Buckshot Flyers?

This is part II of a series of articles concerning buckshot loads for home defense (you can find part one here). This series resulted from a shotgun qualification I fired using the Federal 8-pellet LE133 00 buckshot load. For reference, a 00 buckshot pellet is .330 inches in diameter--almost the same size as a 9 mm bullet. 

In this qualification I noticed some erratic behavior in the form of “flyers” from the Federal 8-pellet LE133 00 buckshot load and its sister product the Speer 8-pellet LE 00 buckshot load (Federal manufacturers both). I define a flyer as one or more buckshot pellets that take a different trajectory than the one that the other pellets in the load follow. From a home defense perspective, when these flyers fall outside of an acceptable target area at a given distance they pose a danger to innocent people who may be nearby.

The typical buckshot load for military and police uses the traditional wad system and is normally loaded with nine 00 buckshot pellets when loaded in a 2 ¾ inch standard 12 gauge shell. This number allows three layers of three pellets per layer. Nationally known instructor Tom Givens and many others have noted a phenomenon of the “9th pellet flyer” with the standard 9-pellet load. For a given distance from the muzzle, typically eight pellets will be in the same general area with one pellet following a different trajectory.

Givens and others have expressed theories concerning this 9th pellet behavior. If you examine the way the nine pellet load is stacked within the shell you will notice a lot of pellet to pellet contact. This contact increases the likelihood of one or more pellets deforming and developing one or more flat spots somewhere on its surface when the shot load is fired. As the pellets exit the shotgun’s barrel, differential air pressure on the pellet’s deformed surface may cause the pellet to fly off at an unpredictable trajectory.

I say may cause the pellets to change trajectory. As I was researching this article I disassembled several Federal and Speer reduced recoil buckshot loads and noticed a flat spot on the pellets that likely resulted from Federal’s manufacturing process. The degree of deformation and the pellet’s hardness (plated or not for example) may make a difference.

In any event, shotgun shell manufacturers have added buffering material to cushion the buckshot pellets in an attempt to mitigate the flyer phenomenon with mixed results. Many shotshell manufacturers now load 8 pellet 00 buckshot loads to reduce recoil and change the way the pellets stack in the shell. Fewer pellets also allows the manufacturer to add more buffering material which equates to more cushion between pellets. In the picture below you can see a standard 9-pellet 00 buckshot load and a Federal 8-pellet 00 buckshot load. The 8-pellet load has room for significantly more buffering material.

The defender is responsible for every round fired in self-defense—with a buckshot load, you are responsible for every pellet. Even one pellet can kill as occurred in the example of Police Officer Gordon Silva on 20 January 1989 in San Jose, California during an exchange of gunfire between police and a suspect. After the firing ceased, police found Officer Silva approximately 60 yards from the shooting incident lying in the street. The coroner later determined that Officer Silva had been struck by a single shotgun pellet another officer had fired during the shootout with the subject. 

If you are using the shotgun to hunt deer or other game, this is not normally a serious problem. However, if you are using the load for self-defense, this 9th pellet flyer’s unpredictability can be a serious concern. 

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A Family of Pistols

Have you considered the advantages of training, competing, and carrying pistols within the same family? I define a “family of pistols” as pistols that have similar grip angles, controls, sighting systems, etc. For example, Glock pistols, SIG P320’s and P365, 1911’s, and the Springfield XD series would all fall within the same family of pistols as would pistols from other manufacturers.

In late 2014, a friend of mine and I set a goal of shooting Master in every International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) Division. By the end of 2016 we achieved that goal within the divisions available at that time (six as of 2016—IDPA # A32998). Facing this challenge, we were generally practicing 1-3 times a week and firing an average of 200-300 rounds per practice session. We competed in the IDPA division that we were striving to master (no pun intended). As we achieved Master in each division, we moved on to the next. Through the course of our training, we developed a feel for the differences between the pistol types we were using in the different divisions and realized that staying within the same platform or family of pistols was extremely important for consistency.

For me this fact slammed home when I decided to experiment with a Glock 19 equipped with a Trijicon RMR while simultaneously training and competing with a Springfield XD 4-inch model with a match trigger and fiber optic sights. IDPA had no carry optic division at that time. Attempting to train with two different platforms set me back considerably as my brain tried to adjust to the differences between grip angle, sighting systems, slide and magazine release locations, etc. for the two different pistol families. Rather than progressing, my shooting actually began to suffer. I stopped using the Glock and concentrated on training with the XD.

We both routinely carried concealed and realized that our carry pistol and holster needed to match the IDPA Division we were working on or we were very likely to foul the draw if we had to present the pistol in a self-defense situation. We started carrying revolvers when we were working on the Revolver Division, Back Up Guns when training for that division—you get the idea.

After completing the IDPA master challenge and competing in the 2016 IDPA Nationals, I focused exclusively on improving self-defense skills and maintaining skill with my carry pistol for the next couple of years. I set up two essentially identical SIG P320 carry pistols with the same sighting system, holster, and trigger pulls. I trained and competed with one pistol and carried the other, rotating the pistols and carry ammunition every six months. I used the old carry ammunition to reconfirm the new carry pistol’s zero. I used my training pistol and my every day carry (EDC) holster in all of my practice, training, and competition.

The same concept applies to holster tilt, angle, positioning, and other characteristics. Ideally, the holster should be in the same place and approximately the same height on the belt for competition and carry. My EDC concealed carry holster rides higher on the belt and is not as fast as typical competition holsters which generally sit 1-2 inches lower. I once discovered that after a period of training for competition that I often missed my draw with my EDC holster when my hand automatically went to the lower location where the competition holster would have been on my belt. This poses a challenge to those who wish to use appendix or abdominal carry since many competitions do not permit appendix carry for liability reasons. Consistent and routine dry practice with your appendix carry rig is very important if you compete with a strong side holster.

Another option is to compete with and carry a holster that meets IDPA standards. For a number of years my EDC holster was the same IDPA-legal holster I used in competition. I eventually found this to be problematic because it protruded far enough out from my belt that I routinely bumped the pistol/holster into things. I stopped using the IDPA holster in favor of one that pulled the pistol closer to my body and solved this problem.

Choosing a pistol family and then sticking within that family for competition and carry will go a long way toward improving our shooting skills. I routinely see students and competitors practicing, training, and competing with multiple pistol families and holster positions. They will bring a SIG P320 X5 to a class, use a 1911-based fully tricked out race gun with optic in competition, and then carry a Smith and Wesson Shield in an inside the waistband holster. Several years ago I had a student attend multiple classes and he brought a different pistol family to every class. Needless to say, he never mastered any pistol and his shooting ability did not appreciably improve.

Regardless of your shooting goals and which method of carry you chose, consistent and regular dry practice with your ECD pistol family and holster will ensure that it is where you expect it to be if you must draw it in an emergency. 

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Home Defense Shotgun Qualification

Since I use a shotgun as a home defense weapon, I periodically fire qualifications with my shotguns. It is a good idea to demonstrate and document your competence for record with any firearm you might use for self-defense.

Pursuing that goal, I fired the Department of Energy Shotgun Qualification Course twice (click here for the DOE Shotgun Qualification Course of fire). One time with my Remington 870 pump that has a cylinder bore using the Speer Law Enforcement 8-pellet FliteControl buckshot load and once with my Beretta 1301 which also has a cylinder bore using the Federal 8-pellet FliteControl using the standard DOE target.

The 870 qualification target contained 79 pellets which is 98% and a passing score. The Speer load threw a one pellet flyer off the target from one of the 25-yard shots (see left picture below). The Beretta 1301 target contained all 80 pellets for a 100% score; however, four 00 buckshot pellets landed low on the target from one of the 25 yard shots as you can see in the picture on the right. I believe the other four pellets from that round likely struck the target’s center.

Remington 870 Pump                                      Beretta 1301

The shotgun’s power makes it a great choice for a home defense tool. When you employ it correctly and within its proper range envelope the shotgun is very effective. However, you must know your shotgun's range limitations with the load you are using. 

Multiple projectile loads require particular attention to what is behind your target. YOU are responsible for every pellet you fire. This is where target distance and the pattern of a particular load in your shotgun come into play. 

Ideally you should pattern your shotgun at 5, 10, 15, 20 yards, and perhaps beyond targeting an 8-inch circle. The distance where your gun with the particular load you are using throws pellets outside of the 8-inch circle is the maximum range for your shotgun with that load. 

My Remington 870 and my Beretta 1301 have both patterned acceptably out to 35 yards with the Federal FliteControl in the past. However, I have noticed some erratic behavior from the Federal 8-pellet FliteControl load at times and it causes me some concern.  I will post some additional thoughts after some research.

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Mystery of the Keyholing Springfield OSP

In several recent matches I noticed that my friend’s Springfield OSP pistol seemed to be occasionally keyholing the bullet. Since we were in the middle of a match each time, we could not investigate the issue.

However, in a subsequent practice session my friend noticed a bullet hole that appeared to be a keyhole. Ultimately, his Springfield OSP keyholed two out of approximately 300 rounds fired in the practice session. One occurred within the first five shots he fired that day and one occurred toward the middle of the practice session. In the first instance, my friend called all five shots in the center of a standard IDPA target; however the bullet struck the target in the head so it clearly was not flying true (see picture on the right).

The XD-M’s keyholing was inconsistent with one keyholing bullet spinning on the vertical axis and the other spinning on the horizontal axis. Each time the keyholing shot was clearly not a double hit because we accounted for every shot on the target (see pictures below).

 

So what is keyholing? If the rifling does not properly stabilize the bullet as it exits the barrel, the bullet will begin to wobble or it may begin to tumble end over end or sideways. When an unstable or keyholing bullet strikes the target it is often rotating/tumbling so fast that it will leave an oblong hole. We call this effect keyholing because the oblong holes sometimes resemble a keyhole.

In a firearm in good repair that is firing bullets designed for that firearm, the barrel’s rifling imparts a spin on the bullet as it travels down the bore. This spin stabilizes the bullet in flight and makes it travel with the nose pointed forward. The optimal amount of spin (also known as the twist of the rifling) is a function of the firearm’s bore diameter, the bullet’s length (a function of the bullet’s weight), and the bullet’s velocity (see the Greenhill Optimal Twist Rate Formula).

Keyholing can result from several causes. It typically happens because the barrel’s rifling twist isn't adequate for the weight, shape and profile of the bullet being used. If the bullet is not spun fast enough going down the barrel, it loses stability before reaching the target and begins to tumble.

Significant damage to the barrel’s muzzle can cause gas to escape past the bullet unevenly as it exits the barrel and result in instability. The barrel’s rifling may be worn out (shot out) and as a result it is not imparting enough spin to the bullet as it leaves the barrel. Leading in the barrel could cause the bullets to fail to properly engage the rifling.

My experience with keyholing firearms is limited to military M16’s with barrels that were clearly “shot out.” With these firearms almost every shot was rotating on the horizontal axis and the holes in the target were almost always oblong.

The pistol in question is a fairly new Springfield XD-M 4.5 inch OSP 9mm with approximately 10k rounds through it (yes, we tend to shoot a lot). The barrel shows no sign of any damage and the rifling is crisp so we do not believe it is shot out.* The Springfield XD-M barrels are 1:10 or one rotation every ten inches which is optimal for the typical weight range of 9mm bullets. There was no leading in the barrel—my friend is very thorough with his firearms maintenance.

The load he was shooting was an Xtreme 147gr plated hollowpoint 9mm bullet loaded with Winchester primers, 3.5 grains of Hodgdon Titegroup** assembled on a Dillon Super 1050. This is a load he has used for at least ten years and it has never presented any issues. He has not changed the load nor the loading process.

Xtreme swages its 147gr copper plated hollowpoint bullets so they are presumably very consistent in shape and weight. It is possible that Xtreme’s plating is uneven for some bullets; however there is no visual indication of this.

At this point, the actual cause of the keyholing behavior remains a mystery. The simplest explanation is that there were some bullets out of specifications. My friend purchased these bullets several years ago in a lot of 17k in a single container. Perhaps some of the “out of spec bullets” just happened to be in that portion of the container. Pure speculation on my part—we’ll see if the keyholing continues.

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* I have a Springfield 9mm XD with over 50K rounds through it. It is still acceptably accurate so we don't believe barrel wear is an issue.

** This is not loading data. Always check with the powder company or another vetted source for the proper loading data for a particular round.

Don't Get Shot: Intervening in an Active Killer Incident

Ronald Troyke Retrieving an AR15

On Monday 21 June 2021, Ronald Troyke decided he was going to kill police officers. Troyke left a note in his residence outlining his desire to “. . . kill as many Arvada officers as I possibly can.” Troyke apparently said something to his brother who called the Arvada Police Department (PD) and requested a welfare check. Arvada Police Officer Gordon Beesley and another officer went to Troyke’s residence; however, they were not able to contact him.

Twenty minutes later the Arvada PD received a call about a suspicious person in the Olde Town Square. The department dispatched Officer Gordon Beesley to that call and he arrived shortly thereafter. Officer Beesley got out of his patrol car and walked up an alley to the Olde Town Square.

Ronald Troyke arrived moments later and parked his pickup truck in a parking lot near the Square. Troyke got out of the pickup with a semi-automatic shotgun and ran toward Officer Beesley approaching him from behind. Troyke said something to Officer Beesley and when the officer turned, Troyke shot him twice, killing him.

Troyke then shot out Beesley’s patrol car windows and fired shots into the air. Troyke returned to his pickup truck and exchanged his shotgun for an AR15 rifle and ran back towards the Olde Town Square.

Private citizen Johnny Hurley who was shopping in a near-by Army surplus store heard Troyke’s shots and saw him pass by the store.  Eye witnesses said that Hurley exited the store and warned people at a near-by restaurant that Troyke was returning and to get inside. Hurley then ran to confront Troyke and shot him several times, killing him. Hurley then apparently retrieved Troyke’s AR15 and was holding it when a responding Arvada Police Officer encountered Hurley. When the officer saw Hurley holding the AR15 he shot and killed him.

Although the incident surrounding Hurley’s death is extremely unfortunate, I do not believe the responding officer involved in this incident did anything wrong. The Arvada officer responding to multiple 911 calls of “shots fired, man with a rifle, officer down” arrives at the scene to see a person on the ground with another standing nearby with a rifle in hand. The officer’s actions are perfectly understandable given the circumstances.

It is not unusual for Police through a case of mistaken identity to shoot private citizen “good guys” during a chaotic incident. Unfortunately, this tragic turn of events is often due to the citizen’s own actions. A private citizen taking down a depraved killer knows that they are the good guy and expect others to recognize them as such. Of course, the problem with this is exactly what does a good guy look like?

Johnny Hurley’s prompt action in stopping the murderer Ronald Troyke from killing more innocents is praiseworthy and I am in no way criticizing him. We will never know what led him to pick up Troyke’s rifle, perhaps he was trying to remove it out of Troyke’s reach. However, Hurley clearly didn’t understand how officer’s responding to the scene would view him.

So what should you do in similar circumstances? First, move to a good cover position ideally where you can see the bad guy as well as responding police. If no cover is immediately at hand, put some distance between you and the downed bad guy. If possible, you should chose a position from where you can see the police before they see you. You want to present a non-threatening appearance to responding officers; you absolutely SHOULD NOT have any type of firearm in your hand as the police arrive at the scene. Police often shoot the instant they say “drop the gun!”

If you have holstered your pistol but feel that you must have your hand on it due to the potential of a continuing threat of deadly force from the bad guy, slowly remove your hand the instant an officer arrives on the scene. If an officer you did not see confronts you and demands you show your hands, tell the officer: “I’m going to lift my hand without the pistol.” This is one reason I prefer carrying concealed is that as you see an approaching officer you can simply remove your hand from the pistol that is now concealed from view.

As soon as the first identifiable uniformed officer arrives he or she has command of the situation. Immediately obey the officer’s commands without argument or hesitation.

I have introduced police arriving on the scene (photo realistic targets) in some of my training scenarios and students often fail to immediately obey the officer’s commands and in more than one class actually shot the officer. When I asked afterward why they shot at the officer they either could not explain why, said they did not see the badge (some targets were in complete uniform), or said they did not hear the officers identifying themselves. All of which I’m sure was true. If you do not practice something, it is unreasonable to expect that you will suddenly perform it well under stress—even the artificial stress of a decision-based scenario.

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The SSD Short Range Match: An After Match Report

We held our monthly Sensible Self Defense Short Range Match on 13 June 2021 and the match went very well. We had 22 shooters with five shooting a second gun for a total of 27 scores. The match required a total of 81 rounds assuming no misses, so the shooters had to fire a minimum of 2187 rounds during the match. Total dropped points for all shooters for the match was 544 points.

We use IDPA classification standards to enable the shooters to make an apples-to-apples skill comparison.  IDPA-ranked shooter skill levels the this match were as follows:

   -- Novice: 6
   -- Marksman: 5
   -- Sharp Shooter: 7
   -- Expert: 2
   -- Master: 2 

We used 38 targets during the match and the targets had 153 shots outside the down zero resulting in a 7-10% miss rate (an exact figure is impossible given that some shooters missed the target entirely). Five shooters dropped fewer than five points total for the match and five shooters dropped more than forty points total for the match. One shooter had zero points down for the match.

In 2019 we adopted the Shoot Steel target for the Short Range Match as shown below (the picture on the head is a modification we often make). For scoring we count the B & C-zones (upper chest area) and head (above the shoulder/ neck line as down zero and the D zone is down three. We do not have a down one scoring area. A head shot requires the full diameter of the bullet to be inside the target or it is scored as a miss. Depending upon the course of fire, if the target has the face modification, the entire diameter of the bullet must be within the ocular and nasal cavity scoring lines (and not touching the lines) or it costs the shooter points (+1 second).

We cover all threat targets and occasionally non-threats with T-shirts or other clothing so the shooter cannot see the scoring rings, the taped holes from previous shooters, nor their own hits. If a threat target does not have the face modification, we cover the head with a mask. This requires the shooters to call their shots because they cannot simply glance at the target to judge whether they should reengage.

T-Shirt Covering Target

As I was recycling the targets from our June 21 match, I selected the best target (fewest points down) and the worst target (most points down) for comparison.  On the worst target I noticed something that I routinely see in our matches. In general, most of the shots outside of the “down zero” scoring area were shot low on the target. The worst target shown below had fourteen hits outside the down zero and eleven of these were low on the target.  You can also see that many of the down zero hits were also low on the target. In my experience, this is typical of shooters aiming for the proverbial "center of mass."

When the target is covered with a T-shirt, shooters aiming for the T-shirt's center of mass will likely hit very low in the down zero area with very little margin for error. If the shooter judges the center of mass from the top of the head to the bottom of the t-shirt they will hit the down zero. Experienced Short Range Match competitors have learned that they must aim just below the shirt’s neckline to reliably hit the target’s upper chest and score a down zero for the shot.

The concept of “aim for center mass” is very nebulous as the center of the available mass very likely will not represent where you need to hit if you are trying to stop a threat. "Aim for where you do CPR" is a much better choice. Square ranges and two dimension targets cannot adequately replicate real world three dimension threats. However, the t-shirts and Shoot Steel targets we use in the Short Range Match represent our attempt to train shooters to aim for a target area that is more likely to result in a threat-stopping hit.

 

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Come out and shoot with us on the second Sunday of every month at Cedar Ridge Range in San Antonio, Texas.

For more information go to: www.sensibleselfdefense.com