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3/29/2012 1:30:35 PM

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Section 5: Shotguns
Subject: Maverick HS-12 Shotgun Msg# 826949

From:

Troy Unruh

Joined 11/11/2011

To:

Allan Tarvid (Read)

Joined 10/5/2000

Allan, all comments are taken as well intended. Mark and I have disagreed on many issues, I am very hard to offend, and I certainly hope I dont offend either. Sometimes I just like to argue, even when I have a poor position. A fact that makes my wife a long suffering saint. Let me explain my situation, as my thoughts and opinions tend to change over time.

Self Defense shotguns available (short barrel) savage 12 sxs 18: barrels about 36 1/2' over all, with leather buttcuff. Remington 870 18 1/2' barrel, corncob foreend. i think it is 4 or 5 plus 1, it escapes me at the minute. buttcuff as well.

My house has 2 stairways. the livingroom, dining room, kitchen, sitting room, foyrer, guest suit, are all downstairs. I have a 110 year old victorian. One set of stairs are "maid stairs" narrow and lead up from the butlers pantry by the kitchen, the other stairway is a grand entrance stairway with a landling, leading up from the foyer. I have 5 exterior doors which adds to the confusing leading to various porches.

I dislike the remington. I dont like the slide release forward of the trigger, i dont like the cross bold safety, (I have shot mossbergs most of my life). other than that the gun is ok. The sxs has extractors, not ejectors.

My defense plan is to hold the stairs. our bedrooms, family room and office are upstairs. The maid stairs has a solid wood door with a bolt at the top, it is locked at night. My plan is for the wife to retrieve the kiddos and be on the phone with the alarm company/police in our master bedroom closet, while I hold the top of the stairs with the sxs with glock .45. I have a pistol belt that holds the glock on a peg in my closet by my safe with teh shotgun on the outside at nignt only. If i feel i need to clear the downstairs in case of suspected false alarm, (happens about every other year) I take the .45.

to be truthful I have considered and still plan on getting a mossberg home defense shotgun, as I am familiar with them, and that might solve the problem. But i havent done that yet. The remington at this time resides downstairs in a locked locker.

I cannot reliabily or with confidence handle that remington, so I probably should just sell it and fund the mossberg. but for now my choice of the double is for the above reasons.

For reference, the above message is a reply to a message where:
Hopefully, all of our discussions here on the forum will remain theoretical... Thumbs Up

Also, I didn't mean to sound like a condescending know-it-all, I am seriously worried about your double-gun preference for the reasons I mentioned.

I agree with Mark that a side-by-side is better than an over-and-under, but I still wouldn't want one without ejectors to sling out the empties. For any lurkers who may not know, some double guns only have extractors which move the empty hulls far enough out of the chambers for you to grab them and pull them the rest of the way out. On the other hand, empty hulls are thrown out of the gun with enough force for them to fly over your shoulder by ejector-equipped guns. I have had the ejectors disabled on all my over and under shotguns used for trap because I reload my hulls and I don't want to have to duck-walk around the range picking up my empties after shooting a round. The extractors lift the shells up and I pull them out and drop them into a net bag on the back of my vest. I have the extractors disabled on my hunting O/U guns because I don't like to litter a farmer's/rancher's property with empty hulls and I always seem to lose one or two that are flung away by ejectors. Trap limits you to shooting one or two shots at a time and when hunting a third shot is never life-threateningly critical so speedy reloads are not as crucial as they are in self defense.

As for the over and under versus the side by side (without ejectors) question, I've noticed that sometimes when I break open my O/U's, gravity does not always open them far enough to clear the empty hull in the lower barrel. When I try to remove it, the brass rim of the empty hull sometimes catches on the frame and I have to fumble with it to get it out. My guns are old but still tight and I have to make sure I force them all the way open before removing my empties. This could be problematic in the dark under stress. Side by side doubles raise the chambers of both barrels the same distance above the frame and wouldn't have that problem. Ejector-equipped side by side and over and under doubles don't have that problem because they don't activate to sling the hulls out of the gun until the gun is fully open.

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