when in patrol in the bush. They did little damage to the enemy, but they did two valuable things. First, they were great for clearing away vegetation so you could see the enemy. Second, the absolutely distracted the enemy because of their loud bursts and vegetation debris flying evetwhere. But the fact is that most of the killing and wounding was done my M16s and grenades.
Right on. :yup:

And the reminder, as you stated, the shotgun is a very formidable weapon at close range because the target gets the full load before the pellets lose their energy.
 
#125 ·
Remember reading years back where Park Munsey who had Alaska Master Guide Lic. #001 had given up his 375 H&H for a 12ga. Win. Model 12 cut down with staggered loads of 00 and slugs when going in after client's wounded Kodiak bears in the alder thickets......and you talk about single pellet energy.....so what.
 
#127 ·
Yep, as it's been said numerous times, the shotgun is a good close range weapon. This shows that the guide wasn't sure the 00s would do the job even at close range, so he backed them with slugs - which is a totally different case. The slug doesn't have it's energy spread over 8 or 9 pellets.

OTOH, that's the first time I've ever heard of a professional big game guide using a shotgun over a big bore rifle.
 
#130 ·
Maybe, but there is a BIG difference between a .33 caliber ball and a .380 bullet. The 00 pellet is .33" in diameter at a weight of 60 grs. A typical .380 weighs 90 grs - 50% more mass and since it is also long instead of spherical, it would have a significantly higher BC. So who knows.

But either way, neither is very impressive at 40 yards.
 
#129 ·
Just to stir the pot...what about a load using 8-pellet 00Buck running at 1600fps?

Just doing a little google-fu it looks like a .33 cal 00B pellet has a BC of .062 and is 53.8 grains...when I run that through a ballistics calculator it's coming in at 300FPE at the muzzle. Down to 1044fps at 75 yards and 130FPE with a 2.5" drop in trajectory with a 25 yard zero.
 
#131 ·
A COR®BON 90gr Self-Defense JHP, runs 1050fps and 220ftlbs at the muzzle from a 2.5 Inch barrel!

By 45 yards the 00 buck pellet has 181 ft-lbs left where the .380 has surpassed it at 187 ft-lbs. By 75 yards the 00 pellet is down to 139 ft-lbs where the .380 still has 179 ft-lbs. At 75 yards the 90 gr .380 fired from a 2.5" barrel has 29% more energy than a 00 pellet running 1600 fps from an 18" barrel (I say 18" but it is likely the barrel was much longer).

And the 90gr .380 has more momentum from the muzzle than a 00 pellet running 1600 fps from the muzzle. 12,4 9,5 By 45 yards the 90 gr .380 has 30% more momentum than the 00 pellet. At 75 yards the 90 gr .380, fired from a 2.5" barrel, has 43% more momentum than the 00 pellet.

And again, to avoid misunderstanding, this is a comparison of a single 00 pellet to a .380 bullet. The reason this has significance is to help us see what one 00 pellet behaves like and to emphasize that penetration of 00 buck depends on the energy/momentum of each pellet. So if 8 pellets hit, each pellet has 1/8 of the total retained energy and stands alone unless one pellet follows another pellet into the same hole.
 
#135 ·
Sample of one body

As a former Crime Scene guy I got to examine a lot of folks at the ME office after we finished the crime scene. I wont say which is better, (380 vs 00) but I have seen practical results.
One in particular was a great example for this thread. Drugged up male, wearing a T-shirt and armed with a handgun, absorbed 3 x 55gr urban Tap and 3 x 12ga Rem Reduced Recoil rounds from 14" barreled shotguns all at less than 5 yards distance. So at least we had one consistent body for bone and muscle structure and tested the loads all in a "like manner" so to speak. From this I developed the opinion that 14" barrels and reduced recoil loads were too weak for my preferences and desires of what I wanted in terminal effectiveness.
One shotgun round made it thru the chest cavity with about a 1.5" spread pattern, all pellets stopped at the back side of the chest- wad in the lung and a 2" dia. wound track. (~8 in depth to the wound track and the pellets stopped)
One shotgun round to the buttocks all pellets stopped at the top of the femur by the hip socket and hip joint (again about a 1" spread of pattern), but not much penetration.
One shotgun round to the lower chest and liver with again 1.5" pattern penetrated to the back of the thin body about 8" total length of penetration.
Lesson learned for me. Reduced recoil rounds in short barrels have limited penetrating power; and an 18" barrel length with High velocity 00 rounds I also examined in other autopsies penetrated much better.
The 55gr urban TAP was fantastic. Made Gelatin out of a thigh, and broke the femur for one impact.
Another TAP round thru the chest jellied a lung and was more devastating than the 00 buck wounds and much wider. It also did not over-penetrate and stopped on the far side of the torso in fragments.
Another TAP round jellied an bicep-tricep, broke the arm and then only made it thru the sheet rock and stopped in the wall cavity.
Another TAP round that missed the target (it was a dynamic fire-fight from a hallway to a room) made it thru drywall, and exterior OSB Sheeting, but could not get out the buildings aluminum siding. - So yes Urban Tap minimizes over penetration worries in interior environments.
Comparing all of these and other 00 buck wound tracks to various 380s I have seen used (or 9mm ball wound tracks) showed me that 00 buck pellets cause equivalent damage as 1x380 (if it expands). The 380 will generally penetrate better however.
BTW one 55gr Urban TAP can turn a large liver into liquid and cause one to bleed out massively internally while dropping that person instantly.
62gr SS109 projectiles at distances where they fragment are as effective on Caribou chest cavities as was an 06 round, so long a no large bones are encountered.
Lesson learned - test your defensive ammo on animals - its more realistic than Gelatin. Good handgun rounds are effective at handgun ranges on deer and you will learn a lot. Use full power ammo - Reduced recoil buckshot while nice for recoil sensitive people is not my first choice.
Shot placement was always the most important - "a golden hit to the Aorta with 380 ball beats 4 40rds every time.
 
#136 ·
As a former Crime Scene guy I got to examine a lot of folks at the ME office after we finished the crime scene. I wont say which is better, (380 vs 00) but I have seen practical results.
One in particular was a great example for this thread. Drugged up male, wearing a T-shirt and armed with a handgun, absorbed 3 x 55gr urban Tap and 3 x 12ga Rem Reduced Recoil rounds from 14" barreled shotguns all at less than 5 yards distance. So at least we had one consistent body for bone and muscle structure and tested the loads all in a "like manner" so to speak. From this I developed the opinion that 14" barrels and reduced recoil loads were too weak for my preferences and desires of what I wanted in terminal effectiveness.
One shotgun round made it thru the chest cavity with about a 1.5" spread pattern, all pellets stopped at the back side of the chest- wad in the lung and a 2" dia. wound track. (~8 in depth to the wound track and the pellets stopped)
One shotgun round to the buttocks all pellets stopped at the top of the femur by the hip socket and hip joint (again about a 1" spread of pattern), but not much penetration.
One shotgun round to the lower chest and liver with again 1.5" pattern penetrated to the back of the thin body about 8" total length of penetration.
Lesson learned for me. Reduced recoil rounds in short barrels have limited penetrating power; and an 18" barrel length with High velocity 00 rounds I also examined in other autopsies penetrated much better.
The 55gr urban TAP was fantastic. Made Gelatin out of a thigh, and broke the femur for one impact.
Another TAP round thru the chest jellied a lung and was more devastating than the 00 buck wounds and much wider. It also did not over-penetrate and stopped on the far side of the torso in fragments.
Another TAP round jellied an bicep-tricep, broke the arm and then only made it thru the sheet rock and stopped in the wall cavity.
Another TAP round that missed the target (it was a dynamic fire-fight from a hallway to a room) made it thru drywall, and exterior OSB Sheeting, but could not get out the buildings aluminum siding. - So yes Urban Tap minimizes over penetration worries in interior environments.
Comparing all of these and other 00 buck wound tracks to various 380s I have seen used (or 9mm ball wound tracks) showed me that 00 buck pellets cause equivalent damage as 1x380 (if it expands). The 380 will generally penetrate better however.
BTW one 55gr Urban TAP can turn a large liver into liquid and cause one to bleed out massively internally while dropping that person instantly.
62gr SS109 projectiles at distances where they fragment are as effective on Caribou chest cavities as was an 06 round, so long a no large bones are encountered.
Lesson learned - test your defensive ammo on animals - its more realistic than Gelatin. Good handgun rounds are effective at handgun ranges on deer and you will learn a lot. Use full power ammo - Reduced recoil buckshot while nice for recoil sensitive people is not my first choice.
Shot placement was always the most important - "a golden hit to the Aorta with 380 ball beats 4 40rds every time.
Very nicely done - many thanks! Awesome real-world results post!

Some thought I was saying a shotgun is no more effective than a .380, and that was not what i was saying at all. What I was saying was illustrated exactly by your post - i.e. individual 00 pellets have about the same energy as a .380.

I think it's hard for people to realize that while the full load of a 12 ga is quite powerful, that power has to be divided up among the pellets, so in a 8 shot load, each pellet only has 1/8 of the full load energy. The other thing that's hard to grasp is that penetration of the individual pellets are not be pushed by the full energy of the load - again, each pellet only gets 1/8 of the full load energy so the penetration of an individual pellet is poor - as you observations of wounds reveal.

It does not surprise me that you found the .380 penetrates better than reduced power 00 loads.

Lastly, the 5.56 results are impressive! While it is smaller than a 12 ga 00 pellet, all the energy is in that one bullet instead of having energy divided up over 8-9 pellets.

Again, thanks for posting some real-world findings!
 
#137 ·
True, but meaningless because they all hit at once and create 9 holes or most likely 1 big hole if shot at close range.

That's like saying 1 barbell plate weighing 101 lbs is heavier than 9 100lb weights. The 101lb weight ways more than each 100lb plate, therefore it's heavier. But the reality is it ways 900lbs.
 
#139 ·
Not at all like that. It's saying that the energy of the individual pellets fired from a shotgun, individually, have no more energy than a .380. It's also saying that the ability of a pellet to penetrate is no better than the penetration ability of a .380 bullet. All this becomes more significant with distance. Because of the shape of a .380 bullet and a pellet, the .380 would perform better than a shotgun pellet as range increases.

We cannot say all the pellets always hit the target. As the distance increases, the likelihood of all the pellets hitting go down significantly, plus the penetration power goes down as well.

Even when they all do hit, they may not be as effective as we would think. Real-world evidence of this was given by @V2d in his post.
 
#140 ·
I don't and will never use 00 shot. I know # 2 steel shot will put a hole thru steel plate that is about 6-8" wide and 3-4" high. That's good enough.
 
#146 ·
I fully agree the 12 ga is a good close range gun and never said otherwise.

Actually it's you that's picking. I used standard, widely used loads, standard 00 loads, standard 380 loads. You're comparing 3 inch loads to standard 380s. I could have picked 380 +P but i didn't, I tried to compare commonly used loads. Even police departments have migrated to reduced recoil loads, not 3 inch loads.

But, lets give the 3" magnum a try. How many pellets in a 3 inch magnum and what is the muzzle velocity? We can then calculate the energy, divide that energy up among the pellets and compare it to the energy of a 380.

I know it's hard to believe that the individual pellets have about the same energy as a 380, but it's true. Plus, the 380 has a higher BC than a spherical 00 shot and will retain more of it's energy as it goes down range than a 00 pellet. That's not to say the 00 isn't effective at very close ranges. But as far as efficiency goes, in this thread alone we've seen real world street encounters that didn't work up to expectations.

Why do you think the powerful 12 ga is nowhere near as effective at 100 yards and beyond as a 5.56 rifle at the same distance? No doubt the 12 ga loads leave the muzzle with far more energy, so if one 30 cal pellet from a 00 load hit a person at 100 yards why is it not just as effective as a 5.56?

The answer is in the energy of the pellet. Individual pellets have low muzzle energy, about the same as a .380, but very low BCs and give up energy rapidly as the range increases. It's not that the shotgun isn't effective at close range, it can be, but the fact remains that the energy of the individual pellets of a standard 12 ga 00 load has about the same energy as a standard 380 SD round.

It's interesting that we know a 12 ga 00 load is not effective at 40 yards or so and beyond, but we seldom realize why. Intuitively, we might think since the 00 pellet is about 30 cal, getting hit with one should be as effective as getting hit with a 30 cal rifle bullet. But at longer ranges, i.e. about 40 yards, the 00 pellet has nowhere near the energy of a 30 cal rifle bullet because all that muzzle energy of the entire load has to be shared equally by 9 pellets and the energy each pellet gets is about the energy level of a 380.

Give me the muzzle velocity and number of 00 pellets in a 3 inch load and lets see if there's much difference in the energy of the individual pellets.
 
#147 ·
I looked it up. The total energy from a 3 inch 00 load is a whopping 2686 ft-lbs. I say whopping but that's about the same as a run of the mill .308, anyway...

There are 15, 00 pellets in a 3 inch load, so dividing the total energy of 2686 ft-lbs by 15 gives us and individual pellet energy of 179 ft-lbs. The energy given for a run of the mill 90 gr JHP 380, as listed by Wikipedia, is 210 ft-lb. So, once again we see the reality that the energy of an individual 12 ga 00 pellet, even from a 3 inch 00 load is less than a .380.

I make no other claims. This thread from the start simply showed the surprising energy level of the individual pellets of 00. My OP was not to evaluate the effectiveness of the 12 ga 00 at close range.
 
#148 ·
Why are you so hung up on it, then? It’s about like a 9-round burst from a .32 ACP Vz-61 Skorpion. With a semi-auto with 7 rounds onboard (what I use for home defense), that’s about 63 rounds of .32 ACP that can be fired in less than 3 seconds. It does the job, what else is there to say? You’ve made your point.
 
#149 ·
It's not that I'm hung up on anything, it's that I have to keep explaining that this thread wasn't about the effectiveness of a shotgun. It specifically and singularly addresses the surprisingly low energy in 00 pellets. Obviously some infer that to be a statement about the effectiveness of a shotgun, which of course, if you read the OP, it is not about. It must be hard for some to accept the reality of the energy of the individual 00 pellets.

However, comments have been made in reference to the effectiveness of a shotgun and one of the most definitive posts about that particular subject came from V2d (post #135) where as a former Crime Scene guy, he got to witness first-hand the effects of shotgun wounds. His real-world experiences are in sharp contrast with what "we" may have believed about the shotgun.

Sure, a shotgun can put out a lot of pellets in a short period of time, which I illustrate in this video I made about a gun camera. The rapid fire is about half way through the video.



The OP was not condemning the use of a shotgun nor making a statement of its effectiveness merely stating the facts about the energy in 00 pellets. The rest of my posts are an attempt to clarify that point as opposed to the OP being some kind of statement about the shotgun per se. To wit, from the OP, and I quote, "This doesn't in any way diminish the power of the shotgun,... "

Then from a subsequent post (my post #8), "I understand. But this really isn't about which shotgun load is the best. It's about how single pellets compare in energy to some pistol bullets. It's a bit of a conundrum, yet who can deny the effectiveness of a shotgun with the right load?"

And, I agree with your comparison, the 32 ACP fired from the 4.5" Scorpion barrel has about the same energy and momentum as a 00 pellet coming from an 18" 12 ga shotgun.
 
#152 ·
If used in home defense you are only going to be a few yards away at most. My 00 buck has 12 pellets at 1290 ft/sec. when the pellets hit they will still be about the same velocity as they were at the muzzle. So let's say each pellet is similar to a .380. Id say 12 .380 rounds all at once in a small area center mass is a lot more than convincing. Plus it's not going to go through the bad guy and end up hitting someone else. Not to mention I could get a quick follow up. Test things out for yourself and pick what your comfortable with👍
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top