Shotgun Loadout for the Angriest Boomer

Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to the channel. So whenever shotguns are brought up, I still see people commenting, you know, shotguns are dumb. Why would I pick a weapon like this over XYZ intermediate caliber magazine fed fighting rifle? They are harder to use, they have less effective range, they hold less ammunition, blah, blah, blah. And for the most part, I agree with you guys. I personally would not pick a shotgun over like my AR-15 or my AK as my end of the world fight the bad guys rifle or even for home defense. I know a lot of people think that shotguns are great for home defense and they might be for you. I personally think that an AR-15 and 5.56 is a superior option, but there might be people out there who do not have that option. Depending on where you live, maybe a shotgun is the only thing that you're able to own. But with that being said, I still think that shotguns have a ton of uses for people who have preparedness in mind. And I think that everyone should at least have one in their closet. I sort of think that shotguns are like the multi-tool of guns due to the wide variety of roles they can be pushed into due to the wide variety of ammunition you can put in these things. You got buckshot, you have birdshot, you have slugs, you have less than lethal things, you have breaching rounds. Chances are, if there is a situation, there is a round to handle it. Now, shotguns are very well known for being very devastating guns. They are probably the most powerful shoulder fired weapon we can legally own as citizens. And they are not only good at killing bad guys, but they're also good at killing game. I have personally killed multiple deer with this particular shotgun on my property. There is one particular spot, which is a decommissioned power line, which has a bunch of growth in the middle of the cutout. And depending on how aggressive I am that day with my hunting style, sometimes I'll throw on the Gorka suit and grab this shotgun and just trudge right through all of that brush and deer kind of nest down in that brush and I'll jump them and I'll use this shotgun and blast them. Now, I found that the shotgun using buckshot is very effective in this hunting style because whenever I jump a deer, I have like a split second to get a shot off, maybe two, even with an AR-15. And since I am using buckshot and using what a shotgun is good at, having that good spread, I'm able to land multiple shots on that deer before it disappears. This is probably the reason why shotguns were very popular back in Vietnam for point men to use because of the same type of situation. Shotguns excel in CQB environments and what you see back there is 100% a CQB environment. Things get very close in and often you'll just have, like I said, a split second to get a shot off before that target disappears. And being able to send eight rounds of double-aught buck or nine rounds of double-aught buck, excuse me, at that target through all that brush to hit that thing can be very useful even in situations like this. Now, other than killing deer, shotguns are obviously good at killing birds. They are the weapon to use when shooting birds, ducks and stuff like that. So if hunting is part of your survival plan, I would say that a shotgun is a great firearm to own to handle pretty much anything that you need to kill. Now, other than birds, shotguns are good at shooting down other flying things. As we've been seeing in this recent war in Ukraine, shotguns have been being used by both sides to shoot down the flying terrorists, drones. People call me crazy for this a couple years ago when I mentioned that shotguns might be useful for shooting down drones. People kind of laughed at me for it, but we've been seeing a ton of footage come out from this conflict where both sides are using shotguns to great effect to shoot them down. Now, hopefully we don't have to deal with that here in the United States. I don't think it is very likely for us as civilians have to worry about FPV drones rigged with high explosives chasing us down. It is something to consider. Drones are here to stay. They are very much a part of modern warfare and, you know, shotguns are very good at shooting them down. Now, going back to using shotguns to deal with animals, depending on where you live, the local wildlife might be something that you have to worry about. Quite often, shotguns are the weapon of choice to deal with bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, stuff like that. And you don't want to have a situation where you're bugging out in the woods, you know, in your end-of-the-world LARP, and you get eaten by a bear. So a shotgun, depending on where you live, might be good for dealing with that. Now, for my situation out here in North Carolina, I don't really have to worry about that. The biggest thing we have out here is black bears, and my AR-15 can kill anything that has ever walked, crawled, or ran in these woods out here. So I'm not too worried about that. And I use my shotgun mostly for, you know, hunting out here every once in a while, but mostly for turning trash into smaller trash. And I think that just shotguns are badass. They are fun to shoot, and I think that is okay. It is okay to have fun, and I don't think that you need some type of weird doomer scenario to justify your purchase. It is okay to have guns that are just fun to shoot. So in today's video, I'm going to be going over my shotgun. This is a Mossberg 500. I've had this thing for a few years now. I got it at a local gun shop. I'm pretty sure that this thing was made in the 90s, and it has gone through a few changes since I got it, even since the last time you guys saw it, which was about a year ago, for the better, for the worse, you be the judge. So in this video, I'm going to be going over the changes that I made to the shotgun, the reasons for it, as well as going over the kit that I chose for my shotgun loadout, which I think is actually quite excellent for running a shotgun and not using gear that is like super expensive. So I think this should be a fairly, you know, budget-friendly shotgun loadout. But before we get into it, a word from our sponsors. Today's video is sponsored by the Sonoran Desert Institute. Now, I know a lot of you guys like to do repairs and to modify your own guns. And if you're looking to take your hobby to the next level, the Sonoran Desert Institute can help you out with that. SDI offers a ton of online courses, from armor courses to gunsmithing, ballistics, woodworking, shooting sports management. So if you're trying to learn how to run a match, pretty much if you can think of a course that revolves around guns, SDI offers it. If you're looking to get a job within the 2A industry or just looking to increase your own knowledge on guns and gunsmithing, SDI is not a bad way to go. So if you're interested, go visit them at sdi.edu or give them a call at 480-999-4767. So go check out SDI, increase your knowledge on guns and gunsmithing, and big thank you to them for sponsoring today's video. I'd also like to mention that Adams Arms, the maker of the fine rifle that you see right here, the P2308, is doing a giveaway of a rifle just like this. This is a badass rifle. I have a whole review on this thing if you want to go check it out. And I'm actually planning on suppressing this thing and it is well suited to do so because it uses an adjustable gas piston. I think this is a great rifle if you're looking to get into the realm of battle rifles and it is going to be very familiar because it is based on the AR platform. So if you want to go grab one of these things for yourself, go check it out over at Adams Arms or go to the link in the description or pinned comment and get entered into a giveaway to win one for yourself. But with that being said, let's get back in this video. All right guys, so going into this shotgun here, how I have this thing set up, starting from the muzzle right here, as you can see, I have an XS big dot sight. So I think that these things are quite excellent to upgrade your shotgun with. They're cheap and they're very easy to install. All you have to do when you get this thing is use some JB weld on the bottom of it and stick it over the existing bead sight that's on there. There's like a little hole in the bottom of the XS sight and it sticks right on there and it's not going to come off. And I think this is an excellent upgrade just over the standard bead sight. Now the next upgrade that I made were these ports that you see right here. This was done by Vancomp. They do excellent work for shotguns and they actually hit me up and they wanted to get their hands on my shotgun because they saw me shooting it last time and they said that they could actually improve it. I've never shot a shotgun that had ports on it, so I didn't really know what to expect. But after shooting this thing with this upgrade made, I was pretty impressed. It actually helps reduce the recoil. It also helps reduce the flash, so it acts sort of like a muzzle brake slash flash hider. It also helps tighten the pattern without having to use a choke since this thing is using a cylinder bore. And I think this is an excellent upgrade, especially if you're using it for, you know, as a defensive shotgun. All right guys, now we're going to test out Vancomp's claim about how effective their port system is. They say on their website that using this that it will double how tight your shot pattern is compared to if you're using just a standard cylinder bore barrel. Using standard buckshot, the general rule of thumb is that you'll get about a one inch spread every yard if it was just with a standard cylinder bore barrel. But if you're using the Vancomp port system, it's going to cut that in half and they claim on their website that at 25 yards you'll get between a 10 to 12 inch spread using standard buckshot. So that is what we're going to test out right now. I have a target set out at exactly 25 yards and we're going to test this out twice using two different types of double-aught buck. I have Noble Sport and I also have some SMB right here. So just to kind of give a little bit of a control when it comes to this test and we'll see how effective this Vancomp port system really is. All right guys, so for the first test we're going to be using this SMB ammo. This is pretty standard training ammo. So we're set at 25 yards and we'll see how tight this shot pattern is in three, two, one. Okay, so this looks a little bit outside of 10 to 12 inches here. You got a weird kind of shot pattern here. Maybe it's just with that ammo. That's why we're going to test it out with a couple different types of buckshot here. But I would say between here and here that's fairly accurate. It's about 11 inches and I mean I guess it's between 10 to 12 inches depending on which way you're looking at it here. Kind of got a weird kind of like two up here and then kind of like a smiley face up down here. So maybe it's just bad ammo. We're going to test it again this time with the Noble Sport ammo. See if it's any better. All right guys, now we're going to test out this Noble Sport double-aught buck. I've actually had pretty good luck with this ammo in the past. I've killed a few deer with this ammo. So we'll see how this stacks up to the S&B. In three, two, one. All right, it looks like we had, it's kind of hard to judge this. It's a little bit of different kind of patterning. It looks like I got some off to the side here as you can see. Kind of winging here on this target stand. But it's kind of hard to judge. Like this is a little bit outside of 12 to 10 to 12 inches that is stated on the website. I'm not exactly sure what barrel length that they're using that metric for that metric. But with a 18 and a half inch barrel with those port systems, I'm not getting the patterning that they're claiming on the website. But I do feel like there is a little bit better recoil control on it. So let's test it out one more time. See what the pattern looks like. Okay, one more with the Noble Sport ammo. See if he does any better than last time. Three, two. Okay, this looks, that looks a little bit better. Let's go check it out. All right, guys. So on that last one, we did way better than the first time I shot it. I think I got, I aimed a little bit higher when it came to the Noble Sport. And it looks like we're getting way closer to the claims that are made on VanComp's website. So I think it goes to show that your results will vary depending on the ammo that you're using. I think between the three, the Rio, the S&B, as well as the Noble, when it comes to kind of cheaper buckshot to train with, the Noble Sport seems to be the best. I've had really good luck with that ammo in the past, and I'm sure you can get even have a tighter group than this if you're using something a little bit fancier and more expensive. So it looks like there's some truth to it. Now moving back here, I have a simple Magpul sling attachment. I think this thing's pretty cool. It's pretty cheap. You can put this thing on either side and it just clamps down over the barrel as well as a magazine tube. Moving back from there, I have still have this Streamlight integrated light right here. I think that this is one of the better options when it comes to running a white light on a shotgun, just like a fighting rifle. I think that shotgun should all have a white light on as well. I'm not a huge fan of the forends that have like M-LOK on them, where you can attach Picatinny and a light on that. I think that when you're actually using the shotgun, having the ability just to activate it with this little button right here is much better than, you know, reaching up here while it's actuating. I think having the integrated light on here is great. This is an 1000 lumen light, so it is a good white light. Still kicking since the last time I showed you guys this shotgun about a year ago. And if you want one of these things, I'd highly recommend it. I know Surefire makes one as well, but this Streamlight has been working out well for me. Now moving back, as you can see, I just have Velcro on the side of my shotgun so I can use the shotgun cards right here, which we'll talk more about these here a little bit later. These are S-TAC shotgun cards. I think they make excellent shotgun cards, but other manufacturers make them as well. I just like the S-TAC ones. And moving back here to the stock, this is the next upgrade I made since last year. I don't know if it's much of an upgrade, just more of a style change from the last one, because it's very similar to the Magpul stock that I was using last time. This one is from Wooks. So Wooks did send this to me to show you guys, just know that I did not pay for this stock, but I do think that it kind of adds to the aesthetic to this gun. I kind of liked the mix between wood as well as kind of the more modern front end to it. Kind of reminds me of like the old Doom shotgun a little bit, but it is very similar to the Magpul stock I was using before. I do like the angle on the grip right here. It is a little bit more vertical than the Magpul one. And I was kind of worried about this because I do like the safety on the Mossberg shotguns where you have the switch back here. And sometimes when you get more of a vertical grip on here, it is kind of hard to actuate this thing, but this does put it in a great position to activate this thing without it being too vertical and not being able to reach it. Now, as you can see on the back of the stock, it has these segments right here. Right now I have four in there, but you can add or remove some of these things depending on your length of pull. I have it perfectly set up for me, but if you are a smaller person with smaller or shorter arms, you can take a few of these things out and make it the perfect stock just for you. Overall, I like this stock. It is very similar to the Magpul one again, but it gives a little bit more classic vibes to it. It's also very functional. As you can see, it has a QD sling attachment point back here. Now, Wux also offers a forend, which is wood, just like the stock. It is totally usable and is very similar to the Magpul one. So it has M-LOK slots on the side so you can attach your lights. But again, I do prefer the integrated lights like the Streamlight right here. All right, guys, now that we've talked about the gun, let's talk about the rest of the loadout, the kit. As you guys can see, I am rocking the good old Alice rig. Alice rig coming back, man. And then when I went to think about it, I was like, man, those Alice pouches, the magazine pouches would be great for holding shotgun shells. So all I did was take out the little dividers in these pouches right here and just started putting shotgun shells in it. And I think this works out pretty good. Originally, I had the idea of putting a bunch of shotgun cards in here, which works out OK, but honestly, I just found it to be a little bit easier to use if I just put shotgun shells in these pouches kind of loosey goosey and was able to kind of like load it on the fly versus dealing with all those shotgun cards. I have another shotgun rig. It's like a chest rig that holds a bunch of shotgun cards on it, which works out OK. And you're kind of like swapping out shotgun cards the entire time. But honestly, I just kind of find it easier to be able to reload on the fly, just kind of out of these pouches and just grabbing shotgun shells and loading it like this versus dealing with a bunch of shotgun cards. One thing you have to keep on top of is not losing the shotgun shells when doing this. So before you start moving, make sure to close this thing. But once these pouches are closed, you're not going to lose them. And I think this is a pretty good setup and a cheap setup if you're trying to run a shotgun and hold a bunch of ammo on you. In total on this rig, I'm holding about 50 shotgun shells, which is quite a bit when it comes to a shotgun. I also have water on me. I have medical in this little medical pouch. These are all just surplus Alice pouches. And I am using a pistol holster pouch right here. I really like this M9 holster right here to carry the M9. I don't have a Samurai's Edge. I really want to get one, the kind of custom M9 that's in Resident Evil. But I really wanted to kind of do a Resident Evil themed loadout here. So rocking the M9. And overall, I think that this is a pretty solid loadout when it comes to running a shotgun. Again, it's not going to break the bank for you. Well, guys, that's about it when it comes to this loadout. I think I'm going to call this the shotgun boomer loadout because I'm using the boomer kit, Alice kit. But quite honestly, it works out very well when it comes to holding shotgun rounds. And, you know, I thought it'd be kind of fun to do this video. So hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, please consider dropping a like and subscribing. You can also follow me on Instagram at BlueJean Operator or go to my website, TheBlueJeanOperator.com to find some cool shirts and merch, which helps out the channel. Also, guys, if you want to get involved with the channel even more directly, I've got Patreon, helps me buy guns, gear, ammo, all the kind of stuff that goes into running a gun channel. And I'll get you access to videos a little bit earlier than everyone else. But hope you guys enjoyed it. I'll see you guys next time.