Just picked up a Remington TAC-14 for bear defense

[colonel00]

Are those really any more effective than Granny Clampets rock salt ? [ Beverly Hillbillies reference lost on the young guys]

^^Probably illegal in Ca...heck the rock salt is probably illegal here. I suppose a guy in Ca. could make up a shell loaded with some pepper powder high on the Scoville chart but why stop there? Add a little salt and garlic powder...saves a step in the marinating process.

I'm just kidding with those shells. I would also agree that they are probably not legal in CA.

Many many years ago my then employer was forced to make us field engineers take a bear/gun safety class. YES! free ammo and range time! I ended up sitting in with a bunch of gold miners from UT that were up to do exploration work for a big operation. Since they were focused on rocks their gun set up was a bunch of pistol gripped short barreled pumps, kept out of the weather in custom cordura scabbards lashed to their work packs. A mess of very nice weapons. But then at the range they proved to be useless.

In the classroom the instructor proved to the miners that scabbards would get them killed. He made them wear them and "charged" from 20 feet across the room. The miners were mauled before they could even get the weapon out of the scabbard after dropping the pack. Also made it clear they needed to keep the pack on to protect their necks during a mauling.

At the range the instructor asked me with my 870 deer slayer to go to the end of the line and wait until all the miners had a chance to shoot their pistol gripped weapons with 3" slugs in a timed drill. 12 guys, two shots each, only one slug onto the paper but missed the bear image. No shooter was able to get their second shot off within 6 seconds after the first round hammered their wrist. One guy dropped the gun after the first shot.

Watching all that I was a bit nervous to step up and take my turn with a weapon I had never used before that morning. Pump shotguns for years, rifled sites since birth, but a timed drill? Using a tactical ready weapon laying on a table and 12 guys watching me? I was pretty nervous. The timer beeped, I picked up the weapon, shucked it to chamber a round, and put two rounds into the bear images head. One in the forehead and one in the nose. 1.5 seconds.

The lessons are: if you can't aim the weapon, its useless. If you can't operate the weapon after the first shot, its useless.

Looking at the TAC-14 it is a pointless weapon to have in the woods. The rear stock would be easier on your hand than a traditional pistol grip, but you can't effectively aim the weapon. You will point it in the general direction of what ever is coming towards you and hope that your round is close enough.

Great info Ray. I think the problem is that they didn't have the proper holster rig

 

[WV Mountaineer]

That dude did a pretty good job of hitting everything he shot at. That big gong was 100 yards. It's more than just a pistol gripped, movie scripted gun. these things are for real. God Bless

 

[Where's Bruce?]

Not as good as the Doc Holliday...but I suppose it will suffice.....

Can I even still discuss it as a Ca resident? grin
We are restricted from purchase as its under the 26.6" total length reg.

IMO, Its the most effective backup weapon for many circumstances...the 2 big questions are;

How easy is it to wield quickly?
How easy to pack around?

The quick part is all about practice.....its do-able

The packing part is tricky. I didn't like any of the sling arrangements- shoulder or front sling- I used on my old cut down Mossberg.

CA DOJ Alert: You have been identified as a person of interest in numerous anti-State activities. As a subject in the People's Republik of Mexifornistan you are hereby ordered to surrender your guns, ammunition, Second Amendment rights and a large chunk of your income to fund services for undocumented migrants and enforcement of Gunmeggedon.

 

[Ray]

Interesting real world case study. I am assuming there was addl practice session....did these guys come to improve and can a guy master this with practice or is the pistol grip all wrong?

If we would have had a guy on the range that was a brick layer or body builder, we might have seen just how much forearm strength is needed to operate one fast enough to matter. The torque that the pistol grip puts on your wrist is insane. I've only shot one once. Never again.

The mining operation management had solid stocks installed on all the weapons. I don't know what they did about the scabbards and how to carry the weapons. In my field work we learned that long arms are difficult if your job requires two hands. There was always a guy with the gun and that is all he did. Not long after my first class, bear guards become an actual job for various industries in AK.

There was some curious insights from this class. One instructor was prior Army pistol team. One student had been given by his father a S&W .44 to take with him to AK. The student struggled to hit a 24x24 inch target at 15 feet. The instructor came over and put six rounds into a 1.5" circle. "Well, its not the pistol." He asked the kid if he had ever shot a pistol before, and was told just plinking. The instructor recommend that he leave the .44 at home. He recommend getting a Mark II .22 pistol and shoot it every day for a year or two until he learned how to aim a pistol.

The mining company field station manager was a former Army tank commander. He used his Colt Officer's 1911 at the range. He also could not hit paper at 15 feet. No wonder he drove a tank.

The PhD geologist from Nigeria was a stunning shot. He had never held a firearm before and had to go through the safety stuff several times. He was the only one that managed to hit paper with the pistol grip shotguns.

 

[JWP58]

I'm in Canada. We can buy shotguns with an 8.5" barrel and they're unrestricted. Yet a handgun is restricted...
I bought the 12" barrel because I wanted the extra round in the mag and 8.5" seemed a bit short.

Lucky

 

[Beendare]

Many years ago I used to just carry my shotgun while bushwhacking across draws on Kodiak and hunting a couple of the other islands with my bow strapped to my pack.
Now those bears have a fair amount of respect for humans and i just pack a pistol.

Begrudginly i admit to being a terrible shot with my .44 at first. A couple thousand dry fires and multiple range sessions changed that. I bet the shotgun has a shorter learning curve.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Interesting toy.

Question:

- can you work the slide release on the left side without shifting your grip too much?
- what is the real advantage over a typical pistol grip if the overall length is still 26 inches? Seems like you are swapping less barrel for more grip and and one or two less rounds. A 18.5 inch moss berg is 27 inches oal and hold 6+1.

 

[colonel00]

Interesting toy.

Question:

- can you work the slide release on the left side without shifting your grip too much?
- what is the real advantage over a typical pistol grip if the overall length is still 26 inches? Seems like you are swapping less barrel for more grip and and one or two less rounds. A 18.5 inch moss berg is 27 inches oal and hold 6+1.

Don't have mine yet but I can speak from years of use of a regular 870 for duck hunting. The slide release is second nature to me. You just wrap your index finger around the trigger guard and the release is there. Far enough away to avoid accidental depression but still withing reach. Especially with the original stock and I can only assume with this Raptor stock which is essentially a regular stock cut off.

The advantage of this stock, as I understand it since I haven't shot one yet, is that your wrist is actually canted forward when you shoot. So, it can rotate up with the recoil. Compare that with a pistol grip where your wrist is essentially locked closes to it's most upright rotation which either puts stress on your wrist or fingers to hold the pistol grip.

 

[colonel00]

Oh, anyone know a gunsmith that can thread the inside of a cylinder bore for choke tubes?

 

[Superkodiak38]

I have had a little bit of experience with shotguns in tactical situations and having shot single shots to street sweepers there is no comparison in the amount of control a full size stock will give you over a sawed off, or pistol only grip. A true pistol style grip will be much more effective than the straight stock in the video but a full stock with a short barrel is the way to go for these applications in my opinion. Think in terms of close quarter combat, you don't use an AR pistol, you use an SBR of course you get more precision out of an SBR and precision is what delivers rounds on target rounds on targets eliminate threats. If you are looking for home defense or camp defense that smaller stature shooters can handle, the recoil reducing capabilities some stock offer will make it more manageable for them, making them more accurate as well. If I was hunting an area where I thought there was a chance I was going to have to make a quick shot in thick cover or other close quarters I would have the sling rig that the Canadian gentleman posted a picture of, looks pretty bomb proof to me and presents quickly of course TRAIN with it BEFORE you are pressed into using it to save yourself or someone else.

 

[jwatts]

I have a Remington Model 11 12ga with a 1 shot extension and a 14.25" barrel (yes, it's NFA). It's one of the handiest guns I have.

View attachment 59829

 

[colonel00]

Just thought I'd update this if anyone cared. I was finally home and able to pick up my firearm (hence forth referred to as the Notgun). Went out yesterday with a buddy who had picked up a Mossberg Shockwave.

Man, I don't know if I've ever had this much fun on a range. Maybe it's because I wasn't always worried about being accurate (which is usually what you are looking for at a range) but we had a ton of fun and probably ran through close to 100 rounds each. Mostly we were just shooting the cheapo bulk-pack low-brass target loads but we did shoot some 00 Buck, and #4 Buck along with some low recoil slugs.

The Notguns were actually fairly easy to shoot and the grip design makes them a pleasure to shoot over and over. It did take a little while to get the hang of shooting from the hip or even "aiming". Mostly, I wanted to keep all of my teeth in place so it took a while to figure out how to get on target without getting too close.

By the end of the day, we were shooting clay pigeons and even shell hulls out of the air. We were just tossing them by hand so we're only talking maybe 10-15 yards but I was still impressed that we could have maybe a 50% hit rate on a hull erratically thrown by hand and on a windy day.

Bottom line, if you want a fun gun to just go shoot, buy one. As I mentioned at the beginning, you go into it without the expectation of precise accuracy so you can just have fun blowing holes in targets and cranking through 6 rounds really fast.

For home defense, maybe. I don't think I'd have an problem using it for home defense myself, especially after I get a few more chances to shoot it and become accustomed to it. I don't know that it would be the best for the wife though. I've been shooting shotguns all of my life, especially Remingtons. It just comes naturally now but I think it might be a little foreign and unwieldy if someone doesn't have a fair bit of shooting experience.

For Backcountry use, doubtful. First off, it's heavy. So if you are hiking in, I think there are better options. Now, as a camp gun for maybe a float trip or a short jaunt off the road, this would be a really fun camp gun. If I ever do a caribou hunt like I did this year, I might even bring it along.

For Bear Defense, I don't really know. Hell, if you combine every opinion out there, the only thing that works for big bears is a tactical nuclear strike. We were able to put the low recoil slugs on paper but then again, they are low recoil slugs. Would I carry this Notgun over a .44, nope. A 10mm is next on my list and I'd probably carry that over the Notgun as well. However, any caliber smaller and I'd think the argument could be made for the Notgun. Maybe a birdshot/buckshot mixed load as a first shot/warning/peppering shot and then slugs.

I'll definitely try to get out and try some "actual" bear slugs like the Brenneke

My buddy with his Shockwave

Some bird shot, some buck shot, some slugs but overall, a whole bunch of fun.

 

[colonel00]

Just thought I'd update this with a quick video showing a little fun shooting clays. Again, with a little practice, these things can be quite accurate. Still, I don't think I'd want to shoot high power loads very often.

Clay Pigeons with the Remington TAC-14 and Mossberg Shockwave - YouTube

 

[colonel00]

Just thought I'd bump this up just for giggles. For those not familiar, you can now get a pistol grip with a brace for the little firearms. All assembled and unloaded, it's just under 7lbs. Heavier than my scoped Tikka .300WM. But, it's a heck of a lot of fun.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

I've gone back and forth on this and ultimately decided that the 329PD was my best option. Hear me out. Yes, the UL .44 hurts when ya shoot it. But it is delightful to carry. Most bear attacks happen in two seconds with little if any warning. Once that animal is on you, a shotgun is useless but with a sidearm you might still be able to get shots off. You won't be able to rack rounds into a pump scatter gun. So in a SHTF scenario...I decided to stick with a pistol. JMO...I could be wrong.

 

[goathunter]

Think you'd be able to handle something like Brenneke 3" Magnum slugs with one of these? With the brace or without? I'm thinking probably not without the brace.

Black Magic(R) Magnum | Brenneke - Ammunition

 

[SHTF]

reviving an old thread, I just got done giving my 870 Wingmaster Remington a refresh. Had it Cerocoated in Magpul OD Green and added lots of fun accessories to it. This hold 6 in the tube 1 in chamber 5 in the buttstock and 6 on the rail. Total of 18 rounds on the gun when loaded. She is heavy when loaded. Shoots fantastic and looks pretty sharp now.

 

[SHTF]

Here is a before Picture of what it looked like before all the work I did to it. Its on the end there.