Home Defense: 9mm Semi-auto or 7.62x39mm AK-47?

not really. AKs can be deadly accurate. they lose accuracy after dedicated full-auto use, which those are illegal here (to me anyway).

 

honestly a 12 gauge is your best bet...a rem or a mossberg. Thats why they call it a home defense gun. yes it is longer than a pistol but what if your wife has to use it and she is scared in the situation. you teach her to point at the knees and shoot. Bird shot is just fine and won't do all the damage a 00 will. Either way a jury is going to judge you for shooting someone, lets be realistic. Thats why its so easy for these assholes to be criminals today. As for pistols not a bad idea to have either at your safe zone. also take into consideration peoples levels of experience shooting. If you only shot a handful of times a shotgun will be your best friend in this situation, and a plus, most likely will not take out any neighbors trying to sleep. Just another opinion.

 

Bullshit. Birdshot probably wont stop anybody. If you're prepared to shoot be prepared to kill, period. Otherwise get a baseball bat or taser.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEJR5lsYlrg?version=3

 

Good input, Chris. I dont know about the rest of yall but Im not gonna trust the sound of racking a shotgun with my families life...

Just curious but why would you think the AK would be a better HD gun than the AR?

just load up your AR with some Hornady TAP ammo and slap a light on it and you should be good to go...as long as its a reliable gun that you know will go boom when you pull the trigger.

My current HD gun is a XD .40 with hornady hollow point defense ammo.

If I had to do any shooting outside the home I would prefer a shotgun or AR.
any HD gun should have some sort of night sights or a tac light as well

 

Don't use a rifle for home defense. I would get a mossberg shortie or a 45. Get the ceramic rounds

 

Right. That's totally attainable in the middle of the dark at o-dark thirty.

"Scuse me buddy, would you step 3 steps towards your left? I'd hate this round to go into my kid's room."

You're right - expect your round to overpenetrate. Plan accordingly. And to try to find the round that will have the least chance to overpenetrate. BTW, I think most folks are misunderstanding that word - the definition is that the round exits the bad guy and keeps going. NOT that the round won't just randomly go through a wall.

Probably true. In the 5 or 10 yards that most home invasions tend to be, #4 buck will be fine. Again, bird will not. Not sure how you're arguing against me. Read my first post (BUCK... the third time I use this word) Unless you're talking about the one-liner about how #4buck won't reach vital organs. But... you don't need to kill someone to stop them, do you?

 

X2 in an home defense situation you probably wont catch the intruder in you door way. You want major stopping power, easy to aim and fire under stress and the ability to retain 365 shooting radias. Rifles are great, not much training is needed but the lengh keeps you from drawing in close corters and the round is way to powerful, think if you shoot an miss you dont want the round going thru a wall and hitting who you are tring to protect. Plus a rifle is easy to take away from someone due to its lengh. Ok pistols, they are better but regardless of how good you think you are to accuretly engage a person with them under stress requires a good amount of training and it is parshable. If you miss its pointless. 9mm can take mulitpe shots to down a grown man and 44 45 and 357 can penitrate walls too. Think, can your wife operate it accurately while scared. No probably not. Home defense = shotgun. A mosburg 550 short barrel. Short enough to swing in close combat, aiming requires no skill and with 00 buck at anything closer than 15 feet will go down. Plus you retain 360 shooting. You can shoot without worry about what or who is behind a wall. Whatever choice you make there should be no hesitation between the pull of a weapon and the execution of a target. Guns are VERY easily taken away from people who hesitate. If you want to intiminate use a bat, if you already have a gun in you hand the descision has already been made to engage the intruder. Just my opinion

 

Do I mean you're batman, have nightvision, and will be able to see the bad guy clearly while you're half-awake and confused? No.

What I mean is that while you're planning home defense, in the daylight, wide-awake, take into consideration how such an event would likely go down and plan your HD accordingly. This DOES mean knowing that if you were to go into your living room, armed, you would be as aware as possible that your kid's room is through the wall next to the fireplace. This DOES mean not intending to use large pistol rounds when you have a lot of interior walls with people on the other side.

Am I saying you can see through walls like superman? Of course not. I'm saying plan your home defense while being cognizant of where living beings are likely to be during a home invasion, and be aware of what general directions are safe and which aren't, and where you would want to be shooting from. Some of us live alone and only have to take into account our neighbors, some of us don't. Everyone's home or apartment has a different layout.

You may be in a rush and not think clearly at 330, but that's no excuse for not trying to plan what you would do in advance as best you can. Having no plan because you'll be tired and confused with adrenaline pumping is no excuse. Not saying it'll be perfect or happen how you think.

Again, go look at that box o' truth. #4 WILL penetrate drywall. #4 buck is still likely too small to do much BG damage. There's no logical reason to use it.

00 will hurt the bad guy. Yes it will go through drywall. Try to plan your HD so you don't have to shoot at walls with people behind them, don't expect the ammo not to penetrate. That is careless.

Lastly, http://www.thegunzone.com/therules.html "Always be sure of your target." Always, always, always. You should know that it is a bad guy you're shooting at, and be aware of who would normally be behind the wall you're shooting at. Any less is inexcusable.

And what I mean is: 00 will have the bad guy disabled. #4? You can go ahead and use that, I'll use something proven to take him down. If he dies in 3 hours from blood loss, the gun wasn't enough. You want to disable a bad guy so that he can't hurt you, immediately.

 

I agree mostly, although you need to ABSOLUTELY make sure that anybody you would want using a firearm in self-defense is trained to use the firearm.

In other words, if you get a shotgun because you think your wife can learn to operate it more quickly, great. This is no substitute for training. She still needs to go to the range and learn how to shoot the thing.

Something going bump in the night is no time for her first shotgun lesson.

 

just read the whole thread. Hey man you are talking about home defense, or close quarters combat. YOU DO NOT WANT A HIGH VELOCITY ROUND that includes 5.56, .223 (same thing) and 7.62 or any rifle for that matter. The design purpose of high velocity rounds is distance and penitration. You dont want either. You want a round that wont penitrate. You are looking for something that will hit a bone and bounce around turning his insides to soup yet one that is not to small incase it is an thru and thu shot. Also you want something that wont penetrated all your walls. If you shoot a lot a pistol would work for you but what about your family are they well trained to. (have you wife do some sprints till she is winded then have her Load and enage a target QUICKLY) if she cant go with a shotgun

 

My biggest sole issue with all this advice is that you're all assuming there is a round that won't overpenetrate.

Any firearm large enough to stop an attacker is large enough to penetrate interior walls.

Let me repeat that.

Any firearm large enough to stop an attacker is large enough to penetrate interior walls.

Don't believe me? Take it to the range and try it out. Interior walls are weak.

 

brother I completly agree man. My point is pistols require ALOT of constant training to engage quickly AND accuratly. Shotguns are more simple and do not require as much training but yes all weapons should be trained on. Also I want to clarify my penetration point. I want to retain as much shooting degree as possible but you still need to hold a shot till you KNOW it is clear. With a shotgun or pistol vs a high velocity round you will retain a much bigger shooting radius. I left these points out cause I figured they would be common sence IE I would engage ALL exerior walls without fear of next door house, 7.62 I would not.

 

That is a very good point.

I just didn't want to perpetuate a myth some people have that shotguns are so easy to operate, anyone can do it without ever having touched one. Wayyy easier to pick up than a pistol though, agreed!

 

hey man your from huntsville I was born and raised there. small world

 

Sorry. Feel free to redact my name calling. I had too much caffeine today.

 

seems friendly to me. I agree chris nothing is more important than being fam. with you weapons but with what the OP threw out there for options I figured he was not that familar with their capibilites and draw backs. In a stressful situation shotgun=simplicity, simplicity=saftey. or a claymore outside you bedroom would word too, might be excessive though

 

Hah, well, I'm actually a transplanted Missourian, but I live here now.