Your Best Survival Choice if it All Goes South

A global pandemic. Growing civil unrest. Supply chain shortages. When personal defense and family sustainment challenges get real, one platform delivers…the shotgun.

by Lou Patrick and Rob Reaser

In this video, we take an in-depth look at ammunition options that make the shotgun the one-and-done platform in a crisis. We also show you first-hand what to expect from the most commonly available ammunition for defense in the home, around your property, and for putting meat on the table.

Shotgun sales have skyrocketed this year as an increasing number of people are coming to understand that personal defense and family protection is their responsibility. In a crisis, help may not be available, and protection and sustainment fall squarely on your shoulders. The shotgun is, without doubt, the most diverse weapon platform not only for defense but also for putting food on the table in a crunch.

Since many of this year’s unprecedented shotgun sales are credited to first-time gun or first-time shotgun owners, and because ammunition supplies are downright thin, we want to discuss the ammunition options for the shotgun as they relate to home defense and survival hunting. We will show how these different ammo choices perform at typical defense distances, why you might choose one ammo type over another, and what to expect if the only ammo you can find to purchase was never intended for defensive purposes at all.

For our demonstration, we will be using off-the-shelf factory loads from Fiocchi, covering 00 buckshot, rifled slugs, and…yes…birdshot for defensive applications. Our firearm for testing this range of ammo is the Mossberg 500 pump with a 12-gauge cylinder bore and 18.5-inch barrel.