Understanding Shotguns for Home Defense

Tonight, we shoot our least favorite type of gun. A man named Langdon tries to change that. And freaking fireballs. It's all happening now, on the 1911 City. The downside of sometimes making bold statements is that you have dug yourself into a corner. And I will allow this clip to illustrate that. There are a lot of people that like shotguns for home defense. Let me just start with this brief observation. I've never heard someone that I respect in the world of firearms say that shotguns are what I use for home defense. So maybe consider that. I've never heard like a respectable instructor or anything. Nope. Recommend that, but hey, that's just a... Just my experience. Just an observation. Oh wait, that's your experience and my experience. Shocker. Oh, okay. Now, that clip is a tough one for me to watch back, but being open to change and growth should be an important part of being a man. And with that said, let me ask the age-old question. And that question is, what weapon do you want for home defense? So you go through your options. You could grab your trusty sledgehammer. How about a tomahawk? Or a pistol? Maybe even a sub gun? Perhaps a rifle? All viable options. For us however, consistently the answer has never been shotguns. But let's play a game. You break into a house, and on the other side of the door is a man with a shotgun. Specifically, a modified Beretta 1301 shooting 500 grains of shit your pants. Well, it turns out, you've broken into Ernest Langdon's house. And you have chosen... poorly. Okay, everyone, welcome to the show, and I'm going to open up the show with this. First of all, I hope you enjoyed the intro after dark, you know, but... You're proud of that, aren't you? Yeah, I don't know. But, so, here's what I'm... going to say, I think as a man, we're all men here. And I think that, um, you, you have to own, uh, your past and be able to go, Hey, look, here's things that I've said before. And let's just get it out in the open because everyone's afraid to own their stuff. So. I'll draw a correlation. We put our foot in our mouth back in the day regarding MP5s. With virtually no time on MP5s saying, this is an outdated bullshit gun. The bolt doesn't hold open and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Right? And like even double downed on it. Right? And now. I love them. I have my third one being built right now. You know, it's like, it's truly one of my all-time favorite guns. And we have been down a similar path with shotguns, right? Of basically saying mean things about shotguns, about shotgun owners, and how they're completely irrelevant. And yet we sit here with a shotgun master, you know? And we've done a few of these videos essentially around the premise of why shotguns? We've done like, why 300 Blackout? Why Glocks? Why 1911s? You know, like, why do these... things matter? How are they relevant? Like what is their place in the world? And that's going to largely be what we get into today with Ernest, but I guess, you know, that would be a chance, maybe a snapshot of who we are for people who don't know. Ernest Langdon, I run a, my wife and I run a small company called Langdon Tactical, where we do custom work primarily on handguns, but we do a bunch of 1301 shotguns. Yeah. Where we kind of reconfigure them. We take what is a tremendous shotgun and we kind of outfit it so that it's ready to go when you get it from us to work on. So that's who I am. I mean, there's other things about me, obviously, but for the purposes of this. Yes, that is you. That is me. That is you. Okay. Jake, we're out here. And a main piece of kit that you need on the range is a belt. A good belt. The belt that you happen to be taking off is made by none other than Segera. What model of belt is that, Jake? This is the light inner velcro belt. This is the one that I EDC every day. If you ever see either of us in public, you should challenge us. Be like, hey bro, show me your belt, and I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll show you a little bit of belly fur with it. I'll do it willingly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not going to take it off. I'm not going to let you handle it. Oh, I would. I'd let you. But yeah, we rock the hell out of these things. They're great. Really love these. The great thing about that one too is my battle wagon or battle belt. Segarra calls their battle belt a battle wagon. Layers right on top of that, so whether I'm at the range or leaving the range to maybe go have dinner, I got two belts that cover me in both scenarios. Our code 1911syndicate saves you 10% off. I think a lot of people affiliate you with, you know, Beretta 92s. For me, I really think of you as like, hey, he's Beretta 92 guy and shotgun guy. I know there's more to you than that. You're a human being with feelings and emotions and PX4s and P30s and many things. But how did you sort of get exposed to shotguns and get to that place of going, hey, hang on, shotguns are kind of awesome. Like, what was your background with shotguns that got you to this place? It dates back pretty far. I think, I mean I grew up dove hunting and stuff like that. I grew up with shotguns, but I think it really started when I was in the Marine Corps and I was teaching at the high-risk personnel program. We had a shotgun portion during the class. It was part of the things that we taught to the people in the class. So I had some good instruction there. I got to go to a bunch of schools where they taught shotgun stuff. So anyway, that was it. I had, I went out, bought my own shotgun. I took shotgun classes from different places, like Phil Singleton, I don't know if you guys have heard of him, but he's a kind of a legend, former SAS guy. He was at, anyway, I won't diverge off all that, but learned a lot from him and other guys. And so I've always kind of been a shotgun guy because I knew the capabilities of it. For us as a company, What happened was we were already had the relationship with Beretta and the 1301 Tactical was out but it had a few things that it needed if you will. So having the relationship with Beretta we got relationships with other companies and we started putting complete package guns together so that had all of the things that they needed. Places to mount flashlights, places to attach slings, more adjustability on the stock, all of those kind of things. So the stock I mean, I've been a shotgun guy for 40 years. Yeah. Which is crazy, dude. So you started when you were three. Yeah, I'm older than that. 43. Your math is off a little bit. No, it looks like we'd be the same age for that matter. Which means you would be 40, everyone. Which means you look terrible for being 40. That's fair enough. Fair enough observation. Okay, so, you know, maybe on kind of like a broad strokes level. I think one of the things that's an interesting conversation around like why shotguns matter is based on your state, the ability of what you can get based on capacity. Elaborate. So, yeah, you may not be able to get a high capacity AR-15 in your house. It may be a poor choice for you to be firing a rifle in your apartment. Sure. Okay. Yeah. So there's a lot of reasons. You may make the decision that… you know if i do have to use a gun for defense a you know an ar-15 uh type you know rifle may not be the best choice if i have to defend myself in my state because the da might just throw me under the bus regardless sure if i'm right or wrong okay and a shotgun uh from that standpoint might be a bit more defendable um but it also might be the issue of just straight up i want something that is 100 devastating if i if i if my life or my family life on the line, I don't want to have to shoot two or three times and then see if I'm effective. In the case of a shotgun, if you get a good hit, you're probably done. It's pretty much a wrap. Yeah, pretty much a wrap. And we will talk about that. Yeah. Well, actually, with that said, I think we'll take you to a chunk of footage that we did earlier on the range. So the point of this is to try to bring you guys up to speed of the advantages. of the gauge. Yes please. The shotgun. So what we want to do is talk a little bit about that. Now there's the big advantage of a shotgun in my opinion is its payload. What it can shoot on it and the broad variety of what it can shoot. So I jokingly say this can you can use this as a bird gun or an elephant gun. So you can shoot anything from birdshot you know little pellets to knock dove out of the air all the way up to. Big ol'slugs. 430, 440 grain projectiles at, you know, up to 1600 feet per second depending on how you want to load it. So, it can be a devastating payload. You can also shoot breaching rounds and less lethal rounds and all of the other kind of things. So the difference in load that you can put in these is, it's tremendous. So to get down that path, the first thing, let's go through the... the most fundamental loads that we see for a shotgun, okay, and talk about their capabilities. Now, the first one we're going to talk about... This is a double A trap load, ounce and an eighth of number eights. This is a heavy one so this one's got a little bit more powder behind it than normal. One of the things to understand is there's two ends of this one. First of all, people will say, well it's birdshot, you can't kill anybody with it. Well, that's not really true. It depends on how big the spread gets. It depends on how far away they are. from the muzzle. So we're going to start with we're going to move up relatively close to the target. So if we get up here five-ish yards or so and we shoot a round of birdshot, the important thing to understand is that you're basically talking about almost a single projectile. Yeah okay. So you still yeah yeah so this is birdshot here at five yards. Okay so most of that shot is still in a really tight column. Would you want to say this could be my defensive round because I don't have to worry about hurting the neighbors? I don't think that's a good thing to do because it's not nearly as devastating as you need something today. Okay. But you also can't act like it's not lethal. Yeah. It's not a less lethal round. You could definitely kill somebody with that. I mean, his face is hurting at the very least. A little bit. Some of that is also the plastic wad. Sure. Right? It opens, takes the chunk with it. Which that'll suck to get hit by too. You don't want that having to be dug out of you. But if we just take a handful of steps back, okay, and we'll get an impact from the wad, but we just get a few steps back and here we are at maybe 10-ish yards and I'll just shoot full body. Okay. Now we'll walk up and see what we got. Shit. All right, Jake. Well, you finished putting your belt on. We got some housekeeping, if you will. Yeah. And that is other ways to support the channel. So we have Patreon. Great thing about Patreon, we got a bunch of different packages that fit kind of your budget, but you get access to new swag, limited edition swag like lighters, watches, etc. Syndicate events and or we had some Syndicate Patreon supporters out for filming. Yeah, you'll see them in a recent upcoming video. Pretty awesome. Kind of cool. So if you're looking for another way to support the channel, Patreon is the place for you, especially if you like some cool unique stuff that is not available to all viewers. Yep, absolutely. And then last quick thing, 1911 Syndicate at its core. has always been a real estate business. Hell, we only started the YouTube channel to try to get real estate clients, to be perfectly honest with you. So again, if you ever need help buying, selling a house, things like that, let us know. You just go to 1911synecdoche.com, reach out to us through there. Myself or someone else will get back to you, and we appreciate the support. In all 50 states. Now that is the wad. That's a piece of plastic. And yes, it probably would penetrate below the surface, depending on where it hit. this spread out dramatically dramatically right and it's peppering the target and these are these aren't little bbs these are smaller than bbs they're number eight so but if you're trying to kill a small game money yeah right yeah that that definitely takes care of business right yeah yeah um so that's what we're talking about when we start talking about you know understanding the the bird shot to start with now the next step up from that is Buckshot. We're gonna do a regular buckshot first. Where's mine? There we go. Now this is a old school Super X double-aught buck nine pellet. Okay. So let's back up about where we were with the birdshot. Okay. And we'll see a bit of a spread here with the nine pellet. I'm gonna shoot on the same target because you'll be able to tell what happened. Okay. Jeez. Very devastating. Inside there are nine 32 caliber pellets that she took all at one time. 9.32, about 13.50ish, something like that with this particular Winchester load, right? Feet per second. Yeah, feet per second. 13.50. So very lethal, right? This is kind of an old school deer round, if you will. I mean, definitely take care of business. The interesting thing to understand is with this type of buckshot, that's at 10 yards. I've already got a spread, okay? And for a lot of people, they go, well, you know, that's what I want. The important piece to get across is it doesn't clear out everything at the other side of the rim. Right. You still got to aim this, okay? So at 10 yards, it's still in here. I just can't level it out. point it in that direction and it's going to take care of it well and and this is an argument that we've made and this video and look if we really cared about looking good on the internet we wouldn't make this video because this video mostly makes us look bad on previous statements because One of the things that we've said is an argument for shotguns is you don't even need to point it because the spread's just going to devastate anything at the end of a hallway. And we did this and we were like, horseshit, it doesn't. You do have to aim. For inside the house, for all intents and purposes, it's a rifle. Sure. Cool. It's still a rifle. Yeah. Okay. The difference being is, it's the most powerful rifle you could stick in your shoulder. Yeah. Because nothing else is shooting 400 plus grains of projectiles all at one time at 1,300, 1,400 feet per second. Yeah. And this is going to have way less over penetration issues, either through a torso or through... building materials. Walls, stucco. Yeah, walls, stucco, all the rest of the kind of stuff. Okay. But I would argue that this is way more lethal than probably any rifle anybody's keeping in their house. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. I prefer a single shot. Correct. Okay? Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So that is the issue there. It's not like I'm not going to happen. If you've got a determined adversary, a truly determined adversary, and you talk to guys. with a 5.56 caliber gun, you may have to shoot them three, four, five times. Sure. Okay? I'm going to argue you don't have to shoot them three. You shot them nine times at once. At once, yeah. Well, and if you just do simple math, which I don't do math in public, and add up the grain weight, even a 77 grain 5.56, that's one round. You're getting X amount of grains, X amount of rounds equal. 438 to 450, depending on the exact setup. So just the math alone proves that that's... shakes out right now what's really interesting is we're going to back up again um if you're concerned about uh the spread of the rounds and and flyers and projectiles that might go off and hit somebody because you know again the spread of the shotgun is an issue okay meaning that uh having this direction having a um nine pellets flying through the air okay If you're shooting at any distance and depending on what you need this thing for, we start backing up the distance, then we get in a situation where that regular old buckshot, it still works, but the spread might get too great and you got flyers now going off in places that you don't want. And that's where the higher end loads, like this is federal flight control, okay? And this is a special wad that holds the pellets together. It's stacked in there better and it holds the pellet together in a tighter wad at greater distance. So let's back up to almost 20 here and we'll shoot on Let's shoot on the next one over and you're gonna see the difference of how tight the pattern can be with buckshot With the proper shotgun setup and the proper load All right, and that was me I drifted a little right with it, but there's all nine pellets well within What I would say they zone. Yeah, well one I had one off to the right No, but I mean if you were to shift that over, I mean that's within an a zone And there's your wad. It's really not really a big factor, but there's all nine pellets fairly close. And what I, you know, I pulled that shot a little on me. But that's all in the A-zone, all within an eight-inch circle at 20 plus yards. Okay. So now you've got something... And still double op buck versus double op buck, just a concentration of the pellets. Special wad, so you keep things a lot tighter. So if you lived in a rural area or you had a, you know... 40 foot or 45 yard long hallway in your big house right from one end to the other yeah sounds awesome might be a little bit better um of a deal now what we do from there is we go in and we'll switch over let's back up a little further we don't have to back up that far same paper target and we're going to shoot a slug now for a headshot here and not trick it see how this goes boy you didn't throw it so i'm gonna put it down okay so now at 20 25 yards um ish right on the target we've got a one ounce projectile it's uh like 68 caliber if i remember correctly i should probably do the math on that again depends on the manufacturer but that is a big gaping hole that takes care of everything that you could possibly want to take care of now would we say with this particular round on this shot placement do you think that this adversary goes down uh forever okay They are eliminated from the threat at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are. They drop like a sack of potatoes. That would be my thought. And their head. Their head has probably seen better days. Well, the cavitation that that would... It's called a canoe head. Yeah. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. Probably not good for public consumption, but if you've ever seen... No, that's... If you've ever seen a canoe head... A canoe is dug out in the middle. Yeah, it's... That would be dug out in the middle. Probably, yeah. Yeah, that's about right. That's a canoe head. Yeah. It's either a canoe head or a hair frisbee. That's the other thing that happens sometimes. Well, maybe you could demonstrate a slug at distance. Because I have to admit I thought that that was pretty cool. Thinking of shotguns as short range weapons. So what did we figure that was about? 120? You definitely got a 100 out of it. Huh? You definitely got a solid 100 there. Yeah, it's a solid 100. And you can see the impact. I mean it's high, it's high azo. Jurassic, yeah. Yeah, and I mean, so I mean that's a damn shotgun round of however many 450 grains or some shit at 100 yards. Oh, that's, that's a deal breaker. him right there guaranteed right and that is a again elephant gun deer gun big game doesn't matter what it is i got a you know 100 plus yard shot um but now the dot helps a ton no doubt what round is this one out slug again same thing same slug just iron sights yeah just just beads looking down the ribs that can be barely irons Hit! Shit, yep, low. Low right. Yep, low right. Hot damn. With a, with a bit rip. That's some base irons. It's a lot harder because my beads are bigger than the target. So I'm kind of going, yeah, bang. That's about right. I mean, this shakes out, right? I mean, this is the whole argument. and i've taken a couple shotgun classes i don't know if you knew that jake yeah he didn't know that but like i've always just been like i still prefer a rifle but again with your argument bird buck big game elephant whatever one platform to do it all and you can stack the loads however you want right you can move them around to do whatever the task would be at hand yeah um because you're you're if you talk about a gun that's going to do a lot of different things for you you from a home defense standpoint you're going to reach and grab something in the middle of the night um it's a tremendous tool from that standpoint okay because from a from a devastation standpoint unless you just you know you've got a onslaught of a lot of people coming in your house you're going to be able to take care of business with that one gun and whatever you've got on the gun. Yeah, and I think part of the argument that I've made, as I own my past verbiage, is that shotguns... Here's part of where I've had an issue, right? Is that people... Is not so much... with shotguns it's the fact that shotguns seem to be a de facto argument of you can be a dummy with no training and a shotgun's your home to fit and that's where i've resided it's like that does require you to be trained well it does and i think it's it you you still have to be responsible it doesn't take out everything into the hallway you still need to aim it for all intents and purposes you have to use it like a rifle indoors But from a capacity standpoint, I mean from a lethality standpoint, it's way in front of any rifle that would be acceptable for home defense. Sure. Like, you know, like, oh, my.338 Lapua is more of a, okay. Yeah. Relax. Yeah. Yeah. He's not two miles away. He's in your house. He's in your house, right? I mean, that's what Jake said is what working behind a gun counter forever, I heard. Like, oh, I'm getting this for my daughter because she doesn't even have to point or shoot and she doesn't even have to train. And I'm like, what? No. Is that gonna, one, hold up in court? Yeah, sure. Oh, I just closed my eyes and sent it. Like, I'm sorry, you're going to prison, right? But two, you do need training and some skill and some accuracy to make it an effective weapon. It's not point and shoot. Couple things that we're gonna talk about shotguns that I think are really, really important. If you're going to have a shotgun that is something that you're gonna be using for defense, there are two huge factors there, okay? A home defense gun needs two things 100% It needs a source of ammo. You've got to have ammo on the gun because you're probably going to be butt naked when you grab this thing. Awesome. So your battle belt is not going to be there for you to be doing reloads and grabbing your quad loads and all the other kind of stuff. Grab some. What's on the gun is what you got, okay? That's one. Number two is it needs to have a light on it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Because handheld flashlight techniques with the shotgun are extremely difficult. Yeah. Okay? It doesn't even seem possible. It is, but it's not easy. Not great. So a light is super, super important from that standpoint. So those are two huge factors. on there i love dots on shotguns i used to not to because like that's just sacrilege but it takes away a lot of the lighting condition issues or vision focus issues all the things that make dots great on handguns they're as good or better on a shot on a shotgun yeah um so that's really important uh another fact that people need to understand is talking about one of the capabilities that a shock most shotguns have and that is the choke Having a choke tube in there allows you the options and the example that I would give is most tactical shotguns are going to be set up with a cylinder board choke so there's almost no choke basically. But if it's a shotgun that you want to use for multiple things, having different chokes can increase the capabilities of the gun. Can you define choke? Yeah do you know what that is? So I can very... I'm genuinely asking. It's been a minute. Without doing math and talking about numbers, this is a light modified choke, but basically this particular one is made so that I can screw it into the gun. Most of the 1301s we sell have a screw-in choke as well, but basically it's the last few inches of the barrel, depending on the manufacturer of the shotgun and the way they set it up, the last few inches of the barrel, it's like this, and basically it compresses that shot column as it comes out of the the tooth. Keep the grip tight. Yeah. So I can change that choke to increase the density of how tight the pattern is. So I can throw a different choke in here and I get a much tighter pattern. So let's say I'm going to shoot some type of small game with this and I want my bird shot to be tighter or I want to go turkey hunting. I can put a full extra full choke in there. I can keep my shot column really tight so I can focus all those pellets into a small area. or I can extend the range at which the pellets will stay in a tight area and still be lethal. So that's what a choke does for you and that's an important thing to understand capability wise with your shotgun. Again most tactical shotguns or home defense shotguns are going to have a cylinder choke in it which means no compression of the shot column because the idea is that I'm actually trying to get a little bit of spread with my pellets. But if you're going to take that same shotgun it's like oh i'm gonna go use it to do this now yeah you can change that choke and make it more capable yeah right well while we're kind of down this path because we were going to talk about this anyway you know you covered a lot of it but you know configuration of your shotgun and why you're doing things the way that you're doing it um so which one of these is your personal gun well they're technically well i guess they all are yeah um this is the one that is kept loaded right now in the house uh so this one's got a light on it if you notice all my all my screw points are witness uh witness mark i had to go back and tighten these up because shotguns have a fair amount of recoil and vibration when you shoot them sure um and so anything that you have connected you need to be checking on a regular basis and witness marks help you know that things are coming out as tight yep uh because once they get loose you don't want to keep shooting the shotgun because you'll just tear things up yeah right yeah yeah um uh Again, shells on the side. This is the way this one's kept set up is the full tube, which is seven rounds in the tube and buckshot here. And then I have two slugs normally here. I'd have them facing in opposite directions because when I'm loading the shotgun, I'm pulling from the front and shove it into the tube. If I'm going to load a shotgun shell, it's probably going to be a single shell. So it's going to be what they call a select slug. Or you mean a slug? A slug. Yeah. Did I say what I say? Shotgun shell. Yeah. If I'm going to shoot a slug, it's probably going to be loaded into... the chamber by itself right not already in the tube and you don't run because i said i mean again uh newbie shotgun right so so i'm asking newbie questions here um you know i see people run the the one basically in line with the boar shell on this side i got it on the other guy okay so what's the you know so or your take on that i guess um it's not a bad idea um I've got this one set up because it's a legit match saver, if you will. So you could load whatever you wanted to in here. I'm going to throw it in here to show you basically the way it works. But basically the idea is I've run my gun dry. Right. Okay. Which you don't want to do with a shotgun if you can help it. But basically I can take this shell, rub it into the chamber and I got around the chamber now. Yeah. So it's just a fairly gross motor skill to do. I come up, push the whole shell into the chamber and if I've got it lined up. it lines up right into the chamber and then as soon as i get there i just hit my bolt release and knock that around yeah so not just uh an instagram gimmick if you will i would say no It's not. A lot of guys are putting them on tactical shotguns. Now I've seen them on some law enforcement shotguns. Because if you run this thing dry, you know, it's that. There's other people that would argue that that is a great place for, um, if you had a special purpose round like a slug that you wanted to use. Sure. I wouldn't ever. Never say never, right? One of those kind of things. But I wouldn't mix and match like breaching rounds with real rounds or less lethal rounds with a real shotgun. That could be pretty disastrous. One of the unique things about the 1301 is that it doesn't drop a shell on the carrier when I cycle the bolt. Okay? And what that means is if someone picks the gun, like typically the way I leave it is the tube loaded, nothing in the chamber, nothing on the carrier. A lot of guys will say, put one on the carrier and that way it's faster. You know, ghost loaded and I got more rounds, but the idea here is this gun is pre-positioned somewhere. So if someone picks it up, what the hell? Yeah, we're good. It doesn't chamber a round, doesn't go bang. If they start fucking with it, eventually it's going to go. Can I say that? Yeah. Okay. On our channel you can. Yeah. So what happens is when I pull the trigger, so let's say I pick the shotgun up, I got two choices. I need to get this thing into action. I can hit the carrier release button here on the bottom and that'll dump a shell. Or if I lose my mind and I come up and I pull the trigger, when I pull the trigger it's going to dump that shell into the carrier. And then you just rack it. And then I can rack and put it around. Interesting. Okay. But why that is important with this particular shotgun is if I say, oh shit I need to take a slug shot. Okay. So I got two choices. I can either put one into the tube, fire a shell and then load it. Or if I want to be very selective, I can pull that to the rear, put that shell in place and it... goes into the chamber so now i have a slug in the chamber but i didn't eject one onto the round and most a lot of semi-autos and most pump shotguns when you cycle it it automatically dumps one onto the carrier and runs it through there so doing a select slug drill is a little bit more difficult than with a shotgun like this. Does that make sense? It does, yeah. Okay, so it has, you know, it has some benefits. I'm just going to hold it the rest of the way now from that standpoint. a couple things to understand so again i keep it loaded seven rounds in the tube nothing in the chamber and you know the reason for that is i don't want to be unloading it and unloaded if i pick once you pick the gun up it's kind of like an ar right once you pick the gun up and it's in your possession you load it yeah right yeah you charge it it's ready to rock so the important thing with a shotgun is keeping it loaded the disadvantage of a shotgun if there is one is the fact that you've got a relatively low capacity here lots of lethality but you're looking at seven or eight rounds in the tube depending on what you have for a shotgun it may be only five rounds depending on what your configuration is if you're not shooting You should be loading the shotgun. So if you shoot one, you load one. If you shoot two, you load two, right? And the loading process is typically off the side saddle. So we pull that shell out of the bottom and we insert it into... So those, this process is the most difficult part, uh, is from a weapons handling standpoint, okay? Um, so those, those, that is important and that's what you're primarily doing. So if you're up here on the line and you're shooting, um, it... There's something to be said for doing like mat tube dumps where you just do and learning to control the gun. But the reality is you should probably shoot one, load one, shoot two, load two and constantly be feeding the gun so that you keep that capacity of the gun up. That's what most of your time should be done on. The last thing that you want to be skilled at doing as well, and I know we played with the Match saver just a minute ago. But if I do run the gun dry, I need to get the gun back up as quickly as possible. So don't worry about loading the tube at this point. I need to get around in the chamber as soon as possible. So when we grab that shell, there's several different ways to do it. You can come over the top, but for most people, I recommend them coming under the bottom. So you're cupping it in your hand like this and you're coming in and you're throwing that shell into the chamber. And then you're... going for there if you're a lefty i was gonna ask this yeah if you're a lefty um you could argue that shotguns are set up uh better for left-handed people okay so you're gonna pull the shell out and it's right there at the side and put the shell right in there because you're looking at it whereas i am it's over here and i'm doing one of these numbers you're doing it from this direction some of the best pump shotgun shooters i've ever met were lefties because they could run everything's right here in front of their face you're the first person that said something nice ...my people ever. We're abused and we know it. Bill Blower says that the lefties are genetically superior for running shotguns. The shotguns are all really... everybody's like, oh, I want a left-handed shotgun. Like they're all left-handed. I like Bill. Bill's my kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah, Bill. So, okay, so obviously you guys, you know... Work on the guns of course. So you know on the Langdon side of house like we take a base 1301, what are we doing to it? So we take the 1301, the most important configurations we do is we change the forend. We put a Magpul Zukov forend on it. So we have an adapter GG&G makes our adapter that allows us to put the forend onto the shotgun and that Zukov forend gives you M-LOK mounting points. so that you can put swing swivels and flashlights and all of those things on the front of the gun. And then we also replace the stock on the gun. So we have, you know, two configurations. This is a chisel machining stock, which is way more adjustable. Then the other one is it's adjustable for length of pull a lot of adjustability You can move the stock itself up and down Is that a cheek riser? Okay. Yeah, so the cheek riser but the recoil pad itself you can actually adjust its position on the stock to fit you and you have multiple points for sling swivels You can put shells on the side So the quiver that you can mount on the side so that you can mount more ammunition onto the gun so that's important and it also has a a mount for an optic on the stock itself. And it puts it further to the rear, which opens up the receiver of the gun, as well as gets the optic a little closer to your eye, gives you a better field of view. And then of course the Magpul stock, which is a great stock as well. And again, adapter for a Mossberg stock to go in here. So again, I have adjustable length of pull. I have a little bit more vertical forward grip. So short stock in the gun is a little easier. And we have side saddle options. We have different optic mount options that you can use on there and of course this shows you the configuration of a light mounted onto the forend. Is that that's typically how you would run a light you know based on your experience in terms of pressure pad being on on your side of the gun? So I like uh I've done both um Normally I like using a manual activation on a rifle because it's 100% it kind of always works. Tail caps and wires sometimes make me nervous but pushing on a button on a shotgun when this thing starts kicking around can get quite painful. And so how pressure pad is kind of nice. So this is the current configuration. I'm running This is a streamline. It could be a surefire Scout whatever. Yeah, your preference would be there But again M lock piece of pick rail mount your light on on it and now it's further towards the end of the shotgun but it's within reach. Sure yeah and then so I mean just from a training perspective so the pressure pad that's on the other side so you're basically squeezing it to activate it? Yeah you can squeeze it I think I've got this one. turned off right now because it's uh it's in care it's in go in the bag mode so that it doesn't turn itself on and yeah in the bag and melt things which they will uh so you can push it with your thumb okay and turn it on uh you can also So just squeeze it with your hand when you're grabbing the barrel. And then this one has a constant on if you want to just turn it on and let it run. It depends on what your situation might be. And that's not going to heat up to where you're C-clamping and burning your thumb until you shoot a certain amount of rounds. So that's why that still works. You've shot this thing quite a bit if this thing's burning your thumb. Yeah. It will. But it's going to be a lot. It's a bad night in the house. So if you're training with a gun, you're going to want to have a glove on. Yeah. But if you're emptying your tube in your house, you're probably going to be okay. And burning your thumb might not be at the top of your list of problems. Yeah. Yeah. And it, you know, it doesn't get red hot. I just brought it up because someone might say like, hey, if you see a clamped shotgun, you're going to burn your hand. Not so much. Yeah. If you. If you shoot enough you will. Yeah. If you get on the range and you start training and cranking some rounds down range, the barrel's gonna get hot. Sure. But it's a relatively low capacity gun. Sure. And considering that a round of quality buckshot... should take care of a single person. Yeah. So if I've got seven rounds in the tube, how many people are coming into my house? Hopefully not seven, man. And I got another six on the side saddle. And then another five on the rear. running this stock I got another five over here what did I I'm moved to the wrong neighborhood you're in the you're in the apocalypse I probably should have grabbed the walking dead at that point yeah yeah but it your problems yeah anything internally that you guys do or is it mostly do a we do a trigger job on the trigger group the trigger on the guns is really nice to start with so it's not like it needs to be a much better but I think more than anything else it makes the trigger more consistent and repeatable. So it's a little bit lighter, maybe half a pound. It's not dramatic. I mean it's not going to turn into a you know three pound match trigger. Yeah, a little more dicey. Yeah, it's a on a shotgun. you're probably not needing to deal with a you know that kind of trigger but it does improve it quite a bit and it's a noticeable difference um but it doesn't get it i mean it's not a quote hair trigger it's just an improvement in what we got yeah yeah yeah no doubt so last like last little thing that we're going to get into as far as like accessories uh what's your stance on a sling on a shotgun yay nay indifferent okay so um i think uh there's a time and a place for a sling on a shotgun okay Typically you're talking about patrol work or a military guy or something. The real reason to have slings on any gun is because you're living with the gun. Meaning it's with you when I'm... eating lunch and i'm eating dinner using the restroom i'm using the restroom and i'm climbing ladders and anything else like that that's the main purpose of a sling we've kind of lost context ever and you know these in the tactical world where everybody wants to transition right um so if i grab this in the middle of the night i'm probably naked i ain't transitioning to anything because there's nothing to grab so if this thing stops working Where I run out of ammunition, I'd better be beating feet to somewhere else. Get my point? Yeah. So the sling is not really, in my opinion, necessary. It's another thing that gets caught on things when I'm trying to move and do things. Things could be so loosely interpreted there. Yeah. I mean, it depends too. Yeah. Also, fun fact of the day, Ernest sleeps naked. So, you know, just, you know, for any of the fans out there, you know, just... Not everyone does, so that's nice to know, I guess. He stays in shape so he's not afraid to show it off to intruders. If an intruder comes in, he'll be like, that motherfucker's in shape. Sorry, Amy, watching this. She knows she's in shape. She's laughing. She's laughing. So I don't think a sling is necessary for a gun that I am keeping in stage for me to grab in the middle of the night. Because it's just one more thing to get caught on something. Yeah, especially in low light, no light too. Exactly. Can't really see what I'm doing. Door handles can be... Horrible things when you're running in and around your house, and that would be the like one of the most common things that I think I've caught things on. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, very cool. Guys, hope you enjoyed learning about shotguns today. We enjoyed it. Thanks for Ernest and the whole crew coming out there. We're not even whole crew, really, Ernest. Just Ernest. So anyway, final thanks to Firearms Legal Protection. So you guys, hey, Finn, let's not eat the animal's carcass. Got an animal spine down there that he seems to be intrigued by. So... Final thanks to FLP. They are doing a giveaway. That's Firearms Legal Protection. They've sponsored our channel for probably like a year and a half now. So basically, hey, I don't want to get this wrong because it's a giveaway and it's on the internet. So it's three months, the individual basic plan that gets you coverage in your state, uncapped attorney fees, covers all legal weapons, attorney hotline, the basics, right? Here's what you do. You click on the link that's in the video description for the FLP. right? So you just click on that. It'll take you out a little homepage there. And then you just click on the little button that says you enter the giveaway, plug in your, your, whatever details it asked you for. It won't be too crazy. Everyone relax. Um, and you got 48 hours to do that. After this video comes out, this video is probably out at 2 PM mountain standard time. For those of you that don't know that that's a real time zone on a Friday. So you got until Sunday, 2 PM MST to get in there. Winter will be randomly drawn. Someone from FLP will reach out. If anyone else reaches out, like in a YouTube comment. And they're like, text this number for free Glock and gift card. Please do not click on that. That would not beat us or anyone from FLP. They will reach out directly. So we appreciate the support. Again, hope you guys enjoyed learning about shotguns from the man, Ernest Langdon. And we'll see you guys next week.

And I will allow this clip to illustrate that. There are a lot of people that like shotguns for home defense. Let me just start with this brief observation. I've never heard someone that I respect in the world of firearms say that shotguns are what I use for home defense. So maybe consider that.

I've never heard like a respectable instructor or anything. Nope. Recommend that, but hey, that's just a... Just my experience. Just an observation.

Oh wait, that's your experience and my experience. Shocker. Oh, okay. Now, that clip is a tough one for me to watch back, but being open to change and growth should be an important part of being a man.

And with that said, let me ask the age-old question. And that question is, what weapon do you want for home defense? So you go through your options. You could grab your trusty sledgehammer. How about a tomahawk?

Or a pistol? Maybe even a sub gun? Perhaps a rifle?

All viable options. For us however, consistently the answer has never been shotguns. But let's play a game.

You break into a house, and on the other side of the door is a man with a shotgun. Specifically, a modified Beretta 1301 shooting 500 grains of shit your pants. Well, it turns out, you've broken into Ernest Langdon's house.

And you have chosen... poorly. Okay, everyone, welcome to the show, and I'm going to open up the show with this.

First of all, I hope you enjoyed the intro after dark, you know, but... You're proud of that, aren't you? Yeah, I don't know.

But, so, here's what I'm... going to say, I think as a man, we're all men here. And I think that, um, you, you have to own, uh, your past and be able to go, Hey, look, here's things that I've said before.

And let's just get it out in the open because everyone's afraid to own their stuff. So. I'll draw a correlation.

We put our foot in our mouth back in the day regarding MP5s. With virtually no time on MP5s saying, this is an outdated bullshit gun. The bolt doesn't hold open and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Right? And like even double downed on it.

Right? And now. I love them. I have my third one being built right now. You know, it's like, it's truly one of my all-time favorite guns.

And we have been down a similar path with shotguns, right? Of basically saying mean things about shotguns, about shotgun owners, and how they're completely irrelevant. And yet we sit here with a shotgun master, you know? And we've done a few of these videos essentially around the premise of why shotguns? We've done like, why 300 Blackout?

Why Glocks? Why 1911s? You know, like, why do these... things matter?

How are they relevant? Like what is their place in the world? And that's going to largely be what we get into today with Ernest, but I guess, you know, that would be a chance, maybe a snapshot of who we are for people who don't know.

Ernest Langdon, I run a, my wife and I run a small company called Langdon Tactical, where we do custom work primarily on handguns, but we do a bunch of 1301 shotguns. Yeah. Where we kind of reconfigure them.

We take what is a tremendous shotgun and we kind of outfit it so that it's ready to go when you get it from us to work on. So that's who I am. I mean, there's other things about me, obviously, but for the purposes of this. Yes, that is you. That is me.

That is you. Okay. Jake, we're out here. And a main piece of kit that you need on the range is a belt.

A good belt. The belt that you happen to be taking off is made by none other than Segera. What model of belt is that, Jake? This is the light inner velcro belt.

This is the one that I EDC every day. If you ever see either of us in public, you should challenge us. Be like, hey bro, show me your belt, and I'll do it. I'll do it.

I'll do it. I'll show you a little bit of belly fur with it. I'll do it willingly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not going to take it off. I'm not going to let you handle it. Oh, I would.

I'd let you. But yeah, we rock the hell out of these things. They're great.

Really love these. The great thing about that one too is my battle wagon or battle belt. Segarra calls their battle belt a battle wagon. Layers right on top of that, so whether I'm at the range or leaving the range to maybe go have dinner, I got two belts that cover me in both scenarios.

Our code 1911syndicate saves you 10% off. I think a lot of people affiliate you with, you know, Beretta 92s. For me, I really think of you as like, hey, he's Beretta 92 guy and shotgun guy.

I know there's more to you than that. You're a human being with feelings and emotions and PX4s and P30s and many things. But how did you sort of get exposed to shotguns and get to that place of going, hey, hang on, shotguns are kind of awesome.

Like, what was your background with shotguns that got you to this place? It dates back pretty far. I think, I mean I grew up dove hunting and stuff like that. I grew up with shotguns, but I think it really started when I was in the Marine Corps and I was teaching at the high-risk personnel program. We had a shotgun portion during the class.

It was part of the things that we taught to the people in the class. So I had some good instruction there. I got to go to a bunch of schools where they taught shotgun stuff.

So anyway, that was it. I had, I went out, bought my own shotgun. I took shotgun classes from different places, like Phil Singleton, I don't know if you guys have heard of him, but he's a kind of a legend, former SAS guy.

He was at, anyway, I won't diverge off all that, but learned a lot from him and other guys. And so I've always kind of been a shotgun guy because I knew the capabilities of it. For us as a company, What happened was we were already had the relationship with Beretta and the 1301 Tactical was out but it had a few things that it needed if you will.

So having the relationship with Beretta we got relationships with other companies and we started putting complete package guns together so that had all of the things that they needed. Places to mount flashlights, places to attach slings, more adjustability on the stock, all of those kind of things. So the stock I mean, I've been a shotgun guy for 40 years.

Yeah. Which is crazy, dude. So you started when you were three.

Yeah, I'm older than that. 43. Your math is off a little bit. No, it looks like we'd be the same age for that matter.

Which means you would be 40, everyone. Which means you look terrible for being 40. That's fair enough. Fair enough observation. Okay, so, you know, maybe on kind of like a broad strokes level. I think one of the things that's an interesting conversation around like why shotguns matter is based on your state, the ability of what you can get based on capacity.

Elaborate. So, yeah, you may not be able to get a high capacity AR-15 in your house. It may be a poor choice for you to be firing a rifle in your apartment. Sure. Okay.

Yeah. So there's a lot of reasons. You may make the decision that… you know if i do have to use a gun for defense a you know an ar-15 uh type you know rifle may not be the best choice if i have to defend myself in my state because the da might just throw me under the bus regardless sure if i'm right or wrong okay and a shotgun uh from that standpoint might be a bit more defendable um but it also might be the issue of just straight up i want something that is 100 devastating if i if i if my life or my family life on the line, I don't want to have to shoot two or three times and then see if I'm effective. In the case of a shotgun, if you get a good hit, you're probably done. It's pretty much a wrap.

Yeah, pretty much a wrap. And we will talk about that. Yeah.

Well, actually, with that said, I think we'll take you to a chunk of footage that we did earlier on the range. So the point of this is to try to bring you guys up to speed of the advantages. of the gauge.

Yes please. The shotgun. So what we want to do is talk a little bit about that. Now there's the big advantage of a shotgun in my opinion is its payload. What it can shoot on it and the broad variety of what it can shoot.

So I jokingly say this can you can use this as a bird gun or an elephant gun. So you can shoot anything from birdshot you know little pellets to knock dove out of the air all the way up to. Big ol'slugs.

430, 440 grain projectiles at, you know, up to 1600 feet per second depending on how you want to load it. So, it can be a devastating payload. You can also shoot breaching rounds and less lethal rounds and all of the other kind of things.

So the difference in load that you can put in these is, it's tremendous. So to get down that path, the first thing, let's go through the... the most fundamental loads that we see for a shotgun, okay, and talk about their capabilities.

Now, the first one we're going to talk about... This is a double A trap load, ounce and an eighth of number eights. This is a heavy one so this one's got a little bit more powder behind it than normal. One of the things to understand is there's two ends of this one.

First of all, people will say, well it's birdshot, you can't kill anybody with it. Well, that's not really true. It depends on how big the spread gets.

It depends on how far away they are. from the muzzle. So we're going to start with we're going to move up relatively close to the target.

So if we get up here five-ish yards or so and we shoot a round of birdshot, the important thing to understand is that you're basically talking about almost a single projectile. Yeah okay. So you still yeah yeah so this is birdshot here at five yards.

Okay so most of that shot is still in a really tight column. Would you want to say this could be my defensive round because I don't have to worry about hurting the neighbors? I don't think that's a good thing to do because it's not nearly as devastating as you need something today.

Okay. But you also can't act like it's not lethal. Yeah.

It's not a less lethal round. You could definitely kill somebody with that. I mean, his face is hurting at the very least.

A little bit. Some of that is also the plastic wad. Sure. Right?

It opens, takes the chunk with it. Which that'll suck to get hit by too. You don't want that having to be dug out of you. But if we just take a handful of steps back, okay, and we'll get an impact from the wad, but we just get a few steps back and here we are at maybe 10-ish yards and I'll just shoot full body.

Okay. Now we'll walk up and see what we got. Shit. All right, Jake.

Well, you finished putting your belt on. We got some housekeeping, if you will. Yeah.

And that is other ways to support the channel. So we have Patreon. Great thing about Patreon, we got a bunch of different packages that fit kind of your budget, but you get access to new swag, limited edition swag like lighters, watches, etc.

Syndicate events and or we had some Syndicate Patreon supporters out for filming. Yeah, you'll see them in a recent upcoming video. Pretty awesome. Kind of cool.

So if you're looking for another way to support the channel, Patreon is the place for you, especially if you like some cool unique stuff that is not available to all viewers. Yep, absolutely. And then last quick thing, 1911 Syndicate at its core.

has always been a real estate business. Hell, we only started the YouTube channel to try to get real estate clients, to be perfectly honest with you. So again, if you ever need help buying, selling a house, things like that, let us know. You just go to 1911synecdoche.com, reach out to us through there.

Myself or someone else will get back to you, and we appreciate the support. In all 50 states. Now that is the wad.

That's a piece of plastic. And yes, it probably would penetrate below the surface, depending on where it hit. this spread out dramatically dramatically right and it's peppering the target and these are these aren't little bbs these are smaller than bbs they're number eight so but if you're trying to kill a small game money yeah right yeah that that definitely takes care of business right yeah yeah um so that's what we're talking about when we start talking about you know understanding the the bird shot to start with now the next step up from that is Buckshot.

We're gonna do a regular buckshot first. Where's mine? There we go.

Now this is a old school Super X double-aught buck nine pellet. Okay. So let's back up about where we were with the birdshot.

Okay. And we'll see a bit of a spread here with the nine pellet. I'm gonna shoot on the same target because you'll be able to tell what happened.

Okay. Jeez. Very devastating. Inside there are nine 32 caliber pellets that she took all at one time. 9.32, about 13.50ish, something like that with this particular Winchester load, right?

Feet per second. Yeah, feet per second. 13.50. So very lethal, right?

This is kind of an old school deer round, if you will. I mean, definitely take care of business. The interesting thing to understand is with this type of buckshot, that's at 10 yards.

I've already got a spread, okay? And for a lot of people, they go, well, you know, that's what I want. The important piece to get across is it doesn't clear out everything at the other side of the rim.

Right. You still got to aim this, okay? So at 10 yards, it's still in here. I just can't level it out. point it in that direction and it's going to take care of it well and and this is an argument that we've made and this video and look if we really cared about looking good on the internet we wouldn't make this video because this video mostly makes us look bad on previous statements because One of the things that we've said is an argument for shotguns is you don't even need to point it because the spread's just going to devastate anything at the end of a hallway.

And we did this and we were like, horseshit, it doesn't. You do have to aim. For inside the house, for all intents and purposes, it's a rifle. Sure. Cool.

It's still a rifle. Yeah. Okay.

The difference being is, it's the most powerful rifle you could stick in your shoulder. Yeah. Because nothing else is shooting 400 plus grains of projectiles all at one time at 1,300, 1,400 feet per second. Yeah.

And this is going to have way less over penetration issues, either through a torso or through... building materials. Walls, stucco. Yeah, walls, stucco, all the rest of the kind of stuff. Okay.

But I would argue that this is way more lethal than probably any rifle anybody's keeping in their house. Yeah. Okay? Yeah.

I prefer a single shot. Correct. Okay? Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

So that is the issue there. It's not like I'm not going to happen. If you've got a determined adversary, a truly determined adversary, and you talk to guys.

with a 5.56 caliber gun, you may have to shoot them three, four, five times. Sure. Okay?

I'm going to argue you don't have to shoot them three. You shot them nine times at once. At once, yeah. Well, and if you just do simple math, which I don't do math in public, and add up the grain weight, even a 77 grain 5.56, that's one round.

You're getting X amount of grains, X amount of rounds equal. 438 to 450, depending on the exact setup. So just the math alone proves that that's...

shakes out right now what's really interesting is we're going to back up again um if you're concerned about uh the spread of the rounds and and flyers and projectiles that might go off and hit somebody because you know again the spread of the shotgun is an issue okay meaning that uh having this direction having a um nine pellets flying through the air okay If you're shooting at any distance and depending on what you need this thing for, we start backing up the distance, then we get in a situation where that regular old buckshot, it still works, but the spread might get too great and you got flyers now going off in places that you don't want. And that's where the higher end loads, like this is federal flight control, okay? And this is a special wad that holds the pellets together.

It's stacked in there better and it holds the pellet together in a tighter wad at greater distance. So let's back up to almost 20 here and we'll shoot on Let's shoot on the next one over and you're gonna see the difference of how tight the pattern can be with buckshot With the proper shotgun setup and the proper load All right, and that was me I drifted a little right with it, but there's all nine pellets well within What I would say they zone. Yeah, well one I had one off to the right No, but I mean if you were to shift that over, I mean that's within an a zone And there's your wad. It's really not really a big factor, but there's all nine pellets fairly close.

And what I, you know, I pulled that shot a little on me. But that's all in the A-zone, all within an eight-inch circle at 20 plus yards. Okay. So now you've got something...

And still double op buck versus double op buck, just a concentration of the pellets. Special wad, so you keep things a lot tighter. So if you lived in a rural area or you had a, you know...

40 foot or 45 yard long hallway in your big house right from one end to the other yeah sounds awesome might be a little bit better um of a deal now what we do from there is we go in and we'll switch over let's back up a little further we don't have to back up that far same paper target and we're going to shoot a slug now for a headshot here and not trick it see how this goes boy you didn't throw it so i'm gonna put it down okay so now at 20 25 yards um ish right on the target we've got a one ounce projectile it's uh like 68 caliber if i remember correctly i should probably do the math on that again depends on the manufacturer but that is a big gaping hole that takes care of everything that you could possibly want to take care of now would we say with this particular round on this shot placement do you think that this adversary goes down uh forever okay They are eliminated from the threat at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are. They drop like a sack of potatoes.

That would be my thought. And their head. Their head has probably seen better days. Well, the cavitation that that would... It's called a canoe head.

Yeah. Yes. I'm sorry.

Yes. Probably not good for public consumption, but if you've ever seen... No, that's... If you've ever seen a canoe head... A canoe is dug out in the middle.

Yeah, it's... That would be dug out in the middle. Probably, yeah. Yeah, that's about right.

That's a canoe head. Yeah. It's either a canoe head or a hair frisbee.

That's the other thing that happens sometimes. Well, maybe you could demonstrate a slug at distance. Because I have to admit I thought that that was pretty cool.

Thinking of shotguns as short range weapons. So what did we figure that was about? 120? You definitely got a 100 out of it. Huh?

You definitely got a solid 100 there. Yeah, it's a solid 100. And you can see the impact. I mean it's high, it's high azo. Jurassic, yeah.

Yeah, and I mean, so I mean that's a damn shotgun round of however many 450 grains or some shit at 100 yards. Oh, that's, that's a deal breaker. him right there guaranteed right and that is a again elephant gun deer gun big game doesn't matter what it is i got a you know 100 plus yard shot um but now the dot helps a ton no doubt what round is this one out slug again same thing same slug just iron sights yeah just just beads looking down the ribs that can be barely irons Hit!

Shit, yep, low. Low right. Yep, low right. Hot damn.

With a, with a bit rip. That's some base irons. It's a lot harder because my beads are bigger than the target.

So I'm kind of going, yeah, bang. That's about right. I mean, this shakes out, right?

I mean, this is the whole argument. and i've taken a couple shotgun classes i don't know if you knew that jake yeah he didn't know that but like i've always just been like i still prefer a rifle but again with your argument bird buck big game elephant whatever one platform to do it all and you can stack the loads however you want right you can move them around to do whatever the task would be at hand yeah um because you're you're if you talk about a gun that's going to do a lot of different things for you you from a home defense standpoint you're going to reach and grab something in the middle of the night um it's a tremendous tool from that standpoint okay because from a from a devastation standpoint unless you just you know you've got a onslaught of a lot of people coming in your house you're going to be able to take care of business with that one gun and whatever you've got on the gun. Yeah, and I think part of the argument that I've made, as I own my past verbiage, is that shotguns... Here's part of where I've had an issue, right? Is that people...

Is not so much... with shotguns it's the fact that shotguns seem to be a de facto argument of you can be a dummy with no training and a shotgun's your home to fit and that's where i've resided it's like that does require you to be trained well it does and i think it's it you you still have to be responsible it doesn't take out everything into the hallway you still need to aim it for all intents and purposes you have to use it like a rifle indoors But from a capacity standpoint, I mean from a lethality standpoint, it's way in front of any rifle that would be acceptable for home defense. Sure.

Like, you know, like, oh, my.338 Lapua is more of a, okay. Yeah. Relax.

Yeah. Yeah. He's not two miles away. He's in your house.

He's in your house, right? I mean, that's what Jake said is what working behind a gun counter forever, I heard. Like, oh, I'm getting this for my daughter because she doesn't even have to point or shoot and she doesn't even have to train.

And I'm like, what? No. Is that gonna, one, hold up in court?

Yeah, sure. Oh, I just closed my eyes and sent it. Like, I'm sorry, you're going to prison, right?

But two, you do need training and some skill and some accuracy to make it an effective weapon. It's not point and shoot. Couple things that we're gonna talk about shotguns that I think are really, really important. If you're going to have a shotgun that is something that you're gonna be using for defense, there are two huge factors there, okay? A home defense gun needs two things 100% It needs a source of ammo.

You've got to have ammo on the gun because you're probably going to be butt naked when you grab this thing. Awesome. So your battle belt is not going to be there for you to be doing reloads and grabbing your quad loads and all the other kind of stuff.

Grab some. What's on the gun is what you got, okay? That's one.

Number two is it needs to have a light on it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Because handheld flashlight techniques with the shotgun are extremely difficult. Yeah. Okay? It doesn't even seem possible. It is, but it's not easy.

Not great. So a light is super, super important from that standpoint. So those are two huge factors. on there i love dots on shotguns i used to not to because like that's just sacrilege but it takes away a lot of the lighting condition issues or vision focus issues all the things that make dots great on handguns they're as good or better on a shot on a shotgun yeah um so that's really important uh another fact that people need to understand is talking about one of the capabilities that a shock most shotguns have and that is the choke Having a choke tube in there allows you the options and the example that I would give is most tactical shotguns are going to be set up with a cylinder board choke so there's almost no choke basically. But if it's a shotgun that you want to use for multiple things, having different chokes can increase the capabilities of the gun.

Can you define choke? Yeah do you know what that is? So I can very...

I'm genuinely asking. It's been a minute. Without doing math and talking about numbers, this is a light modified choke, but basically this particular one is made so that I can screw it into the gun. Most of the 1301s we sell have a screw-in choke as well, but basically it's the last few inches of the barrel, depending on the manufacturer of the shotgun and the way they set it up, the last few inches of the barrel, it's like this, and basically it compresses that shot column as it comes out of the the tooth. Keep the grip tight.

Yeah. So I can change that choke to increase the density of how tight the pattern is. So I can throw a different choke in here and I get a much tighter pattern. So let's say I'm going to shoot some type of small game with this and I want my bird shot to be tighter or I want to go turkey hunting. I can put a full extra full choke in there.

I can keep my shot column really tight so I can focus all those pellets into a small area. or I can extend the range at which the pellets will stay in a tight area and still be lethal. So that's what a choke does for you and that's an important thing to understand capability wise with your shotgun.

Again most tactical shotguns or home defense shotguns are going to have a cylinder choke in it which means no compression of the shot column because the idea is that I'm actually trying to get a little bit of spread with my pellets. But if you're going to take that same shotgun it's like oh i'm gonna go use it to do this now yeah you can change that choke and make it more capable yeah right well while we're kind of down this path because we were going to talk about this anyway you know you covered a lot of it but you know configuration of your shotgun and why you're doing things the way that you're doing it um so which one of these is your personal gun well they're technically well i guess they all are yeah um this is the one that is kept loaded right now in the house uh so this one's got a light on it if you notice all my all my screw points are witness uh witness mark i had to go back and tighten these up because shotguns have a fair amount of recoil and vibration when you shoot them sure um and so anything that you have connected you need to be checking on a regular basis and witness marks help you know that things are coming out as tight yep uh because once they get loose you don't want to keep shooting the shotgun because you'll just tear things up yeah right yeah yeah um uh Again, shells on the side. This is the way this one's kept set up is the full tube, which is seven rounds in the tube and buckshot here. And then I have two slugs normally here. I'd have them facing in opposite directions because when I'm loading the shotgun, I'm pulling from the front and shove it into the tube.

If I'm going to load a shotgun shell, it's probably going to be a single shell. So it's going to be what they call a select slug. Or you mean a slug? A slug. Yeah.

Did I say what I say? Shotgun shell. Yeah. If I'm going to shoot a slug, it's probably going to be loaded into... the chamber by itself right not already in the tube and you don't run because i said i mean again uh newbie shotgun right so so i'm asking newbie questions here um you know i see people run the the one basically in line with the boar shell on this side i got it on the other guy okay so what's the you know so or your take on that i guess um it's not a bad idea um I've got this one set up because it's a legit match saver, if you will.

So you could load whatever you wanted to in here. I'm going to throw it in here to show you basically the way it works. But basically the idea is I've run my gun dry. Right.

Okay. Which you don't want to do with a shotgun if you can help it. But basically I can take this shell, rub it into the chamber and I got around the chamber now. Yeah. So it's just a fairly gross motor skill to do.

I come up, push the whole shell into the chamber and if I've got it lined up. it lines up right into the chamber and then as soon as i get there i just hit my bolt release and knock that around yeah so not just uh an instagram gimmick if you will i would say no It's not. A lot of guys are putting them on tactical shotguns.

Now I've seen them on some law enforcement shotguns. Because if you run this thing dry, you know, it's that. There's other people that would argue that that is a great place for, um, if you had a special purpose round like a slug that you wanted to use.

Sure. I wouldn't ever. Never say never, right? One of those kind of things. But I wouldn't mix and match like breaching rounds with real rounds or less lethal rounds with a real shotgun.

That could be pretty disastrous. One of the unique things about the 1301 is that it doesn't drop a shell on the carrier when I cycle the bolt. Okay? And what that means is if someone picks the gun, like typically the way I leave it is the tube loaded, nothing in the chamber, nothing on the carrier. A lot of guys will say, put one on the carrier and that way it's faster.

You know, ghost loaded and I got more rounds, but the idea here is this gun is pre-positioned somewhere. So if someone picks it up, what the hell? Yeah, we're good.

It doesn't chamber a round, doesn't go bang. If they start fucking with it, eventually it's going to go. Can I say that?

Yeah. Okay. On our channel you can.

Yeah. So what happens is when I pull the trigger, so let's say I pick the shotgun up, I got two choices. I need to get this thing into action. I can hit the carrier release button here on the bottom and that'll dump a shell. Or if I lose my mind and I come up and I pull the trigger, when I pull the trigger it's going to dump that shell into the carrier.

And then you just rack it. And then I can rack and put it around. Interesting.

Okay. But why that is important with this particular shotgun is if I say, oh shit I need to take a slug shot. Okay. So I got two choices.

I can either put one into the tube, fire a shell and then load it. Or if I want to be very selective, I can pull that to the rear, put that shell in place and it... goes into the chamber so now i have a slug in the chamber but i didn't eject one onto the round and most a lot of semi-autos and most pump shotguns when you cycle it it automatically dumps one onto the carrier and runs it through there so doing a select slug drill is a little bit more difficult than with a shotgun like this. Does that make sense? It does, yeah.

Okay, so it has, you know, it has some benefits. I'm just going to hold it the rest of the way now from that standpoint. a couple things to understand so again i keep it loaded seven rounds in the tube nothing in the chamber and you know the reason for that is i don't want to be unloading it and unloaded if i pick once you pick the gun up it's kind of like an ar right once you pick the gun up and it's in your possession you load it yeah right yeah you charge it it's ready to rock so the important thing with a shotgun is keeping it loaded the disadvantage of a shotgun if there is one is the fact that you've got a relatively low capacity here lots of lethality but you're looking at seven or eight rounds in the tube depending on what you have for a shotgun it may be only five rounds depending on what your configuration is if you're not shooting You should be loading the shotgun. So if you shoot one, you load one. If you shoot two, you load two, right?

And the loading process is typically off the side saddle. So we pull that shell out of the bottom and we insert it into... So those, this process is the most difficult part, uh, is from a weapons handling standpoint, okay?

Um, so those, those, that is important and that's what you're primarily doing. So if you're up here on the line and you're shooting, um, it... There's something to be said for doing like mat tube dumps where you just do and learning to control the gun.

But the reality is you should probably shoot one, load one, shoot two, load two and constantly be feeding the gun so that you keep that capacity of the gun up. That's what most of your time should be done on. The last thing that you want to be skilled at doing as well, and I know we played with the Match saver just a minute ago. But if I do run the gun dry, I need to get the gun back up as quickly as possible.

So don't worry about loading the tube at this point. I need to get around in the chamber as soon as possible. So when we grab that shell, there's several different ways to do it.

You can come over the top, but for most people, I recommend them coming under the bottom. So you're cupping it in your hand like this and you're coming in and you're throwing that shell into the chamber. And then you're... going for there if you're a lefty i was gonna ask this yeah if you're a lefty um you could argue that shotguns are set up uh better for left-handed people okay so you're gonna pull the shell out and it's right there at the side and put the shell right in there because you're looking at it whereas i am it's over here and i'm doing one of these numbers you're doing it from this direction some of the best pump shotgun shooters i've ever met were lefties because they could run everything's right here in front of their face you're the first person that said something nice ...my people ever.

We're abused and we know it. Bill Blower says that the lefties are genetically superior for running shotguns. The shotguns are all really...

everybody's like, oh, I want a left-handed shotgun. Like they're all left-handed. I like Bill.

Bill's my kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah.

Hell yeah, Bill. So, okay, so obviously you guys, you know... Work on the guns of course.

So you know on the Langdon side of house like we take a base 1301, what are we doing to it? So we take the 1301, the most important configurations we do is we change the forend. We put a Magpul Zukov forend on it.

So we have an adapter GG&G makes our adapter that allows us to put the forend onto the shotgun and that Zukov forend gives you M-LOK mounting points. so that you can put swing swivels and flashlights and all of those things on the front of the gun. And then we also replace the stock on the gun.

So we have, you know, two configurations. This is a chisel machining stock, which is way more adjustable. Then the other one is it's adjustable for length of pull a lot of adjustability You can move the stock itself up and down Is that a cheek riser? Okay.

Yeah, so the cheek riser but the recoil pad itself you can actually adjust its position on the stock to fit you and you have multiple points for sling swivels You can put shells on the side So the quiver that you can mount on the side so that you can mount more ammunition onto the gun so that's important and it also has a a mount for an optic on the stock itself. And it puts it further to the rear, which opens up the receiver of the gun, as well as gets the optic a little closer to your eye, gives you a better field of view. And then of course the Magpul stock, which is a great stock as well. And again, adapter for a Mossberg stock to go in here.

So again, I have adjustable length of pull. I have a little bit more vertical forward grip. So short stock in the gun is a little easier. And we have side saddle options.

We have different optic mount options that you can use on there and of course this shows you the configuration of a light mounted onto the forend. Is that that's typically how you would run a light you know based on your experience in terms of pressure pad being on on your side of the gun? So I like uh I've done both um Normally I like using a manual activation on a rifle because it's 100% it kind of always works.

Tail caps and wires sometimes make me nervous but pushing on a button on a shotgun when this thing starts kicking around can get quite painful. And so how pressure pad is kind of nice. So this is the current configuration. I'm running This is a streamline. It could be a surefire Scout whatever.

Yeah, your preference would be there But again M lock piece of pick rail mount your light on on it and now it's further towards the end of the shotgun but it's within reach. Sure yeah and then so I mean just from a training perspective so the pressure pad that's on the other side so you're basically squeezing it to activate it? Yeah you can squeeze it I think I've got this one.

turned off right now because it's uh it's in care it's in go in the bag mode so that it doesn't turn itself on and yeah in the bag and melt things which they will uh so you can push it with your thumb okay and turn it on uh you can also So just squeeze it with your hand when you're grabbing the barrel. And then this one has a constant on if you want to just turn it on and let it run. It depends on what your situation might be. And that's not going to heat up to where you're C-clamping and burning your thumb until you shoot a certain amount of rounds.

So that's why that still works. You've shot this thing quite a bit if this thing's burning your thumb. Yeah.

It will. But it's going to be a lot. It's a bad night in the house. So if you're training with a gun, you're going to want to have a glove on.

Yeah. But if you're emptying your tube in your house, you're probably going to be okay. And burning your thumb might not be at the top of your list of problems. Yeah. Yeah.

And it, you know, it doesn't get red hot. I just brought it up because someone might say like, hey, if you see a clamped shotgun, you're going to burn your hand. Not so much. Yeah. If you.

If you shoot enough you will. Yeah. If you get on the range and you start training and cranking some rounds down range, the barrel's gonna get hot. Sure. But it's a relatively low capacity gun.

Sure. And considering that a round of quality buckshot... should take care of a single person. Yeah. So if I've got seven rounds in the tube, how many people are coming into my house?

Hopefully not seven, man. And I got another six on the side saddle. And then another five on the rear.

running this stock I got another five over here what did I I'm moved to the wrong neighborhood you're in the you're in the apocalypse I probably should have grabbed the walking dead at that point yeah yeah but it your problems yeah anything internally that you guys do or is it mostly do a we do a trigger job on the trigger group the trigger on the guns is really nice to start with so it's not like it needs to be a much better but I think more than anything else it makes the trigger more consistent and repeatable. So it's a little bit lighter, maybe half a pound. It's not dramatic. I mean it's not going to turn into a you know three pound match trigger.

Yeah, a little more dicey. Yeah, it's a on a shotgun. you're probably not needing to deal with a you know that kind of trigger but it does improve it quite a bit and it's a noticeable difference um but it doesn't get it i mean it's not a quote hair trigger it's just an improvement in what we got yeah yeah yeah no doubt so last like last little thing that we're going to get into as far as like accessories uh what's your stance on a sling on a shotgun yay nay indifferent okay so um i think uh there's a time and a place for a sling on a shotgun okay Typically you're talking about patrol work or a military guy or something.

The real reason to have slings on any gun is because you're living with the gun. Meaning it's with you when I'm... eating lunch and i'm eating dinner using the restroom i'm using the restroom and i'm climbing ladders and anything else like that that's the main purpose of a sling we've kind of lost context ever and you know these in the tactical world where everybody wants to transition right um so if i grab this in the middle of the night i'm probably naked i ain't transitioning to anything because there's nothing to grab so if this thing stops working Where I run out of ammunition, I'd better be beating feet to somewhere else. Get my point? Yeah.

So the sling is not really, in my opinion, necessary. It's another thing that gets caught on things when I'm trying to move and do things. Things could be so loosely interpreted there. Yeah.

I mean, it depends too. Yeah. Also, fun fact of the day, Ernest sleeps naked. So, you know, just, you know, for any of the fans out there, you know, just...

Not everyone does, so that's nice to know, I guess. He stays in shape so he's not afraid to show it off to intruders. If an intruder comes in, he'll be like, that motherfucker's in shape.

Sorry, Amy, watching this. She knows she's in shape. She's laughing. She's laughing. So I don't think a sling is necessary for a gun that I am keeping in stage for me to grab in the middle of the night.

Because it's just one more thing to get caught on something. Yeah, especially in low light, no light too. Exactly.

Can't really see what I'm doing. Door handles can be... Horrible things when you're running in and around your house, and that would be the like one of the most common things that I think I've caught things on.

Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, very cool. Guys, hope you enjoyed learning about shotguns today.

We enjoyed it. Thanks for Ernest and the whole crew coming out there. We're not even whole crew, really, Ernest.

Just Ernest. So anyway, final thanks to Firearms Legal Protection. So you guys, hey, Finn, let's not eat the animal's carcass.

Got an animal spine down there that he seems to be intrigued by. So... Final thanks to FLP.

They are doing a giveaway. That's Firearms Legal Protection. They've sponsored our channel for probably like a year and a half now.

So basically, hey, I don't want to get this wrong because it's a giveaway and it's on the internet. So it's three months, the individual basic plan that gets you coverage in your state, uncapped attorney fees, covers all legal weapons, attorney hotline, the basics, right? Here's what you do.

You click on the link that's in the video description for the FLP. right? So you just click on that. It'll take you out a little homepage there.

And then you just click on the little button that says you enter the giveaway, plug in your, your, whatever details it asked you for. It won't be too crazy. Everyone relax.

Um, and you got 48 hours to do that. After this video comes out, this video is probably out at 2 PM mountain standard time. For those of you that don't know that that's a real time zone on a Friday.

So you got until Sunday, 2 PM MST to get in there. Winter will be randomly drawn. Someone from FLP will reach out.

If anyone else reaches out, like in a YouTube comment. And they're like, text this number for free Glock and gift card. Please do not click on that.

That would not beat us or anyone from FLP. They will reach out directly. So we appreciate the support. Again, hope you guys enjoyed learning about shotguns from the man, Ernest Langdon.

And we'll see you guys next week.

Transcript for:Understanding Shotguns for Home Defense

Transcript for:
Understanding Shotguns for Home Defense