-”I question the logic behind putting flashlights on firearms but hey, it looks cool, very steampunk.”

My Force Recon unit trained with flashlights on our M4’s with a course called Combative Concepts (combativeconceptsinc.com) before we went overseas last year and we put the foregrip-mounted lights to incredibly effective use. Used properly they gave us a serious tactical edge over our OpFor in low-light CQB conditions. We had instant-on switches so that the lights were not on all the time, which was key. Even when the enemy knew we were coming, they were not able to mount an effective defense. The home defense environment would be no exception. To caveat though, I’m sure most civilians might have trouble effectively employing a weapon mounted light.

1. Even inside my home, my handgun is only useful to let me fight my way to a safer location where I can use a long gun from as much cover and concealment as I can get. Fortunately I don’t have kids nor do any of my friends who are likely to be spending the night. I live in a medium-small city in a very rural state. My house was built by my grandfather who built it, “strong, sturdy and to last a long, long time.” It’s got an inordinate amount of concrete and hardwood in its outer walls. It’s also sited in a way that allows any rounds that penetrate the exterior shell to impact either on one of my own outbuildings or the bare ground. Any neighbors that are in a potential line of fire are situated so there are a number of their own walls between any incoming fire and the spaces they normally occupy. I will gladly pay to put up a new piece of concrete lawn art if it’s broken by one of my rounds fired during a defense situation.

2. At the absolute longest possible range in my house, a shotgun pattern from any kind of shotgun will only open to between seven and ten inches. I still have to aim center of mass and shoot until the threat is identifiably neutralized, even with a shotgun. Using my own exposed hammer coach gun, firing primer powered blanks loaded with case diameter nylon rod; I have yet to find that I haven’t had to reload both barrels while relocating myself from my firing position. I can do it pretty quickly, there’s no way I’d suggest anyone new to firearms even try it. The physiological mechanics of reloading are simply too complex. Throw in the physiological responses to a massive threat response and you’re asking a novice to get their shoulder beaten worse than any single nuckle ‘noogie’ from a high-school bully ever hurt them. They’re functionally deaf from both stress response and physiological reaction to the sound of the shotgun shots. They’re close to functionally blind from effects of stress byproducts such as tunnel vision, hyper-focus and loss of color discrimination. If they missed high and left with the first shot AND they had some way of noticing that, statistically they then missed low and right with the second shot and they’re now out of rounds with a pissed off, hyper-adrenalized criminal no more than 30 feet away.

3. After seeing a Turkish National Police officer have his shotgun taken away after having hit a criminal seven times at less than two meters, I don’t have any deeply seated illusions about the ’stopping power’ of anything a human being can both lift and fire. (Summer 1982, Joint NATO Dog-&-Pony exercise in northern Turkey, a fair number of the NATO troops were seconded to the Turkish Police for perimeter security during a take-down of a smuggling ring… Don’t remember the name but it got a write-up in one of the NATO journals and hit both BBC and Reuters later that week…. Long time ago, far, far away…)

I’m pretty sure I can teach pretty much any reasonably competent human being how to dial 911, get their family behind the biggest piece of furniture in their bedroom, make sure they’ve got an emergency set of house keys with a couple of chem-lights and fluorescent engineer-tape streamers available to throw out the window. I’m reasonably convinced I can teach them to recite a rotely memorized emergency message to the 911 dispatcher that will convey the essential information needed to get emergency medical and law enforcement services rolling to the individual’s home. I’m fairly certain I can teach them to shoot well enough to deal with reasonable threats during the time between realizing their home has been invaded and having the police take control of the situation.
What I’m absolutely certain I can’t do is to ensure that they’re going to practice, make sure their cellular phone is charged and at bedside. I can’t guarantee that they’re not going to take keys off of that bundle of emergency keys to loan to the neighbor while they’re on vacation. Most importantly of all, I can’t guarantee that they’ll practice the skills they’ve been taught. I can almost guarantee that well over half of those folks will fire fewer than 150 rounds after they’ve left my class and I won’t be surprised at all if they never fire another round.

So I have to go with the things I can control and one of those is to ensure that they’ve been taught to use the most effective firearm that they can comfortably operate. I’d rather have them using a .22lr than a 20mm Vulcan Canon if they’re going to practice with the .22. I just don’t think that a 12ga coach gun is going to be a comfortable shooter for enough people that I’m ever likely to recommend it as a primary home defense arm.

That said… I found the checkbook… My wife is out of town until Friday… Somewhere in southwest Idaho there’s GOT to be a dealer with a Stoeger ‘Tacti-Cool’ coach gun for sale. It offends sensibilities I didn’t even know I had but there’s something weirdly cool about it as well. I’ve got to have one just to be able to say I’ve got one…

As always, YMMV

Jeff

The Stoegers safety is automatically activated upon loading the shotgun. This same woman would
probably screw that up too in an emergency. Suggest giving someone like her an S&W 500 Mag.
With a trusty, double-action, serious wheelgun, all she has to do is pull the trigger. Sure,
she may end up with a sprained wrist…better that than a coffin.

Also for the humanitarian who want to bet his life, and the safety of his family on two tasers (at a cost of $1,000 per unit), or those who like the cool factor of a nice semi-auto, (usually $500-$800 or more), this $400 coach gun is a hell of a good bang for the buck.

Having a good light on the end or beneath any gun is a huge plus. A. it disorients, and temporarily blinds and assailant. B. it allows you to see what you are firing at.

I love this gun, and plan to buy one as soon as I save up $450.

Personally, I wish it had two triggers, auto ejectors, and choke tubes; but that would have no doubt raised the price considerably [ price from my local independant dealer here in Arkansas is $399 plus tax ]. I’ll leave off the upper rail and use the fiber optic sight but the lower will carry my Sure-Fire light and a q.d. swivel stud. A neoprene five round butt cuff and swivel stud will be mounted to the buttstock and yeah, I feel certain this will work for most real world situations as well as feral hog hunting. And my Stoeger 20 guage Coachgun and go back to it’s primary job of rabbits and quail.

Personally, I like it. I think it’s rather practical compared to other coach guns. It’s functionally no worse than any other coach gun, yet the rails give you the option to mount modern accessories.

I’ve been looking at coach guns for a while now because of their simplicity. I’m simply not a shotgun guy. They may be effective but I just don’t enjoy them. I’m a rifle & handgun fan. I haven’t needed any of my firearms for defense yet but all of them go to the range for sport and practice. Therefore, I choose guns that I will enjoy at the range first and that will be good for defense as a very close second. Coach guns appeal to me for the simplicity and classic styling. I’ve been leaning towards something with external hammers for stylistic reasons, but this coach gun is so practical that I may drop that criteria.

I do have a few suggestions and hopes though. Some kind of shell carrier would be great. I too would like plastic stocks to be an option. They’d cut the weight and could even have a shell carrier molded in. A plastic stock also opens the possibility for an integral recoil pad like some of the Benelli guns. If they have to use wood, they could offer a version with traditional styling (blued steel, stained wood) and rails. Perhaps in the future they will make an excessively tacticool version (pistolgrip, front pistol grip, telestock, more rails, etc) but I don’t think I’d want one.

“I kept pulling the trigger and just pulling, pulling, pulling. I couldn’t get the safety. I don’t know. I hate guns.”

Hm. This gun gave this woman the same service that Marie Antoinette received when she asked her servants to defend her from the mob — and for much the same reason.

That said…………………..I can’t wait till it comes out because I’m buying the first one I find.

Handguns are much, much less effective than long guns. I like to say that a comparable pistol has about 1/10th the ability to end a fight than a shotgun or rifle.

So your two revolvers barely exceed the hurt launched from a single barrel of the double shotgun.

James

Misfire? Pull the trigger again.

Reload is a pain? Keep a pair. If need to fire more than 3 rounds, you are in serious pain.

I leave mine behind the bedside table, loaded with 00 shot and put a couple of cotton balls in the muzzles to keep out the dust and spiders. t is a simple matter to cock the hammers if needed.

I fully concur with the DB SxS as a home defense gun. Simple, scary to the bad guys, and nearly idiot proof.

Not sure about the “tacticool” DB though.

http://www.iar-arms.com/shotguns.htm

I’d think twice about those snagging hammers; they were eliminated for a reason. Plus, you’ll be back to two triggers. IMHO.

Traditionalists will not like it, but it makes perfect sense. At least they kept the wood and didn’t add any pistol grips.

It is, indeed, Laurent. Thank you kindly for the clarification!

James

EBS: Evil Black Shotgun

I DO think the sound of a shotgun being pumped adds a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to the nervous mind of a perp in your castle.

“subjects were hit by multiple (as many as 8-12) bean bag rounds with little or no effect”

The recommendation for deploying less lethal ammunition is that a second, covering officer be near-by prepared to use lethal force.

And don’t forget the recent video that surfaced of an attempted home invasion- four armed men storm towards a house and they were driven off by a lone, armed home-owner.

Practising reloading a coach gun would have to be highly recommended of course- but this might be the simplest option for those who aren’t that interested in shooting but want a reliable weapon at hand just in case.

As for the notion of using less-lethal rounds/rock salt- the very last thing you want to do is to wound and anger a violent criminal. If you’re going to use a firearm for self-defence then it needs to be one that will decisively STOP the confrontation before harm can be done to you or your loved ones.

Birdshot won’t cut it (see Box of Truth for evidence)- and less lethal ammo and rock salt is just asking for trouble.

BTW, the link for the NYPD shooting study is here-
http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Aveni/OIS-%20What%20We%20Didn%27t%20Know%20Hurt%20Us.pdf

On-topic, I personally don’t like having a light hanging on my gun. Laser dot, yes, but IMHO, I’d prefer not to give an armed perp a target to shoot at in the dark.

In addition, if I’m pointing my light toward a family member for identification, I’d prefer not have it attached on the barrel of my loaded weapon.

In most european countries, very rarely. In France, you can protect yourself with a gun (provided you have the right to possess it) in your home, by night. That’s theory, and self-defense right tend to quietly disappear in favour of the right to call our local 911.

To oversimplify, if you shoot at a burglar with your sport shooting S&W 686, you go to jail, if you do the exact same thing wih your hunting shotgun, your legal situation is far, far better. But you’d still be judged for voluntary homicide.

Using less than lethal ammos (even artisanal) at first can be seen as a reasonable try to avoid that homicide. That’s why I use rubber pellets in my double-barrel shotgun for home-defense : my aim is not to kill an intruder, but to stop the intrusion, and through the pain delivered by rubber or salt (a secular method for farmers against fruit pickers, by the way), I hope to obtain it.

http://www.cartouches-prevot.com/photos/49511.jpg

But again, your legal system, particulary for self defense, and tools you can use for it, is a bit different from ours. For exemple, beside the french “castle doctrine”, legitime defense is characterized by proportionnaly resisting an immediate illegal action (by defending yourself, you don’t have the right to harm more your attacker than he can ham you, you don’t have tho right to go on the fight if he flee or surrender, and you can’t fight back a cop arresting you, for example).

Is the way I am liking less than lethal capabilities of that kind of guns making more sens, with a little context ?