how does birdshot compare to buckshot when it comes to stopping power?
birdshot is designed and primarily used for small game and birds (doves, quail, pheasant, duck, goose, grouse, and the like. smaller shot will pattern wider and has a greater chance of striking a bird in flight, or a particularly fast and small animal on the ground. small animals tend to not have very thick hides. there is a large variety of birdshot out there, but the commonly found is #8 birdshot, which is 0.095" in diameter, and you get about 350 pellets in your average shell, fired at about 1,250 feet per second. a lead pellet that size transfers a little over 375 energy ft lbs if
all pellets strike the target.
"stopping power" is generally thought of as the ability incapacitate something in a short period of time. your typical buckshot shell will have 00 sized pellets, about 0.24" in diameter, and you get 9, 12 or 15 in a shell, but 9 being the most common. these are fired with the same powder charge as most other shells, so will try and get up to 1250 feet per second. if
one pellet strikes the target, it would transfer about 200 energy ft lbs.
one pellet out of
nine pellets striking the target would transfer two-thirds the energy of the
entire shot charge from the #8 shell.
or for simpler math, about 1800 or so energy ft lbs transferred if all pellets strike the intended target.
birdshot has trouble penetrating deeply into human skin, let alone deep enough to cause serious "stopping" of a determined attacker wearing thick clothing or carrying around some extra weight around the middle. if birdshot is all you have, and you're close enough to strike with nearly all the pellets, and you fire at a vital area, i'm sure birdshot can get the job done.
in case you're of the mind that you don't want to hurt some real bad, i would advise you to consult your local lawyer because a firearm is
always a deadly weapon, regardless of your intent. in fact, if you use a firearm to resolve a situation and the target survives and you were only using birdshot to scare him off, he might be able to sue you for his injuries, and a good enough lawyer might argue that you were clearly in not enough danger to try and kill him, but instead sought to cruelly injure him, tortuously, with intent to cause pain and suffering.
will these tiny pellets actually penetrate clothing like leather jackets and still cause enough damage to the target to put it down?
short answer: depends on you, your target, and the distance you shoot them at. generally it
can penetrate flesh and cause injury, serious injury if in the face or at the neck or groin. it has trouble with clothing and non vitals areas, and has difficulty injuring to your average human as far away as a dozen meters.
