Benelli has built a dedicated semi-automatic M4 shotgun, using No4 shot and a RDS. This is *exactly* what we recommended in this video. armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/army-news-2024/benelli-introduce-new-rifle-as-solution-against-uav-during-battle
You could put the drone on a pole and shoot it to determine effects of different loads. The drone would not be in flight, so the FAA should have no concerns.
I think an even better idea would be hanging it with fishing line from a tree or something so the pole doesn't block shots also it would be easier to set up.
Karl, a clay shooter & hunter here. You might want to look at steel shot. It has a higher initial velocity (doesn't squash like lead), and being less dense you get a lot more pellets per oz - about half as much again. Granted the velocity drops off faster, but if you're after the drone blades they'll provide the collision speed even if you just dropped steel shot on them. Steel is hard, and it'll knock a duck out of the sky at 50 yds. Caveats: Steel-rated barrel, obviously, and pinging steel shot off a steel plate is bad karma.
I fly drones and I have a license. I can tell you the loss of a single propeller will cause a traditional quad drone to crash. Striking a leaf, a small twig, will cause some very light damage to the prop requiring replacement upon landing. In theory, even the lightest bird shot should do more damage than that and damage the prop to the point the drone drops (though uncontrollably). Two thoughts: 1. I wonder if you could shoot a propeller at 50 - 100 meters, then install it on a drone to see if it will be capable of flight. If you do not post any video FROM the drone’s camera, you MAY be able to post footage of it attempting takeoff. Issue here is that we are attempting to fly a vehicle that will likely be unable to operate safely. If it’s under 150 grams and we don’t use its footage commercially, we don’t need a license. The rules MAY be different enough to allow this. 2. Look into RC flying aircraft. I’m unfamiliar with the rules here but I do recall seeing them at machine gun shoots. Go with a small helicopter design, and any damage resulting in a crash would likely do the same to a quadcopter. Anyhow, you guys have been onto something with the WWSD AR and now this. Shotguns would be easier to field than the missile systems that keep getting researched by the MIC when we’re talking small commercial drones. I could go on and on here, but I think there’s just one more thing. There’s likely to be a maximum height these drones can operate within while still allowing accurate recon. You’re looking through the drone camera on a phone, tablet, or FPV googles. If we figure that out, then the range/spread of the ammunition might be the biggest factor.
Having hunted waterfowl my whole life, my uneducated anti-drone opinion would be #4 buckshot, which is similar to what we use (T or F steel shot) when we hunt geese. I'd also go with a made for purpose waterfowl shotgun, 24 inch or larger barrel 3.5 inch chamber.
@@edenironworks2@edenironworks2 I have shot many game birds out of the air with everything from a .410 to a 10ga 3.5, but it is one case where "manumits" actually have results in the field based only on my observations.
One thing to note is that the FAA does not regulate flying in indoor spaces, even just a roof puts a space outside the national airspace system, so if you wanted to do such a test at an indoor range or other covered space it would not be something the FAA regulates.
Torsten Heinrich, a historian and host of Military & History is located in Panama and has a Shotgun vs. Drones Video coming up on his second channel soon.
Personal recommendation for the drone shootdown test. Suspend the drone via wire off a tall object or dedicated test stand and engage. Test off camera (we trust you) to see if the drone is flyable still. Great video, cheers!
Great timing. Couple days ago I've read recent news from soldiers that russian army started buying VEPR-12's for shooting drones. Soldiers work in pairs: one with "anti-drone gun" stops drone and holds it in place and then second with shotgun shoots it from safe distance. Shotguns are also useful for neutralising small mines like "leaf-mines".
The anti-drone gun is crucial to this and the team has to be actively looking for drones because in any other scenario the reaction time is just not fast enough to go through all the motions before the prick with the joystick pushes the button.
There was a case here in NZ not long ago when a farmer noticed a drone flying around his house, he came outside and shot it down with a shotgun, threw it in the trash. Told the police and it ended up in the media. Police said he had a right to shoot it down and left it at that. America is the land of the free though, definitely totally free
Shoot a non moving drone from the bottom then see if it will turn on and fly. OR, ask one of your friends in Mexico to preform the test. I'm sure it would be filmed on a potato but it would still be cool.
It doesn't need to be a drone. How about a dinner plate? But if it comes down and lands on you what about the explosive? There are also drones watching the area from a higher altitude.
I would be willing to bet an irresponsible amount of money that the FAA classified drones as aircraft (and entitled them to the legal protection thereof) is to protect police surveillance equipment.
A high speed propeller will quickly and catastrophically disintegrate with even a little damage. My guess is that the bird shot would do a lot better than we might assume.
I fly rockets and at those speeds and g forces, the slightest weakness in any of your parts can cause a “sudden, unscheduled disassembly” of your vehicle.
IMHO, for the various sizes, types etc, #4 buckshot, or BB shot would be better, to ensure both pattern density sufficient to hit it, and do damage to the fragile vehicle? :)
I would have thought the velocity drop off curve for birdshot would make getting enough range seriously difficult. Mass helps retain momentum after all.
@@Shep01 Humans driving? Not in all cases anymore - for example the long range oil refinery hits are done with autonomously navigating and flying drones. Target acquisition? For now, in the war for Ukraine, yes. (as far as we know)
@4:37 almost any damage to a drone prop causes instant, unrecoverable, loss off control. The baldes readily shatter, and vibration at their prop rpm is catastrophic.
Maybe an equivalent test would be to do skeet shooting at longer ranges? Move the clay thrower 5 yards at a time away form you and see at what range you can still get effective shots on them?
One problem with using a shotgun, and trust me they are better than nothing, is that even if you hit the drone it still explodes, and is still close enough to catch you with frag. On funker530 there are a number of videos of attacking drones getting shot, exploding, and still causing casualties. One of the worse ones was a drone carrying a directional explosive. Must have been 20 meters away, and still starched both of the soldiers.
it's the difference between shooting at a drone to defend and armored vehicle, which means you have to be outside said vehicle, and shooting at drones to defend yourself when you're not near armored vehicles and the drone is dropping anti personnel grenades on you
Some combination of an automated detection system with a semi automatic shotgun. Combining audio, visual, perhaps LIDAR for fine targeting. Of course this woukd require a vehicle to carry, but any vehicle, even a quad woukd do. The problem with jamming is with cheap phone processors you can program in object detection. Lock on while outside jamming or detection range, and ride in GOT style. Or mix old with new and have a second drone outside of the jamming envelope lasing the target & program a beam rider.
Ya, you'd have to catch the drone before it's above you to help with a grenade dropper at all, so this seems more like anti-surveillance than anything else. ... and I guess if you reach a stalemate, that's at least some of your friends safe from the same drone. As cold a comfort as that is
My first thought is something like #4 buckshot. I don't trust the tiny birdshot to do adequate damage. #4 buckshot is the equivalent of a large magazine from a .22 rifle and I trust those pellets to break the drone when they hit it.
Someone already mentioned using balloons. You could make a mockup of a drone, even if it was just a cardboard box of similar size, suspend it on a few balloons, and tether it with a kite string. That way you could even have someone drag it around for movement, or otherwise just shoot your target, bring the line down, anchor another target and send it up again. It would be a bit of a more involved process, but you could get creative with it. If you know anyone with a 3D printer, they might even be able to print a drone shaped shell or silhouette for a target. There're plenty of potential ways to get some sort of useful data.
@@groomersgotohell if only we could get the flitecontrol and FC flex wads as a reloading component...we could buy TSS by the kilo and load them alot cheaper than 13 bucks a peice.
I literally said last week that trap shooting would have no real world application. Turns out that was, it has actual real world use as a training sport.
have you thought about using an r/c car as a drone substitute? While not perfect it may be similar enough to get an idea. Plus if you wanted to put a propeller decoration on your toy car that's just a fun decoration like a pinwheel on a bike.
The irony of this post is funny to me I just patterned my turkey gun if you run a turkey choke it makes a big difference plus 3 1/2 turkey loads are like mortar shells you can get alot of distance out of them also look into #4 buckshot you really got my mind working now thank you so much for the content you provide I always enjoy it thanks Karl!
I use 4 shot for turkey, and have never been disappointed. It has never failed out to beyond 50 yds. Also, if you can hit a clay, you can hit a drone. Also, RC cars? Legal to shoot them? If so, it would be similar to a drone in structure. If you can kill an RC car(or similar) you can kill a drone.
Carl, I just got home from from a long exhausting work day, I see this video pop up and realizing I have a backlog of InRange videos to enjoy. This is just what I needed right now! Been a long time watcher, and your content and personality has helped me through several rough periods of medical problems in the past. Much love from Sweden, never stop rocking brother
Buck Kicker makes chokes that give standard wads similar performance to Winchester Flight Control wads, and they're available in full choke spec. Not magic, but they give your loads some extra reach. Also, I think that a lot of the drone drops are done from altitudes greater than 50yds/m and would render shotguns ineffective, though that can also vary on the skill level of the operators. A veteran operator from a UAF unit like Magyar's Birds could probably drop a grenade on you from 300-500ft altitude with lethality, while a noobie who's barely learned how to fly a drone without crashing it on take off will need to fly a lot closer.
Shooting down grenades with shotguns during WW1 is a myth that was propagated by advertising and propaganda, not reality: ua-cam.com/video/hEt3FgUApkg/v-deo.html
@@BigMakBattleBlog Any chance that multiple people shooting at it with their rifles in tandem is of any better effectiveness in your experience, as it starts hovering? Or someone with a scoped full power rifle being more effective for drone defense (again as it’s not moving around much)?
I've got one funny idea for your drone shooting work: Get some big helium balloons and float up some drone parts to shoot at. A tethered balloon could hold enough important bits to show what your shot does at vertical distance. It might be possible to float two balloons with diagonal tethers so you could hang a laundry line of parts to shoot between the balloons which would give you more shots per balloon.
Well if You thinks drone is pricey (which it is) so better 3Dprint a mockup of a drone, hook it with a real on e and 20 yards of rope, and then shoot thoose mocups, they also can be filled with parts of dead HDD ans so like stuff to measure damage to drone internals also bring a blunderbus and a duck-cannon to work
With the way technology is advancing, these drones are going to be able to drop munitions with much greater accuracy from far higher than a rifle (let alone a shotgun) could ever hope to hit. These cheap commercial drones can already function well outside a shotgun or puntguns effective range for surveillance and can go much higher than people realize. Staying under 400 feet is an FAA regulation for safety, not a limit of the technology or legal constraint for the battlefield like the Geneva Convention. It's going to take other weapons technologies to actually deal with these in a cost effective manner. Maybe puntguns could serve as point defense against a swarm of drones trying to ram a target, but even then, there are likely better technologies to use.
Personally I think the Benelli M3 would be the perfect choice for a shotgun in this role, semi-automatic with the ability to change to pump if your loads aren't enough to cycle and somewhere around a 20in barrel with a full choke... I understand the want for the large 3in turkey loads that hit hard but honestly if all you need to do is clip the propellers then some high velocity trap loads I think would suffice? Shame that testing it has all these hoops to jump through 😅
Really interesting video. A few points: 1 thanks for not showing the actual deaths of people. Dropped munitions is enough, at least for me. I'm here to learn, not get off on war gore. 2: As others have said, some kind of suspended drone pinata -maybe not 50yds up, but off the ground 50yds out- would be a good penetration test target and not "flying". 3: There has GOT to be some country this is all totally legal and possible where we could set up this experiment. I know it would be expensive, but it would be supremely valuable information. Thanks y'all.
You can 3d print a drone shell and use disks to simulate a propeller arc, and balast the whole thing with a lead weight. Suspend it from a baloon by a 100 yd cord, and tether it to be 50 yds off the ground
Reddot for skeet is going to depend on the dot&the day. I gave in a tried another pistol dot sight, and it worked this time, kinda. If I had trees & shadow as a backdrop, I could see it on brightness "6". Against the grey shop, brightness "8". On the sky, I couldn't see it on max (11). It was a sunny ish day, but not nearly as bright as it will be june-sept here in Texas.
Its not just in war zones that counter measures against drones are becoming more common as municipalities in the US are using them to search for zoning infractions! use a long barrelled fowl gun 3 1/2" chamber & steel shot, but ANY shotgun is better than none at all as any damage to a drones rotors will bring it down.
As to needing a drone operators license contact a drone racer, they use the video from their drones for profit and would have all the needed licenses. They also have more knowledge of drones that would be advantageous for your project. There may be a way to do what you want to film by doing so in specific places, or maybe even taking a small trip over the border with prior approval from the required parties. Again talk to the drone guys, they know far more than me.
So, on the legality of shooting drones... Obviously those laws are stupid. But, I do have another question/idea for testing that: What about shooting a grounded drone? What about a "drone analog", that's not flying (that's maybe even incapable of flying, like you've removed the props or the control computer or something)? At least, be able to legally test the damage these rounds do to the body of the drone, right? Sure, we wouldn't get data on whether it would actually knock the drone out of the sky, but... It would be better then nothing.
here in italy you can find hunderds of old but trusty beretta a300 and variants for as little as 50 euros and they are very reliable shotguns, semiautomatic, easy to maintain and in general loved while hunting. i would send those to ukraine, because i know for a fact that they would perform way better than those turkish shi-fi shotguns that simply are not up to the job, and cost more. hell the franchi 48, a copy of the browning auto 5 with simplifyed mechanic, is sold for 25 euros.
I like the idea, but I see a few issues: 1) The range of turkey loads is about 50 yards... when fired horizontally and gravity is only working against a portion of the projectile's speed. You're going to lose range by firing straight up. 2) 50 yards might be where they're currently dropping from, but far below the potential height. Drones can just fly higher in response. Would reduce accuracy, sure, but not what we're going for. That's a lot of extra weight to carry to be an inconvenience.
Bit of a shotgun nerd here, I think turkey loads are a great place to start. Other options would be higher performance pheasant ammunition. My first pick however would Hornady coyote ammo. They have a flite control type wad and use BB size lead shot. I agree the tungsten would be best but at $13 a shot it gets expensive to issue them widely enough.
Surely electronic jamming is the ideal way to protect against drones (assuming your side has the resources for it). I have a friend in the Navy who told me they have this backpack contraption they use while in port that disables drones that wander too close to the ship. I wonder how hard it would be to rig up some kind of high power and highly directional piece of jamming equipment with off the shelf resources.
I recently had this conversation with a few of my friends, they all went with turkey loads would be best but I propose heavy waterfowl loads of bb or larger would be ideal. I mostly look at it as if you have a drone busting shotgun that's your main weapon and bb or larger shot will still do quite a number on an enemy combatant inside of shotgun range (75 yards and in) and with the size of the shot you'd only really need one or two impacts to knock down a drone or at least severely damage it.
Tungsten is heavier, but you are going to have better luck with lead. You can run lead through a much much tigher choke. There are a lot of videos out there about this, and nobody is mentioning their choke tube. Take this problem to your local duck hunters and they will tell you how to shoot down a cheap drone.
I feel like the standard birdshot would still be effective. Those drones are made of thin plastic and, like you said, it doesn't take a lot to destabilize them
Seen a few clips of Russians shooting crude FPV drones with shotguns. Not sure how much utility you'd get out of equipping standard militaries with dedicated shotguns though, all they'd have to do is replace those quadcopters with something faster like lancets.
that's how all arms vs countermeasure situations work just because it's possible to design a weapon that the countermeasure doesn't work against, doesn't mean it's worthless.
@@Sableagle that was tested. A 12 gauge barrel with a cartridge already in it, you just put it in a standard GP-25 and it just works. The problem is that it's single-shot and the barrel is extremely short.
@@Fragtastikgold star award - you want to create a dilemma, not a problem.problems have solutions, dilemmas you must choose one which is as bad or worse than other
I'd quite like to see the bead vs red dot in trap/skeet shooting comparison you mentioned in the video. I've wondered if that would actually be a beneficial enough to use in competition
I think the minimal legal test would be taking individual parts (the prop is probably the easiest), suspending it with string and using that as a proxy. You might even be able to get parts that aren't technically for aircraft but are reasonably similar. When I looked this up, there was another shell type called "skynet" rounds that have a net with weights on the outside that wraps around the drone like something from a cartoon. You can buy the 2.5 inch shells, and when I was looking at it France just bought 28" Benelli supernovas for this that can fire a 3.5 inch shell with a bigger net.
On another note I find it very interesting that they stack the laws to where it's almost like they do not want us to test being able to take out drones efficiently as citizens...
Hello Matt, My first time to watch your channel. As a seventy six year-damn old retired toolmaker, former trap boy, and part time farmer, with a lifetime interest in shooting sports of nearly any flavor, I am scoring this video, as an A+. Your presentation makes sense to an experienced, show me the numbers kind of guy. Sadly, most people discuss home defense weapons in roughly this order: 357, 9mm, and 12 gauge 00 buckshot. This demonstrates no new thoughts or reasoning. I am so pleased to see your choice of ammo for this job. Turkey, goose, and duck loads are meant to throw shot a long way, without having holes, and having the pellet mass/ energy to cut feathers, and break bones, on their way to the heart and lungs. Shells loaded with grex or other buffering agents will produce better patters. This might make another program, with a pattern board. A single stage press set up for 3” hulls, small bags of various shot sizes, different wads, and some slowww burning powder, may bring new thoughts to the folks in the front row. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts on external ballistics, and the state of the union in these times.
No idea about the filming aspect but for the drone lethality test you can take a page out of the military's book and put a balloon or tennis ball on a string below the drone for a target to see if you can engage a small target that moves like a drone. Then to see if shot would work you can shoot at a drone on the ground at 50 yds. and see if it can still fly after.
I have a Part 107 and I'll explain the FAA's thinking. Simply put, damaging a drone like a DJI could cause it to "Fly away." A little DJI Mavic can fly at over 30 mph for a 30 minutes depending on environment. You may shoot at your drone on your property but that drone could fly thousands of feet straight up or over to the next town if damaged, They don't write per drone legislation so they have to err even longer and faster possible fly aways. There are a lot reasons drones "Fly away" but for this test my concern would be damage to collision avoidance sensors. If one of those is damaged the drone may think it needs to avoid an obstacle and fly unpredictably. Those sensors can be disabled but other damage to the system could cause the same result. I agree with the FAA on these rules in general, but they lack many common sense exceptions. Like, what if you were in a warehouse shooting at the drone? It can't reasonably fly away but that would still be a violation. I have heard they are working on this and a bunch of other issues with treating quad-copters like real airplanes. Part 107 isn't that hard and is worth doing especially for someone that uses a camera as much as you do. Drones can really add a lot of perspective and its hard to really appreciate until you actually have it.
Could you simulate shooting a drone by having a drone, or something like it, mounted on a post and have someone drive you around as yo try and shoot it? That should avoid all those legal issues and should be analogous enough.
Good and informative video. Because weaponized drones are going to be a “thing” on the future battlefield, I’d expect purpose built shotguns and ammunition to deal with this threat. Something like a semi automatic shotgun with a detachable magazine and loaded with #5 or #6 buckshot would be very effective against commercial drones. You used what was commercially available (turkey loads) but I could see the U.S. Army placing a large order for purpose made shotgun shells. In that case, they could order whatever shot/load/size combination they wanted.
cross the border to Canada, our drone laws are wildly lax (other than privacy stuff) compared to the US, just a bit of paperwork to bring a gun across or I’m sure someone can lend you one
There would be no point in using steel shot. Steel shot loses velocity much faster than lead due to its lower density. It literally only exists because of environmental regulations, and offers no performance benefit. A mix of #4 Buck and 5 or 6 lead shot would probably be fantastic though.
They issue with drones is detecting it. I fly drones a lot and i have trouble finding it at 50 feet high and rarely can anyone see it over head. By the time you see it shooting down a flying bomb will likely still be bad for you.
Shooting the drone down being equivalent to attacking a manned aircraft is stupid, but it is not a lengthy or challenging process to get a commercial drone license. Watched a couple free YT study guides, took a few free online practice tests, passed the test (albiet with a $150 fee to take it) the first time and the license is good for two years. It was 5 bucks to register the drone, and they send you a license card so you can prove you have one.
When combat drones are cheaper than the infantry's rifle. Shotguns are the obvious choice, but I can see that it could be quite difficult to land hits, since drones are _highly_ manoeuvrable. If the drone pilot flies evasively, I would expect them to be much harder to hit than birds or clays flying in a straight line.
It seems high rate of fire shotguns would be effective at anti-drone. Straight up volume of fire, just like in early WWII. On the other hand, again similar to WWII, maybe prox-fuse shotgun shells? I don't know if the explosive mass would be large enough to neutralize a drone, but it's an idea. Also don't know how "legal" it would be, being an explosive projectile fire from small arm.
The payload on the drone doesn't have to be "safe". It could have hairpin trigger characteristics. If something goes wrong it's the loss of a drone. Who cares? So, 44 metersish doesn't sound as a safe distance... A drone approaching you might very well be destroyed and end up where you're standing. A big enough payload (12 cm mortar round with a tampered trigger might kill you if you set it off at that distance). I think the weapon needs to reach out much farther than what a shotgun can reach. But that's what I'm thinking.
Brother we just set up a shotgun for this exact purpose. Thank you for addressing this because it was truly a serious niche where nobody was really talking about it. There WILL be a threat of drone terror as these things become ubiquitous, and we are only seeing the start of it. Anything not shielded by an anti drone tech system and AA will be swarmed and unlivable for infantry on some battlefields. Like fighting explosive bees. For the squad level I choose a mag fed 12ga with a launcher. Not a good primary, but a great utility.
Agreed. Funny this video comes out now as I just bought a shotgun this past weekend for both survival hunting and drone defense. The federal premium blackcloud 3in magnum #4 steel shot 1450fps did great. Compared to 7.5 and 8 bird shot, it had more pellets penetrate further. It also had flight control wads and was about $1 per round. So not outrageously expensive like the tungsten
Hahaha, clicked on this one to warn you that shooting down drones with a shotgun on your ranch is legally considered trying to down an aircraft :D Glad you watch CivDiv-- that's a cool channel. Just a reminder with regard to "civil unrest"-- you can be damn sure that if you shoot down a drone belonging to some federal agency, they will come try and throw you in prison for the rest of eternity. Also it's really funny watching the history of military aviation begin again: "Hey we have a flying thing, we could use it to spot enemies! --> Hey what if we dropped grenades from the flying things? --> These grenade droppers are frustrating: we need a flying thing that shoots down other flying things." One thing that's different about drones is that lots of these things are really small: it would be really funny to see someone specialize in training raptors to engage and destroy them :)
One thing I did not catch you mentioning. You're talking about shooting 50 yards, or 150 ft. The maximum legal altitude for a drone is 400 ft. That being more than twice the height that you're talking about shooting one. Now I realize that in a situation of war, legal altitude is not an issue. Drones can fly at thousands of feet. Even at 400 ft, except for the larger drones, you would have trouble seeing it or even hearing it. Much less being able to shoot it. I do thank you for mentioning the illegality of shooting a drone under normal circumstances. The video I watched before this video they were shooting the drone. And filming it. Those idiots stand a very high chance of the FAA seeing it. I hope they like the fines and the prison time..
My instant thought on what load was number 7 steel shot. Through personal witness as well watching a few guerilla channels, magnum loads of between 5 and 7 shot work well, and I imagine from personal use steel shot would be more likely to break the brittle plastic and down a drone with less pellets having to impact, increasing the likelihood of success. I have heard a few companies have been testing drone loads that are basically fancy turkey loads. Just like breaching rounds, there's always a civilian equivalent
When I was deployed in 2020 the Air Force security forces had an anti drone gun. It would send radio waves to the drone and jam the signal. I can’t remember the exact terminology but it look like a prop from a 1980s sci-fi movie.
French military picked the Benelli supernova pump action in 12ga with 3.5" and three barrel lengths 14.5",19"and 28" the 28" one is for anti-drone use now i agree with the use of turkey loads but water fowl loads are b,bb,bbb,t,tt,ttt,f ff,fff? If i remember my shot charts and buckshot up to #4 buck will work and be cheaper to get a hold of. Now target's the navy in ww2 used kites for AAA practice you can use balloons and also good ole clay pigeons. Hope it helps.
Something to point out for testing purposes. Just make some targets out of cheap plastic rotors used on drones, so you can put some rotors on an X made of hangars or whatever and see if the various shot loads have a serious difference in effect against those rotors. Should be relatively cheap as compared to shooting drones and even if this can be defeated by sufficiently armored drones/blades they are now nolonger cheap and sacrificial drones but more expensive weapon systems that need to be maintained and you can then fall back to more classic anti-aircraft weapons in a cost effective manner.
8 years ago rotor riot did a test with off the shelf racing quadcopters (so not 1:1 a grenade drone) and trying not to get shot and the outcome seemed to be hit the props, motors, main electronics or battery as a 9mm(I think) hit to the frame just knocked it about unless it caught said parts,
Proximity fuse + metal mesh net covered in sticky goo. You don't need to penetrate the drone, just tangle it enough that it can no longer fly. You could fire it out of a device like a flair gun, and give one to every soldier. The terminal velocity of the metal mesh net would be low enough to be safe to use over crowds, if fired upwards.
8:04 Drone laws in this country are beyond moronic. One would think that the government would be actively encouraging drone tests considering the circumstances. Sadly, there are too many with too much control in positions of power willing to take away Freedoms for Safety. Benjamin Franklin- "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
There's starting to be screw-in choke/compensator/muzzlebreak combos that can match Federal Flight Control groupings with cheap ammo. (Buck Kicker is one brand, but there are others). They can get better than full choke patterns. This is an option I intend to experiment with myself.
A few years ago I saw an video on an airport using gyrfalcons to do this to recreational drones. Problem with that in a military environment is training a large bird to get blown up by the first drone it hits is not cost effective. Drones are so much faster now too.
It seems to me that countering drones is one among many reasons to have a shotgun in the modern squad. Need to clear a trench? Shotgun. Breach a door? Shotgun. Room to room fighting? Shotgun. Maybe not as a primary, maybe one guy has it slung over his shoulder...
Over on James Reeves channel he recently did a review of the shotgun Ukraine is buying for drone defense, I commented number 7 tungsten would be the load. Also the TGS Outdoors channel over in England did a review of Aimpoint's new shotgun rib red dot with favorable results. What if you just put drone carcasses out out at 50, 60, 70 and 80 yards to see penetration of the components?
It is likely legal to shoot down balloons and kites. You could use a balloon on a tether to carry a mockup of a drone. Best defense against drones would be some sort of portable radar and you own drone that you crash into the armed drone.
There is significant documentation of units carrying shotguns as drone protection. The problem is when an FPV racing drone is coming in at 70+ mph, even a shotgun is tough to hit it with
drone is mostly plastic. even one piece of birdshot could knock it out and you probably have very little time to aim properly anyways, so good spread is good. potentially. as long as its consistent and carries enough energy to punch through plastic. also, would a vog or grenade detonate when hit with bird shot? that video would be super interesting to watch. also, no need to shoot at actual drone, as you said with proliferation of the 3d printing - printout a few drone shaped targets with similar thickness and shoot at it. You could potentially tow it with another drone (on a string long enough to keep the real drone out of the harms way)
As an RC vehicle enthusiast I will say that in most cases those quad copter drones are a very big balancing act. If you even partially destroy one of those rotars it will be hard to move it around at best. Especially with the cheap ones if a piece of shot hits it pretty much anywhere it isn't going to be functioning properly. Birdshot wouldn't be ideal but if any of those pieces goes through anything it's toast
Bird disruptors shells are basically shotgun fired firecrackers. If you are serious about drone point defense this may be a way to proceed. A full auto, long barrel, magazine feed shotgun with self detonating (50 yards) rounds. These rds could spread pellets in a circular pattern or a forward facing cone. The magazine can be loaded with both self det. and turkey loads.
Before watching the full vid I see you've got some TSS on the table. I've thought the same thing in regards to drones. *Edit* After watching the full vid and reading a lot of comments it's clear that a large portion of people don't clearly comprehend what TSS (Tungsten Super Shot) is. TSS is a mostly tungsten alloy shot. The density of tungsten is on par with gold and uranium. In short you are able to drop pellet size, get more pellets per shell, increasing pattern density, increasing the chance of hitting a critical component of a drone. All while having better range and energy compared to lead. Speaking of TSS I argue that that the T shot or BB rounds of TSS are a more deadly self defense round then your basic 00 buck. Price is ridiculous sadly.
Appreciate the video! Here are some important considerations: these small commercial zones are quite fragile, which would likely be taken down more easily than you suggest. Therefore, the widest spread and the most pellets down-range would be preferred over tight and heavy shots, correct?
To work around the legalities, could you mount the drone to a frame as a target, shoot at the drone target not in flight, then test if the drone was capable of taking flight again, and not using any footage taken by the drone?
I wonder if you'd be able to shoot it while it's just sitting on the ground and then see if it'll take off. Not exactly the same as trying to engage it in flight, but at least you could test the effectiveness of birdshot and so forth.
Benelli has built a dedicated semi-automatic M4 shotgun, using No4 shot and a RDS.
This is *exactly* what we recommended in this video.
armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/army-news-2024/benelli-introduce-new-rifle-as-solution-against-uav-during-battle
You could put the drone on a pole and shoot it to determine effects of different loads. The drone would not be in flight, so the FAA should have no concerns.
Pepper brand new propellers at distance, attach them to a drone to see if it's still capable of flight.
A fifty yard pole?
@@737215 you could even just shot a powered down drone on a pole then try and turn it on.
I think an even better idea would be hanging it with fishing line from a tree or something so the pole doesn't block shots also it would be easier to set up.
@@storebrandpeas5413 you can put the drone on top of a target and just flip it sideways...
Karl, a clay shooter & hunter here. You might want to look at steel shot. It has a higher initial velocity (doesn't squash like lead), and being less dense you get a lot more pellets per oz - about half as much again. Granted the velocity drops off faster, but if you're after the drone blades they'll provide the collision speed even if you just dropped steel shot on them. Steel is hard, and it'll knock a duck out of the sky at 50 yds. Caveats: Steel-rated barrel, obviously, and pinging steel shot off a steel plate is bad karma.
I fly drones and I have a license. I can tell you the loss of a single propeller will cause a traditional quad drone to crash. Striking a leaf, a small twig, will cause some very light damage to the prop requiring replacement upon landing. In theory, even the lightest bird shot should do more damage than that and damage the prop to the point the drone drops (though uncontrollably).
Two thoughts:
1. I wonder if you could shoot a propeller at 50 - 100 meters, then install it on a drone to see if it will be capable of flight. If you do not post any video FROM the drone’s camera, you MAY be able to post footage of it attempting takeoff. Issue here is that we are attempting to fly a vehicle that will likely be unable to operate safely. If it’s under 150 grams and we don’t use its footage commercially, we don’t need a license. The rules MAY be different enough to allow this.
2. Look into RC flying aircraft. I’m unfamiliar with the rules here but I do recall seeing them at machine gun shoots. Go with a small helicopter design, and any damage resulting in a crash would likely do the same to a quadcopter.
Anyhow, you guys have been onto something with the WWSD AR and now this. Shotguns would be easier to field than the missile systems that keep getting researched by the MIC when we’re talking small commercial drones. I could go on and on here, but I think there’s just one more thing. There’s likely to be a maximum height these drones can operate within while still allowing accurate recon. You’re looking through the drone camera on a phone, tablet, or FPV googles. If we figure that out, then the range/spread of the ammunition might be the biggest factor.
It's funny that a 1897 winchester shotgun could have an application in war again
Having hunted waterfowl my whole life, my uneducated anti-drone opinion would be #4 buckshot, which is similar to what we use (T or F steel shot) when we hunt geese. I'd also go with a made for purpose waterfowl shotgun, 24 inch or larger barrel 3.5 inch chamber.
3.5" imo is very important. More payload more better
Yes, a 28"-34" sporting semi-auto with an extended tube magazine would be a better choice than an 18" Benelli M4 or Beretta 1301.
@@edenironworks2@edenironworks2 I have shot many game birds out of the air with everything from a .410 to a 10ga 3.5, but it is one case where "manumits" actually have results in the field based only on my observations.
Eeee, 24" or longer, a UK-legal shotgun! Finally, we know why they insisted on that rule. They were _planning._
I would think at that distance a heavy waterfowl load be it steel or whatever would work.
One thing to note is that the FAA does not regulate flying in indoor spaces, even just a roof puts a space outside the national airspace system, so if you wanted to do such a test at an indoor range or other covered space it would not be something the FAA regulates.
Torsten Heinrich, a historian and host of Military & History is located in Panama and has a Shotgun vs. Drones Video coming up on his second channel soon.
Achtung, Deutsche antreten!
Personal recommendation for the drone shootdown test. Suspend the drone via wire off a tall object or dedicated test stand and engage. Test off camera (we trust you) to see if the drone is flyable still. Great video, cheers!
They could just shoot an old iPad or something like that and see whether it still turns on.
Great timing. Couple days ago I've read recent news from soldiers that russian army started buying VEPR-12's for shooting drones. Soldiers work in pairs: one with "anti-drone gun" stops drone and holds it in place and then second with shotgun shoots it from safe distance.
Shotguns are also useful for neutralising small mines like "leaf-mines".
The anti-drone gun is crucial to this and the team has to be actively looking for drones because in any other scenario the reaction time is just not fast enough to go through all the motions before the prick with the joystick pushes the button.
There was a case here in NZ not long ago when a farmer noticed a drone flying around his house, he came outside and shot it down with a shotgun, threw it in the trash. Told the police and it ended up in the media. Police said he had a right to shoot it down and left it at that. America is the land of the free though, definitely totally free
Shoot a non moving drone from the bottom then see if it will turn on and fly. OR, ask one of your friends in Mexico to preform the test. I'm sure it would be filmed on a potato but it would still be cool.
What if you were to tie a few balloons to a drone, float it to 50 meters, and then shoot at it?
"non functional drone replica" isnt an aircraft...
Or kite. It might matter legally if the target was tethered, not free-flying.
How about Balloons tie to a 3d printed drone replicant and tie to a RC car.
It doesn't need to be a drone. How about a dinner plate?
But if it comes down and lands on you what about the explosive?
There are also drones watching the area from a higher altitude.
You've never dealt with the FAA, have you? They make the IRS and ATF look easy to negotiate with.
I would be willing to bet an irresponsible amount of money that the FAA classified drones as aircraft (and entitled them to the legal protection thereof) is to protect police surveillance equipment.
A high speed propeller will quickly and catastrophically disintegrate with even a little damage.
My guess is that the bird shot would do a lot better than we might assume.
I fly rockets and at those speeds and g forces, the slightest weakness in any of your parts can cause a “sudden, unscheduled disassembly” of your vehicle.
IMHO, for the various sizes, types etc, #4 buckshot, or BB shot would be better, to ensure both pattern density sufficient to hit it, and do damage to the fragile vehicle? :)
Most fpv drones like the ones being used in Ukraine can sustain more damage than you think.
@@Tw1dg1t good to know
I would have thought the velocity drop off curve for birdshot would make getting enough range seriously difficult. Mass helps retain momentum after all.
bomber drones cheaper than groceries? sounds like the final form of the american dream
and huge legal hassle to keep people from trying to do any real science about drone warfare. my spider sense is tingling
No, it means $200 groceries. Thanks Brandon!
@@Shep01 Humans driving? Not in all cases anymore - for example the long range oil refinery hits are done with autonomously navigating and flying drones. Target acquisition? For now, in the war for Ukraine, yes. (as far as we know)
@4:37 almost any damage to a drone prop causes instant, unrecoverable, loss off control. The baldes readily shatter, and vibration at their prop rpm is catastrophic.
Do you have any footage of such a failure? And is that all props or just cheaper plastic?
Maybe an equivalent test would be to do skeet shooting at longer ranges? Move the clay thrower 5 yards at a time away form you and see at what range you can still get effective shots on them?
Like that idea a lot. This would be very interesting.
In the Netherlands, they have anti-drone hawks that are trained to take them down. How cool would it be to have a dedicated falconer in your squat?
One problem with using a shotgun, and trust me they are better than nothing, is that even if you hit the drone it still explodes, and is still close enough to catch you with frag.
On funker530 there are a number of videos of attacking drones getting shot, exploding, and still causing casualties. One of the worse ones was a drone carrying a directional explosive. Must have been 20 meters away, and still starched both of the soldiers.
Those drone videos are brutal. Plus it must be terrifying to hear the buzzing around you.
it's the difference between shooting at a drone to defend and armored vehicle, which means you have to be outside said vehicle, and shooting at drones to defend yourself when you're not near armored vehicles and the drone is dropping anti personnel grenades on you
Some combination of an automated detection system with a semi automatic shotgun. Combining audio, visual, perhaps LIDAR for fine targeting. Of course this woukd require a vehicle to carry, but any vehicle, even a quad woukd do.
The problem with jamming is with cheap phone processors you can program in object detection. Lock on while outside jamming or detection range, and ride in GOT style. Or mix old with new and have a second drone outside of the jamming envelope lasing the target & program a beam rider.
Ya, you'd have to catch the drone before it's above you to help with a grenade dropper at all, so this seems more like anti-surveillance than anything else.
... and I guess if you reach a stalemate, that's at least some of your friends safe from the same drone. As cold a comfort as that is
The drone might well go off, but I'd rather one went off 50 yds away than right next to me.
My first thought is something like #4 buckshot. I don't trust the tiny birdshot to do adequate damage. #4 buckshot is the equivalent of a large magazine from a .22 rifle and I trust those pellets to break the drone when they hit it.
I think it possibly would be legal to do inside, which is outside of FAA jurisdiction. A big barn or warehouse might work.
Someone already mentioned using balloons. You could make a mockup of a drone, even if it was just a cardboard box of similar size, suspend it on a few balloons, and tether it with a kite string. That way you could even have someone drag it around for movement, or otherwise just shoot your target, bring the line down, anchor another target and send it up again. It would be a bit of a more involved process, but you could get creative with it.
If you know anyone with a 3D printer, they might even be able to print a drone shaped shell or silhouette for a target. There're plenty of potential ways to get some sort of useful data.
Finally justifies the price of TSS flitecontrol flex
nothing justifies the price of TSS. bismuth is good enough.
As an unsuccessful (pressured) public land hunter only, I finally found a use for my unused TSS I pad 10 bucks a round for 🤣
@@groomersgotohell if only we could get the flitecontrol and FC flex wads as a reloading component...we could buy TSS by the kilo and load them alot cheaper than 13 bucks a peice.
@@tylerzmistowski5867 There's a reason they don't want to sell the wads made for tungsten. $$$
I literally said last week that trap shooting would have no real world application.
Turns out that was, it has actual real world use as a training sport.
The government protections seem to speak volumes.
"It's so easy that it's illegal"
Ryan Mcbeth, I believe, covered this subject. I honestly would love to see you two have a lengthy conversation about it. Great video as always!
I do think the twocharacters would have an interesting day doing that.
have you thought about using an r/c car as a drone substitute? While not perfect it may be similar enough to get an idea. Plus if you wanted to put a propeller decoration on your toy car that's just a fun decoration like a pinwheel on a bike.
Thats not a bad idea- be easier in winter, using a pusher prop sled. Problem- need someone to make a bunch of the silly things.
The irony of this post is funny to me I just patterned my turkey gun if you run a turkey choke it makes a big difference plus 3 1/2 turkey loads are like mortar shells you can get alot of distance out of them also look into #4 buckshot you really got my mind working now thank you so much for the content you provide I always enjoy it thanks Karl!
I use 4 shot for turkey, and have never been disappointed. It has never failed out to beyond 50 yds.
Also, if you can hit a clay, you can hit a drone. Also, RC cars? Legal to shoot them? If so, it would be similar to a drone in structure. If you can kill an RC car(or similar) you can kill a drone.
Carl, I just got home from from a long exhausting work day, I see this video pop up and realizing I have a backlog of InRange videos to enjoy.
This is just what I needed right now! Been a long time watcher, and your content and personality has helped me through several rough periods of medical problems in the past.
Much love from Sweden, never stop rocking brother
Buck Kicker makes chokes that give standard wads similar performance to Winchester Flight Control wads, and they're available in full choke spec. Not magic, but they give your loads some extra reach.
Also, I think that a lot of the drone drops are done from altitudes greater than 50yds/m and would render shotguns ineffective, though that can also vary on the skill level of the operators. A veteran operator from a UAF unit like Magyar's Birds could probably drop a grenade on you from 300-500ft altitude with lethality, while a noobie who's barely learned how to fly a drone without crashing it on take off will need to fly a lot closer.
They make a choke for the longbeard that gives you a decent pattern out to around 60-70 yards supposedly.
Shooting down grenades with shotguns during WW1 is a myth that was propagated by advertising and propaganda, not reality:
ua-cam.com/video/hEt3FgUApkg/v-deo.html
No but shooting down carrier pigeons was a reality and did happen.
@@BigMakBattleBlog The range is why he is suggesting TSS shot. Are TSS loaded shells even a thing you or the enemy would have access to over there?
@@BigMakBattleBlog Any chance that multiple people shooting at it with their rifles in tandem is of any better effectiveness in your experience, as it starts hovering? Or someone with a scoped full power rifle being more effective for drone defense (again as it’s not moving around much)?
I've got one funny idea for your drone shooting work: Get some big helium balloons and float up some drone parts to shoot at. A tethered balloon could hold enough important bits to show what your shot does at vertical distance. It might be possible to float two balloons with diagonal tethers so you could hang a laundry line of parts to shoot between the balloons which would give you more shots per balloon.
Well if You thinks drone is pricey (which it is) so better 3Dprint a mockup of a drone, hook it with a real on e and 20 yards of rope, and then shoot thoose mocups,
they also can be filled with parts of dead HDD ans so like stuff to measure damage to drone internals
also bring a blunderbus and a duck-cannon to work
With the way technology is advancing, these drones are going to be able to drop munitions with much greater accuracy from far higher than a rifle (let alone a shotgun) could ever hope to hit. These cheap commercial drones can already function well outside a shotgun or puntguns effective range for surveillance and can go much higher than people realize. Staying under 400 feet is an FAA regulation for safety, not a limit of the technology or legal constraint for the battlefield like the Geneva Convention. It's going to take other weapons technologies to actually deal with these in a cost effective manner. Maybe puntguns could serve as point defense against a swarm of drones trying to ram a target, but even then, there are likely better technologies to use.
Personally I think the Benelli M3 would be the perfect choice for a shotgun in this role, semi-automatic with the ability to change to pump if your loads aren't enough to cycle and somewhere around a 20in barrel with a full choke... I understand the want for the large 3in turkey loads that hit hard but honestly if all you need to do is clip the propellers then some high velocity trap loads I think would suffice? Shame that testing it has all these hoops to jump through 😅
Really interesting video. A few points: 1 thanks for not showing the actual deaths of people. Dropped munitions is enough, at least for me. I'm here to learn, not get off on war gore. 2: As others have said, some kind of suspended drone pinata -maybe not 50yds up, but off the ground 50yds out- would be a good penetration test target and not "flying". 3: There has GOT to be some country this is all totally legal and possible where we could set up this experiment. I know it would be expensive, but it would be supremely valuable information. Thanks y'all.
You can 3d print a drone shell and use disks to simulate a propeller arc, and balast the whole thing with a lead weight. Suspend it from a baloon by a 100 yd cord, and tether it to be 50 yds off the ground
Reddot for skeet is going to depend on the dot&the day. I gave in a tried another pistol dot sight, and it worked this time, kinda. If I had trees & shadow as a backdrop, I could see it on brightness "6". Against the grey shop, brightness "8". On the sky, I couldn't see it on max (11). It was a sunny ish day, but not nearly as bright as it will be june-sept here in Texas.
I love government bureaucracy. I feel so free. You have avoided a lengthy stay in federal prison.
Its not just in war zones that counter measures against drones are becoming more common as municipalities in the US are using them to search for zoning infractions!
use a long barrelled fowl gun 3 1/2" chamber & steel shot, but ANY shotgun is better than none at all as any damage to a drones rotors will bring it down.
Isak Finnbogason has flown his drones through lava fountains. One came back with damaged props from impacts on airborne red-hot rocks.
Steel shot is the last thing you'd want to use. Only reason anybody shoots it is because it's cheap and non toxic. Performance wise it's the worst.
As to needing a drone operators license contact a drone racer, they use the video from their drones for profit and would have all the needed licenses. They also have more knowledge of drones that would be advantageous for your project.
There may be a way to do what you want to film by doing so in specific places, or maybe even taking a small trip over the border with prior approval from the required parties. Again talk to the drone guys, they know far more than me.
So, on the legality of shooting drones... Obviously those laws are stupid. But, I do have another question/idea for testing that: What about shooting a grounded drone? What about a "drone analog", that's not flying (that's maybe even incapable of flying, like you've removed the props or the control computer or something)? At least, be able to legally test the damage these rounds do to the body of the drone, right? Sure, we wouldn't get data on whether it would actually knock the drone out of the sky, but... It would be better then nothing.
here in italy you can find hunderds of old but trusty beretta a300 and variants for as little as 50 euros and they are very reliable shotguns, semiautomatic, easy to maintain and in general loved while hunting. i would send those to ukraine, because i know for a fact that they would perform way better than those turkish shi-fi shotguns that simply are not up to the job, and cost more.
hell the franchi 48, a copy of the browning auto 5 with simplifyed mechanic, is sold for 25 euros.
Damn, I want to go to italy then. The A300 is like $1000 în the US
I like the idea, but I see a few issues:
1) The range of turkey loads is about 50 yards... when fired horizontally and gravity is only working against a portion of the projectile's speed. You're going to lose range by firing straight up.
2) 50 yards might be where they're currently dropping from, but far below the potential height. Drones can just fly higher in response. Would reduce accuracy, sure, but not what we're going for. That's a lot of extra weight to carry to be an inconvenience.
Bit of a shotgun nerd here, I think turkey loads are a great place to start. Other options would be higher performance pheasant ammunition. My first pick however would Hornady coyote ammo. They have a flite control type wad and use BB size lead shot. I agree the tungsten would be best but at $13 a shot it gets expensive to issue them widely enough.
Surely electronic jamming is the ideal way to protect against drones (assuming your side has the resources for it). I have a friend in the Navy who told me they have this backpack contraption they use while in port that disables drones that wander too close to the ship. I wonder how hard it would be to rig up some kind of high power and highly directional piece of jamming equipment with off the shelf resources.
I recently had this conversation with a few of my friends, they all went with turkey loads would be best but I propose heavy waterfowl loads of bb or larger would be ideal. I mostly look at it as if you have a drone busting shotgun that's your main weapon and bb or larger shot will still do quite a number on an enemy combatant inside of shotgun range (75 yards and in) and with the size of the shot you'd only really need one or two impacts to knock down a drone or at least severely damage it.
Tungsten is heavier, but you are going to have better luck with lead. You can run lead through a much much tigher choke. There are a lot of videos out there about this, and nobody is mentioning their choke tube.
Take this problem to your local duck hunters and they will tell you how to shoot down a cheap drone.
I feel like the standard birdshot would still be effective. Those drones are made of thin plastic and, like you said, it doesn't take a lot to destabilize them
Seen a few clips of Russians shooting crude FPV drones with shotguns. Not sure how much utility you'd get out of equipping standard militaries with dedicated shotguns though, all they'd have to do is replace those quadcopters with something faster like lancets.
that's how all arms vs countermeasure situations work
just because it's possible to design a weapon that the countermeasure doesn't work against, doesn't mean it's worthless.
Coming soon to a theatre near you, the under-barrel shotgun attachment for your rifle.
Then you have, with a relatively inexpensive action, forced the enemy to spend time and resources on an even more expensive workaround. That's a win.
@@Sableagle that was tested. A 12 gauge barrel with a cartridge already in it, you just put it in a standard GP-25 and it just works. The problem is that it's single-shot and the barrel is extremely short.
@@Fragtastikgold star award - you want to create a dilemma, not a problem.problems have solutions, dilemmas you must choose one which is as bad or worse than other
I'd quite like to see the bead vs red dot in trap/skeet shooting comparison you mentioned in the video. I've wondered if that would actually be a beneficial enough to use in competition
I think the minimal legal test would be taking individual parts (the prop is probably the easiest), suspending it with string and using that as a proxy. You might even be able to get parts that aren't technically for aircraft but are reasonably similar.
When I looked this up, there was another shell type called "skynet" rounds that have a net with weights on the outside that wraps around the drone like something from a cartoon. You can buy the 2.5 inch shells, and when I was looking at it France just bought 28" Benelli supernovas for this that can fire a 3.5 inch shell with a bigger net.
On another note I find it very interesting that they stack the laws to where it's almost like they do not want us to test being able to take out drones efficiently as citizens...
With drones likely to be a key part of a future economy, is that really surprising? You can't shoot mules just cause you want to either.
Hello Matt,
My first time to watch your channel. As a seventy six year-damn old retired toolmaker, former trap boy, and part time farmer, with a lifetime interest in shooting sports of nearly any flavor, I am scoring this video, as an A+.
Your presentation makes sense to an experienced, show me the numbers kind of guy. Sadly, most people discuss home defense weapons in roughly this order: 357, 9mm, and 12 gauge 00 buckshot. This demonstrates no new thoughts or reasoning.
I am so pleased to see your choice of ammo for this job. Turkey, goose, and duck loads are meant to throw shot a long way, without having holes, and having the pellet mass/ energy to cut feathers, and break bones, on their way to the heart and lungs. Shells loaded with grex or other buffering agents will produce better patters. This might make another program, with a pattern board. A single stage press set up for 3” hulls, small bags of various shot sizes, different wads, and some slowww burning powder, may bring new thoughts to the folks in the front row.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts on external ballistics, and the state of the union in these times.
No idea about the filming aspect but for the drone lethality test you can take a page out of the military's book and put a balloon or tennis ball on a string below the drone for a target to see if you can engage a small target that moves like a drone. Then to see if shot would work you can shoot at a drone on the ground at 50 yds. and see if it can still fly after.
FAA doesn't have any power over indoor flights either. All you need is a large enough indoor range and you can do this in the USA totally legally.
Drone blades are incredibly fragile, wouldn't bird shot be effective against those? you would only need to hit one blade.
I have a Part 107 and I'll explain the FAA's thinking. Simply put, damaging a drone like a DJI could cause it to "Fly away." A little DJI Mavic can fly at over 30 mph for a 30 minutes depending on environment. You may shoot at your drone on your property but that drone could fly thousands of feet straight up or over to the next town if damaged, They don't write per drone legislation so they have to err even longer and faster possible fly aways.
There are a lot reasons drones "Fly away" but for this test my concern would be damage to collision avoidance sensors. If one of those is damaged the drone may think it needs to avoid an obstacle and fly unpredictably. Those sensors can be disabled but other damage to the system could cause the same result.
I agree with the FAA on these rules in general, but they lack many common sense exceptions. Like, what if you were in a warehouse shooting at the drone? It can't reasonably fly away but that would still be a violation. I have heard they are working on this and a bunch of other issues with treating quad-copters like real airplanes.
Part 107 isn't that hard and is worth doing especially for someone that uses a camera as much as you do. Drones can really add a lot of perspective and its hard to really appreciate until you actually have it.
Could you simulate shooting a drone by having a drone, or something like it, mounted on a post and have someone drive you around as yo try and shoot it? That should avoid all those legal issues and should be analogous enough.
Good and informative video.
Because weaponized drones are going to be a “thing” on the future battlefield, I’d expect purpose built shotguns and ammunition to deal with this threat.
Something like a semi automatic shotgun with a detachable magazine and loaded with #5 or #6 buckshot would be very effective against commercial drones. You used what was commercially available (turkey loads) but I could see the U.S. Army placing a large order for purpose made shotgun shells. In that case, they could order whatever shot/load/size combination they wanted.
cross the border to Canada, our drone laws are wildly lax (other than privacy stuff) compared to the US, just a bit of paperwork to bring a gun across or I’m sure someone can lend you one
I think a mix of the cheap 3" steel shot and #4 buck would be good mix for drones and folks.
There would be no point in using steel shot. Steel shot loses velocity much faster than lead due to its lower density. It literally only exists because of environmental regulations, and offers no performance benefit. A mix of #4 Buck and 5 or 6 lead shot would probably be fantastic though.
@sethrich5998 Steel is less dense, but it's harder than lead for when they start making the props out of something harder than printed polymer.
They issue with drones is detecting it. I fly drones a lot and i have trouble finding it at 50 feet high and rarely can anyone see it over head. By the time you see it shooting down a flying bomb will likely still be bad for you.
There is an 8 year old video of rotor riot (before they sold out) doing a drone shooting range test with some police shooters and pro pilots
also @InrangeTv those FAA rules only apply inside the US. Most of us drone pilots travel to Mexico for filming once or twice a week 😉
Shooting the drone down being equivalent to attacking a manned aircraft is stupid, but it is not a lengthy or challenging process to get a commercial drone license. Watched a couple free YT study guides, took a few free online practice tests, passed the test (albiet with a $150 fee to take it) the first time and the license is good for two years. It was 5 bucks to register the drone, and they send you a license card so you can prove you have one.
When combat drones are cheaper than the infantry's rifle. Shotguns are the obvious choice, but I can see that it could be quite difficult to land hits, since drones are _highly_ manoeuvrable. If the drone pilot flies evasively, I would expect them to be much harder to hit than birds or clays flying in a straight line.
It seems high rate of fire shotguns would be effective at anti-drone. Straight up volume of fire, just like in early WWII.
On the other hand, again similar to WWII, maybe prox-fuse shotgun shells? I don't know if the explosive mass would be large enough to neutralize a drone, but it's an idea. Also don't know how "legal" it would be, being an explosive projectile fire from small arm.
Drones in Ru-Ua conflict are using machine vision now. Now algorithm decides who lives, who dies. Welcome to the future.
The payload on the drone doesn't have to be "safe". It could have hairpin trigger characteristics. If something goes wrong it's the loss of a drone. Who cares? So, 44 metersish doesn't sound as a safe distance... A drone approaching you might very well be destroyed and end up where you're standing. A big enough payload (12 cm mortar round with a tampered trigger might kill you if you set it off at that distance). I think the weapon needs to reach out much farther than what a shotgun can reach. But that's what I'm thinking.
Brother we just set up a shotgun for this exact purpose. Thank you for addressing this because it was truly a serious niche where nobody was really talking about it. There WILL be a threat of drone terror as these things become ubiquitous, and we are only seeing the start of it. Anything not shielded by an anti drone tech system and AA will be swarmed and unlivable for infantry on some battlefields. Like fighting explosive bees. For the squad level I choose a mag fed 12ga with a launcher. Not a good primary, but a great utility.
Agreed. Funny this video comes out now as I just bought a shotgun this past weekend for both survival hunting and drone defense. The federal premium blackcloud 3in magnum #4 steel shot 1450fps did great. Compared to 7.5 and 8 bird shot, it had more pellets penetrate further. It also had flight control wads and was about $1 per round. So not outrageously expensive like the tungsten
Hahaha, clicked on this one to warn you that shooting down drones with a shotgun on your ranch is legally considered trying to down an aircraft :D
Glad you watch CivDiv-- that's a cool channel.
Just a reminder with regard to "civil unrest"-- you can be damn sure that if you shoot down a drone belonging to some federal agency, they will come try and throw you in prison for the rest of eternity.
Also it's really funny watching the history of military aviation begin again: "Hey we have a flying thing, we could use it to spot enemies! --> Hey what if we dropped grenades from the flying things? --> These grenade droppers are frustrating: we need a flying thing that shoots down other flying things."
One thing that's different about drones is that lots of these things are really small: it would be really funny to see someone specialize in training raptors to engage and destroy them :)
One thing I did not catch you mentioning. You're talking about shooting 50 yards, or 150 ft. The maximum legal altitude for a drone is 400 ft. That being more than twice the height that you're talking about shooting one.
Now I realize that in a situation of war, legal altitude is not an issue. Drones can fly at thousands of feet. Even at 400 ft, except for the larger drones, you would have trouble seeing it or even hearing it. Much less being able to shoot it.
I do thank you for mentioning the illegality of shooting a drone under normal circumstances. The video I watched before this video they were shooting the drone. And filming it. Those idiots stand a very high chance of the FAA seeing it. I hope they like the fines and the prison time..
I think larger Tungsten shot would be the key. #2 or 3 TSS would give the shot enough range but still offer a decently dense pattern.
Would those cheap rc helicopters bypass the FAA restrictions even if they wouldnt be that accurate for testing?
For a "free" country, America sure has a lot of restrictions.
My instant thought on what load was number 7 steel shot. Through personal witness as well watching a few guerilla channels, magnum loads of between 5 and 7 shot work well, and I imagine from personal use steel shot would be more likely to break the brittle plastic and down a drone with less pellets having to impact, increasing the likelihood of success. I have heard a few companies have been testing drone loads that are basically fancy turkey loads. Just like breaching rounds, there's always a civilian equivalent
When I was deployed in 2020 the Air Force security forces had an anti drone gun. It would send radio waves to the drone and jam the signal. I can’t remember the exact terminology but it look like a prop from a 1980s sci-fi movie.
French military picked the Benelli supernova pump action in 12ga with 3.5" and three barrel lengths 14.5",19"and 28" the 28" one is for anti-drone use now i agree with the use of turkey loads but water fowl loads are b,bb,bbb,t,tt,ttt,f ff,fff? If i remember my shot charts and buckshot up to #4 buck will work and be cheaper to get a hold of. Now target's the navy in ww2 used kites for AAA practice you can use balloons and also good ole clay pigeons. Hope it helps.
Something to point out for testing purposes. Just make some targets out of cheap plastic rotors used on drones, so you can put some rotors on an X made of hangars or whatever and see if the various shot loads have a serious difference in effect against those rotors.
Should be relatively cheap as compared to shooting drones and even if this can be defeated by sufficiently armored drones/blades they are now nolonger cheap and sacrificial drones but more expensive weapon systems that need to be maintained and you can then fall back to more classic anti-aircraft weapons in a cost effective manner.
8 years ago rotor riot did a test with off the shelf racing quadcopters (so not 1:1 a grenade drone) and trying not to get shot and the outcome seemed to be hit the props, motors, main electronics or battery as a 9mm(I think) hit to the frame just knocked it about unless it caught said parts,
Proximity fuse + metal mesh net covered in sticky goo. You don't need to penetrate the drone, just tangle it enough that it can no longer fly. You could fire it out of a device like a flair gun, and give one to every soldier.
The terminal velocity of the metal mesh net would be low enough to be safe to use over crowds, if fired upwards.
Waterfowling/Goose hunting loads might be more effective.
I have so many ideas because of this video now 😁👍
8:04
Drone laws in this country are beyond moronic. One would think that the government would be actively encouraging drone tests considering the circumstances. Sadly, there are too many with too much control in positions of power willing to take away Freedoms for Safety.
Benjamin Franklin- "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
Look whose using drones
Government
There's starting to be screw-in choke/compensator/muzzlebreak combos that can match Federal Flight Control groupings with cheap ammo. (Buck Kicker is one brand, but there are others). They can get better than full choke patterns. This is an option I intend to experiment with myself.
Trained hawks or crows to tackle the drones
This is actually a sick idea lol, imagine modern militaries hiring/training falconers as part of a squad
A few years ago I saw an video on an airport using gyrfalcons to do this to recreational drones. Problem with that in a military environment is training a large bird to get blown up by the first drone it hits is not cost effective. Drones are so much faster now too.
Falcon Force😂 I'll start working on the emblem
Double BB ( edit I grew up in Minnesota goose hunting that's my context and my experience I have taken geese at 60+ yards.)
It seems to me that countering drones is one among many reasons to have a shotgun in the modern squad. Need to clear a trench? Shotgun. Breach a door? Shotgun. Room to room fighting? Shotgun. Maybe not as a primary, maybe one guy has it slung over his shoulder...
Over on James Reeves channel he recently did a review of the shotgun Ukraine is buying for drone defense, I commented number 7 tungsten would be the load. Also the TGS Outdoors channel over in England did a review of Aimpoint's new shotgun rib red dot with favorable results. What if you just put drone carcasses out out at 50, 60, 70 and 80 yards to see penetration of the components?
It is likely legal to shoot down balloons and kites. You could use a balloon on a tether to carry a mockup of a drone.
Best defense against drones would be some sort of portable radar and you own drone that you crash into the armed drone.
There is significant documentation of units carrying shotguns as drone protection. The problem is when an FPV racing drone is coming in at 70+ mph, even a shotgun is tough to hit it with
drone is mostly plastic. even one piece of birdshot could knock it out and you probably have very little time to aim properly anyways, so good spread is good. potentially. as long as its consistent and carries enough energy to punch through plastic. also, would a vog or grenade detonate when hit with bird shot? that video would be super interesting to watch. also, no need to shoot at actual drone, as you said with proliferation of the 3d printing - printout a few drone shaped targets with similar thickness and shoot at it. You could potentially tow it with another drone (on a string long enough to keep the real drone out of the harms way)
As an RC vehicle enthusiast I will say that in most cases those quad copter drones are a very big balancing act. If you even partially destroy one of those rotars it will be hard to move it around at best. Especially with the cheap ones if a piece of shot hits it pretty much anywhere it isn't going to be functioning properly. Birdshot wouldn't be ideal but if any of those pieces goes through anything it's toast
Bird disruptors shells are basically shotgun fired firecrackers. If you are serious about drone point defense this may be a way to proceed. A full auto, long barrel, magazine feed shotgun with self detonating (50 yards) rounds. These rds could spread pellets in a circular pattern or a forward facing cone. The magazine can be loaded with both self det. and turkey loads.
Before watching the full vid I see you've got some TSS on the table. I've thought the same thing in regards to drones.
*Edit* After watching the full vid and reading a lot of comments it's clear that a large portion of people don't clearly comprehend what TSS (Tungsten Super Shot) is. TSS is a mostly tungsten alloy shot. The density of tungsten is on par with gold and uranium. In short you are able to drop pellet size, get more pellets per shell, increasing pattern density, increasing the chance of hitting a critical component of a drone. All while having better range and energy compared to lead.
Speaking of TSS I argue that that the T shot or BB rounds of TSS are a more deadly self defense round then your basic 00 buck.
Price is ridiculous sadly.
Appreciate the video! Here are some important considerations: these small commercial zones are quite fragile, which would likely be taken down more easily than you suggest. Therefore, the widest spread and the most pellets down-range would be preferred over tight and heavy shots, correct?
To work around the legalities, could you mount the drone to a frame as a target, shoot at the drone target not in flight, then test if the drone was capable of taking flight again, and not using any footage taken by the drone?
I wonder if you'd be able to shoot it while it's just sitting on the ground and then see if it'll take off. Not exactly the same as trying to engage it in flight, but at least you could test the effectiveness of birdshot and so forth.