Feeding the Beast: A Second Look into Shotgun Reloading Techniques
The shotgun is a versatile tool, and perhaps the most common firearm in the homes of America and abroad today. It’s a jack-of-all-trades, able to hunt anything from birds to buffalo – and yet, using it in a defensive application is a bit of a specialist’s trade.
What I mean is this – the shotgun requires far more manipulation to use effectively than say, a carbine, because of its limited magazine capacity. There are plenty of articles out there describing the best tools to help you load a shotgun faster, but none of them really get into the meat of the subject – the actual techniques and manipulations involved in loading the shotgun.
I’ve been a huge proponent over the years of the weak-handed reloading method for shotgunning – it involves using your support (or weak) hand to manipulate the shells into the magazine, whilst maintaining your shooting grip with your strong hand and controlling the shotgun. This keeps your hand ready to act if you need to get a quick snapshot off, and makes it easier to hold the shotgun and keep it steady if you have a particularly weighty example.
However, as much as a grumpy Gen-Xer hates to admit it, times change, and you need to change with the times. I’ve always felt that one of the weaknesses of weak-hand reloads involve reloading an empty chamber on a shotgun with an optic mounted. I always recommend that you keep your weak hand, with the shell, as close to the receiver as possible when pulling and dropping the shell out of the saddle and into the chamber. An optic changes this equation though – it makes it much harder to stay in contact with the receiver since the optic basically blocks the way. Sure, you could go under, but I’ve never liked that method – too much fumbling around and working against gravity.
I’ve also come to dislike weak-handed, empty-chamber reloads on semi-auto shotguns – I never seem to be able to get my hand out of the way to clear the bolt handle when it comes charging forward. And if you slow down the bolt handle too much, well, you’ve gummed up the works, and odds are good you’re going to keep the shotgun from going into battery. That’s going to turn into a bad day.
So, in an effort to be less of a “Clint Eastwood/Get off my grass” kinda guy, I started to do some research on the topic, and started working with strong-hand reloads. Now, for me, this is a big change, as I’ve always been a big believer in maintaining your shooting grip and keeping the shotgun aligned down the threat axis. It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least.
First off, I found that empty chamber reloads on optic mounted shotguns and semi-auto shotguns is much easier – simply remove your strong hand and use your support hand to bring the shotgun back underneath your arm for support. Reach under the receiver to the saddle for the shell (orient the shell with the brass down), pluck it out, and drop it into the open loading port. Hit the bolt release, and you’re ready to go. Quick and easy.
Strong-hand reloads also open the door for dual- and quad-loading, although the applications of this outside of competition and the movies are dubious – particularly given the equipment you need to effectively hold the shells.
It is important to remember that you still need the proper equipment to reload that shotgun quickly – namely, a saddle and some sort of belt carriage. The best thing you can add to your shotgun is a side saddle, like Esstac’s Velcro-mounted shotgun cards. This one piece of kit greatly eases the chore of reloading, and when that card is empty, you pull it off the shotgun and slap another one on.
Moving forward, all of our shotgun classes are going to talk about both weak-handed and strong-handed reloads – it’ll be up to the student to decide which one works for them. Like all the techniques we teach, this is another tool in your shotgun toolbox.
—Kirk