here are a lot of folks who mistakenly believe that the shotgun is a weapon particularly suited to the novice or unskilled shooter. You’ve probably frequently heard things like “just pump it and you’ll scare the bad guy away” or “you don’t need to aim, just point it down the hallway.” It’s reinforced through just about every pop culture depiction of shotguns, and if you’ve never spent any time behind one, you might not realize just how much technique, skill, and effort goes into running it well, especially a pump gun. The manual of arms can be very unforgiving, and at the acrossthe-room distances where shotguns excel, the pattern doesn’t open up very much, and it’s easy to miss. They require a lot of training and practice to use well. The problem then is how do you gain the necessary skill when you’re continually getting bruised and beaten up by the recoil? Considering that full-power buckshot and slugs fired from a typical-weight 12-gauge shotgun produce recoil energy about on par with that of a .375 H&H Magnum, controlling that recoil is a critical piece of the
