Shotgun 101
The Perfect Home Defense Tool
This class is for both beginners and seasoned shotgunners. Unfortunately, we can no longer buy AR-15s in Washington State, so the 12 gauge shotgun is the next best thing. Fortunately, shotguns are an extremely versatile, reliable and effective tool for defending your home. If you are thinking about buying a shotgun for home defense, or you already have one, this is the class for you. We cover everything from the basics of safety and how to load it, to setting up the perfect shotgun, selecting the right ammo, and tactics to deal with home invasions. Cost is $250 per person.
Topics Include:
- Safety
- Selecting the right ammo and choke
- Tactics for defending your home
- Loading and Unloading
- Clearing Malfunctions
- Patterning your specific gun / load
- Reflexive Fire
- Hot loading different rounds
- Maneuvering around corners
- Various Drills
Equipment Required:
- A shotgun of your choice. If you do not have a shotgun, please let us know so we can bring one for you to use in class.
- 75 rounds of birdshot (target load)
- 40 rounds of various buckshot (bring several different brands)
- 20 rounds of slugs (bring different brands if possible)
- Eye and Ear Protection (If you don't have any, let us know)
- Note taking material
- Dress for the weather. The class is outdoors.
- Knee pads are recommended, but optional.
Ammunition Requirement
You will need to bring several different brands of buckshot to see what your gun likes. Shotgun barrels are all different. What one gun likes, another gun might pattern that same ammo very differently. One of the things we will do is test your shotgun with different loads to see what will work best in your gun. If you can, bring a few different brands of slugs, as well. You can bring whatever brand of birdshot you want, as we will be using that mostly for reloading drills. If you are bringing ammo to use in one of our guns, please bring 12 Gauge 2 3/4" shells. By the way... Fanny packs work very well for holding spare shotgun shells.