Today’s Pro Tip is Home Defense Shotguns, and all the accessories, positioning, different styles of shotguns; but most importantly what the ammunition can do for you for a home defense situation.

The most common shotgun on the planet is the 870. So, let’s talk about the techniques in order to shoot a shotgun properly.

Maintain good control in the pocket of your shoulder, and allow yourself to look down the sights properly with a proper sight picture.

What we want to do is have a nice firm grip, but be pushing forward on a pump-action gun to be able to control the gun and recoil. Also, be sure to maintain a good cycle rate on it while shooting.

So, the next thing that we want to do is make sure that I have my upper body over top of the arches of my feet, in order to be able to control recoil as the gun fires. It also gives me great follow through. And the Gen-Three Stocks from BLACKHAWK! provides an 80-percent reduction in recoil. Pretty amazing. Let’s look at all these techniques right now in live fire.

Okay, we’ve been talking about manually operated shotguns. Now let’s talk about semi-autos you may have at home. They’re inertia-driven guns, and gas operated shotguns. They’re slightly different than a pump gun.

So, what I want to do is maintain a good, solid push-back into the pocket that will be able to control the recoil of the gun, but this time instead of pushing forward I’m going to be actually pulling back with my semi-auto shotgun to be able to maintain good pick-up of the next round because, if you don’t have control over it, you will short-stroke that.

So let’s take a look at this with live fire. Working on mechanics with your shotgun is very important.

Now let’s take a look at what ammunition does for a home defense situation. We’re at 25 feet away here, and I shot an ounce-and-a-half load of birdshot.

And, in this target right here we shot a slug at 1,400 feet per second, which was a one-ounce load. That slug can travel through multiple walls, where birdshot can reduce the amount of damage and danger from travelling through walls or doors. Choose accordingly.

Well I can tell you, there are all different types of ammunition on the market today, low-recoil, and very high velocity loads out there.

Hope you guys learned a little bit about the shotgun today. It’s a great tool for home defense, and one of my favorites in my safe.