Some Considerations for Home Defense Shotgun Ammunition

When you keep a shotgun for home defense, always check every shell of your home defense shotgun ammunition before you load it into your shotgun. Examine the primers, ensure that the shells are not damaged or corroded, that they are properly crimped, and that the shell mouth is round and within specifications.

Periodically and safely unload the tube and ensure that your shotgun shells have not expanded or distorted under the pressure from the magazine spring. Shotgun shells that have been in a tubular magazine for an extended length of time can expand or distort which may result in an inability to chamber the shell. This is particularly true of cheaper buckshot brands.

Although my Beretta 1301 has an extended tube and will hold six rounds, I only load five rounds in home defense shotgun’s magazine to reduce this possibility. I then place one round on the shell lifter so there are only four rounds actually in the tube.

Even so, I encountered this very phenomenon recently with Federal FliteControl® ammunition that had been in my home defense shotgun for approximately three months. One shell’s mouth had expanded/distorted. This expansion caused one of the buckshot pellets to bulge from the side of the case to the point that the shell would not chamber.

If you look at the picture below, you can see that the shell’s mouth is distorted. The arrows indicate where one of the buckshot pellets is protruding through the shell’s side.

How do we prevent this? I can think of several ways. One would be to load four rounds instead of five in the tube and then top off from an on-gun ammunition source prior to deploying the shotgun. Although I have heard various “shotgun pundits” extolling this practice because it lengthens the life of cheap magazine springs, I personally have never had a magazine spring weaken. I use heavy duty springs that Nordic Components manufactures, and I would rather have the positive feed that the heavy-duty spring provides. If your heavy-duty spring is distorting shells, you could also rotate the ammunition more often although your budget might object.

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