Costa Ludus shotgun class

[boopiejones]

Any calgunners attending the upcoming Costa ludus shotgun class in linden next month?

[W.R.Buchanan]

You should be vicious after that class.

Do make sure you can actually run the gun, and have it setup so it doesn't beat the snot out of you. Lots of shooting in a short period of time and if your technique falls apart the gun will beat you.

Chris is a great guy and I have talked to him numerous times, and have all the Magpul Videos.

Randy

[SAD338]

Bring bandaids.

[prc77]

bring gloves, and first aid for burns

[boopiejones]

[SAD338]

It's not the recoil that's the hard part of a shotgun class. It's all the reloading so if your loading port hasn't been smoothed out, your thumbs and fingers are gonna be bloody by course end.

[W.R.Buchanan]

If you actually shoot 700 rounds and your gun is not setup right you will get the snot beat out of you.

My first shotgun class at Front Sight was a 2 day class and we shot about 200 rounds. I had not figured out the setup for my gun at that point and paid dearly for it. The gun beat me mercilessly and I came home with a black shoulder and very bruised cheek.

I got the barrel Vang Comped and made changes to the gun setup. Shortened the stock and changed recoil pad and the position of the sling basically fine tuning during the 2nd class.

Also included was learning the stance that gets you behind the gun and keeping your cheek weld in tact during multiple shots, trigger reset, running the gun, loading , unloading, port loading etc.

All this stuff has to be there so you can concentrate on actually hitting a target and surviving to shoot the next one.

If he actually has you shoot 700 rounds you are going to be hurting if your gun isn't right.

I just did a 4 day class at Front Sight with my M500. and fired nearly 500 rounds mostly birdshot but still over 150 bucks and 70 slugs.

I had no marks on me whatsoever and I shot wearing only a light mesh vest over a tee shirt the whole time. No changes to the gun at all and it worked perfectly.

If you go to a range and shoot 50-100 or so rounds in an hour or so and have no problems with that, you'll be fine.

Also hot tip: Walmart has the cheapest Bird Shot available at $21.74 a hundred either Federal or Winchester. Get the Federal.

Also if you need to get buckshot and slugs, "Target Sports" on the internet is the cheapest place out there Low Recoil Slugs (1300 fps and below) $3.50 a box of 5 and Low Recoil Buck is 3.25 a box of 5. They ship to CA and probably already have FFL's set up in your area to receive the order. They are in Connecticut but are a good place to do business with.

Hope this helps. After shooting a shotgun in tactical situation you won't be going back to carbines or pistols. Pistols are for back up and shooting your way to your shotgun.

Here's a pic of the Slugs I am loading for my guns. It weighs 500 grains!

Nothing lives thru one of these.

Randy

[SAD338]

Why would you choose a shotgun over a carbine?

[W.R.Buchanan]

Inside 100 yards a shot gun is so much more powerful it is ridiculous.

With buckshot you are putting out 9 .32 caliber rounds with every shot.

With Low Recoil slugs (1 oz. at <1300 fps) you have enough power to knock anyone over even with Body Armor.

A center mass hit inside 50 yards on body armor the impact from one of those slugs would kill you.

With high base slugs (1 1/8 oz at 1600 fps) you are looking at being able to take down just about anything on this planet. And they shoot just fine out of any 12 ga. shotgun. The only limits to power are how much you can take on the back end.

There are steel slugs that will go clean thru a car in any direction as long as they don't hit the engine. I have seen Specialty rounds that looked like little missiles and had an oz. of C4 in them! a bargain at $1200 each, only available to certain branches of the Military.

Most people don't realize just how much power the average gun owner has at his finger tips. The 12 ga Shotgun is the most common gun owned in the world. Virtually anyone who owns a gun has one.

The 12 ga Shotgun is virtually a Breech Loading Brown Bess Musket which reigned supreme for over 150 years. the 12 ga shotgun will be around long after all of us, and I mean you young guys too, are long gone.

The variety of ammunition choices you have at your disposal will cover anything from Doves to Polar Bears to Hippos. People are way down the list.

How versatile is a .223 carbine?

That's why.

Randy

[boopiejones]

Thanks for the info guys. . I was loading some snap caps and noticed some really sharp edges on all the shotguns I plan on bringing to the class. So I spent a few hours today disassembling, sanding, polishing, etc.

[land locked]

Related to the loading port on an 870. For those of you that have done it, how did you take care of the sharp edges of the loading port? Just enough to break the edge?

[boopiejones]

Took the class this week. It was awesome. Met some new friends and ran into some old friends that I met at previous Costa classes as well. After the last class, a small group of us went out to dinner. Chris joined us, as did Jenny and Colin from the range. Big thanks to Jenny, who paid for our dinner!!! And to Ares Gear who gave each student about $200 worth of shotgun cards and belt mounts. And of course to Chris for pushing me to improve every day.

I ended up running an 870 the entire time and did have a few issues with it. The biggest issue was that, after a couple hundred rounds, it would start to “lock up” where after firing a round I was occasionally unable to rack the slide without quite a struggle. It was an intermittent problem, but it seemed to get worse toward the second half of day two. and it happened when Chris was shooting my gun as well so I know it’s not user error. Also, another guy had the same issue with his 870, so it seems to be an issue with 870s (possibly newer ones with poor quality control) as they start to get dirty. I did clean the gun after day one, but I didn’t give it a “deep cleaning.” So after day two I tore the whole gun down, polished the chamber (which seems to be the culprit according to many people on the interwebs). This fixed the issue, although it seemed like the gun was starting to get a bit tight toward the end of day three.

Other issue, which was self inflicted, was that I was anticipating rain so I stippled the forend to make sure my hand wouldn’t slip. I think I went overly aggressive on the texture and it didn’t rain, so I ended up with a few “hot spots” on my hand. I sanded the stippling down after day one, but still developed a couple blisters.

Surprisingly, the blisters on my left hand were the only issues with my body. My thumbs were totally fine even after all that reloading and my cheek and shoulder never got even the slightest bit sore.

First thing we did was zero in our shotguns and pattern our 00 buck. Everyone running Sellier & Bellot buck was having a hell of a time with patterning. At only 15 yards, it was difficult to keep all 9 pellets on a man size target. Federal flight control 00 buck seemed to work best for everyone, giving a nice tight (fist size or smaller) pattern.

All in all it was a great class. i learned a ton. Chris’ curriculum was great. We did a bit of everything - reloading, swapping out different types of ammo, working as teams, ground work, switching to pistol (even without a sling, which I thought was a very fun and useful skill). the more experienced guys in the class (primarily LEOs) were super helpful as well.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Boopie: The problem with Spent Hulls sticking in the chamber is certain hulls Stick more when fired in a hot gun. I find the Winchester hulls with Aluminum Plated Steel Bases (Walmart Winchester) tend to do it more than Walmart Federal hulls that have brass plated steel bases.

This happens to all Pump Shotguns, Mossbergs and Rems probably the least. I saw some other brands that wouldn't go five shots without sticking one.

The technique for clearing is called "Butt Stroking." and it consists of keeping pressure on the Slide with the Slide Release held on, and then smacking the butt of the gun on your knee as your knee is coming up like you are kneeing someone in the cajones. You can also kneel down and smack the butt on the ground. Knee works better.

This works most of the time. If it doesn't work in 3 successive strokes then you have to shove a cleaning rod in from the muzzle to knock the offending hull out. Do make sure you are doing it to a Empty Round !!!

I don't know if Chris explained what the name of his school actually means, but a "Ludis" is a Gladiator Training School.

So you went to Costa's Gladiator Training School. His contribution to the Revolution.

I know you had a good time.

Randy

[boopiejones]

Boopie: The problem with Spent Hulls sticking in the chamber is certain hulls Stick more when fired in a hot gun. I find the Winchester hulls with Aluminum Plated Steel Bases (Walmart Winchester) tend to do it more than Walmart Federal hulls that have brass plated steel bases.

This happens to all Pump Shotguns, Mossbergs and Rems probably the least. I saw some other brands that wouldn't go five shots without sticking one.

The technique for clearing is called "Butt Stroking." and it consists of keeping pressure on the Slide with the Slide Release held on, and then smacking the butt of the gun on your knee as your knee is coming up like you are kneeing someone in the cajones. You can also kneel down and smack the butt on the ground. Knee works better.

This works most of the time. If it doesn't work in 3 successive strokes then you have to shove a cleaning rod in from the muzzle to knock the offending hull out. Do make sure you are doing it to a Empty Round !!!

I don't know if Chris explained what the name of his school actually means, but a "Ludis" is a Gladiator Training School.

So you went to Costa's Gladiator Training School. His contribution to the Revolution.

I know you had a good time.

Randy

That’s how Chris cleared the malfunction - Buttstroking the gun on a table. And interesting comment about the ammo being partially to blame because I was shooting some cheap Winchester ammo at the time.

The thing that annoyed me most was that every time the malfunction happened on day two, I stood there and messed with the slide until the malfunction cleared (usually took 3 or 4 violent pumps). That evening I was thinking more about it and realized that what I should have done was switched to my handgun to finish the drill. So I was all mentally prepared to switch to handgun on day three if needed, but then the malfunction didn’t happen again. That’s why we train; So we know what to do when everything doesn’t go according to plan.

And yes, I had a GREAT time. I would definitely take the class again if the opportunity presented itself.

[SAD338]

They should really call shotgun classes, pump gun mythbusters. Lol.