20 gauge birdshot

[Asacschrader33]

So I have two bottles of N on the way but I will be bringing a 20 gauge with me into the woods in case I wake up. My question is: is a 20 gauge with 4 birdshot powerful enough it aimed through the mouth for a relatively instant death?

 

[Roger]

Absolutely. A 20 bore gun will do the job easily. No 4 American shot size is the same as No3 English, but virtually any shot size would do, given an intra-oral shooting.
What's the barrel length on your gun ?

 

[Asacschrader33]

I don't know exactly, but it's relatively short. I can reach the trigger with my hand when it's in my mouth. Now the question is how to aim. Down or up? I've heard both.

 

[TiredHorse]

Now the question is how to aim. Down or up? I've heard both.

Aim back: your brainstem is what you're aiming for, and it sits below and just behind a line running between your ears. If you aim up (which is unfortunately the easiest way to aim) you risk blowing off your face and/or blowing out your frontal lobe and becoming a vegetable --and yes, you can survive that. @Stillnotsure, a paramedic, has a gruesome story of arriving on a call to find a guy crawling blindly around his garage after shooting off his face trying to CTB with a shotgun.

 

[Asacschrader33]

So just aim straight back? Parallel with the ground basically?

 

[TiredHorse]

So just aim straight back? Parallel with the ground basically?

Have a look at this, in the Firearms Megathread:

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/threads/guns-firearms-megathread.9042/#post-155058

 

[Asacschrader33]

See from that picture it seems like you would have to aim at a slightly upwards angle. Or would the blast radius be enough to take out the brainstorm while aiming straight back?

 

[TiredHorse]

See from that picture it seems like you would have to aim at a slightly upwards angle. Or would the blast radius be enough to take out the brainstorm while aiming straight back?

Slightly upward angle would be best --but I'm always hesitant to say "aim up a little bit" because it's easy with any gun, but especially a long gun, to aim too high, just because of the awkwardness of aiming a long gun into your mouth. And aiming too high opens the awful possibility of failing and making matters much, much worse.

That said, aiming straight back, the "blast radius" would almost certainly be adequate to destroy the brainstem. Shotguns are astonishingly powerful.

I'm going to climb up on my usual firearms soapbox now: Aim is everything, so practice in the mirror. It's surprisingly difficult to see where you're aiming when you're pointing a gun at yourself.

 

[Asacschrader33]

Thanks man, you know you're shit. In your opinion do you think #4 birdshot (20 ga) is strong enough at point blank range? I've been reading and I'm not fully convinced, but yet I can't see how it couldn't be.
Your*. Can't believe I did that.

 

[TiredHorse]

Honestly, I think the wad alone would be enough to kill you at that range. So yes, I think #4 birdshot will be adequate.

I know a fair bit about shooting and guns in general, but remember, it isn't as though I can speak from experience of having CTB.

 

[Asacschrader33]

My reasoning is that it doesn't have time to expand so it basically acts as like a slug.

 

[TiredHorse]

That reasoning seems sound to me. And even if it does expand quickly on contact with your skull or your brain tissue, it won't loose enough energy in 3" to matter much.

 

[Asacschrader33]

Do you think it would be relatively instant?

 

[TiredHorse]

My understanding is that the destruction of the brainstem results in instantaneous death.

I stumbled upon a crime scene analysis the other day (can't remember the URL) where the victim appeared to have CTB with a shotgun. He was lying on his side, partly atop the shotgun, chair overturned on top of him as though he'd shot himself and tumbled sideways. He had used a 12ga with #6 shot --which, interestingly, had not blown his head apart; no exit wound, but the shot had utterly destroyed his brain, with the pellets remained contained within his skull. (The x-ray was quite something to see.)

However, the vic presented with both Battle's Sign (bruising at the ears) and "raccoon eyes" (black eyes), and his arms and wrists were tightly curled. All of those are signs of severe brain trauma, but the ME's report concluded definitively that the vic did not die from the shotgun shot, because 1) the heart needed to have been functioning for those particular types of bruising to occur, and 2) the curled arms and wrists could not have happened unless the brainstem had been intact to send nervous impulses to the arms. In other words, the Battle's Signs, raccoon eyes, and curled arms/wrists proved death was not instantaneous, but the shotgun blast would have resulted in an instantaneous death that precluded those signs, QED the shotgun was not the cause of death. After looking more closely at the vic, it turns out someone hit the vic on the head, delivering fatal --but not instantaneously lethal-- blunt force, and then shot the vic in the mouth with a shotgun to make it look like a suicide.

But the ME was unequivocal: that shotgun blast to the head would have been instantaneously fatal. Life support and brain activity would have ceased in a fraction of a second.

So if you do it right, yes, it's instantaneous.

As I said: aim is everything.

 

[Kringle's Curse]

Personally, I'd go with a slug. I own several shotguns and have used both birdshot and slugs for hunting. I've shot many grouse with my 12g using 7 1/2 shot and it barely penetrates the breast, yeah it kills them but it's small game. I've shot ducks with 3 inch #4 shot shells and it barely penetrated the meat as well. But that was all at 30-40 yards. Like the other person said it wouldn't lose much energy at 3 inches, however I shot a deer last year with a slug at 60 yards and let me tell ya, it blew a clean inch and a half hole through it's neck at that range. When my time comes, I'm using the same round, 3 inch shell with a 1 1/4 ounce slug.

 

[Asacschrader33]

Kringle's Curse I only have access to #4 and no access to other ammunition. Do you think #4 would work at point blank range?

 

[Kringle's Curse]

Kringle's Curse I only have access to #4 and no access to other ammunition. Do you think #4 would work at point blank range?

Yeah it should. I'm speaking from my experience with shooting wild game and seeing what the different loads do to different animals.

 

[Asacschrader33]

Awesome, thanks man.

 

[Kringle's Curse]

Awesome, thanks man.

Can I ask what has brought you to this point in your life? I don't know you obviously, but I wish you could find happiness and joy in your life. But I totally understand wanting to die because I wake up every single day wishing I hadn't. I'm a worthless piece of human garbage that doesn't deserve anything good in life.

 

[Asacschrader33]

Neurological disease.