Many topics I cover here start out as some particularly asinine discussion I see on various forums. Typically, it is some mall ninja explaining how the minimum home defense gun he is willing to consider is a semi-auto 308 with a 20" barrel for better ballistics, the latest LPVO, flashlight, at least two different lasers, NODs, thermal, radio to communicate with his buddies, etc. From there on, it is usually a discussion of who has the bigger home degense gun.
I am far from an expert on home defense, but I look at these discussions with some incredulity. None of these people have ever woken up at 3AM in the night to an odd noise. None of them have ever cleared a house in the dark. None of them have ever used a firearm for anything other than plinking at the range or showing off to his buddies. Now, I do not want to sound disparaging. It is their money and they can spend it whichever way they see fit. If you have a rural homestead to defend, perhaps the situation is a little different.
However, let's face it: we are not going to be shooting anyone from 300 yards away in self defense any time soon (unless the zombie apocalypse arrives, but that's a separate conversation). Home defense, for most people, usually means keeping your family safe in your house in an urban/suburban environment. It seems that too many people live in fantasy land when they will wake up at 3AM, put on their body armor, ballistic helmet with NODs, grab their 15lbs rifle with eleven gadgets on it, fire up support drones, coordinate with all their buddies vis morse code and go to war.
We live in an exceedingly civilized world that is going through some disturbign perturbations and my personal situation is such that I should revisit this topic regularly and train a bit more than I have in the past. That's a story for another day. In the meantime, all I want is something that is ready to go quickly, that works in all ighting conditions, that won't go through my house and three of my neighbor houses and that is small enough to maneuver inside a normal home. This last reason is why I am dubious about shotguns in this role. I have my pump gun set up just in case, but that's not what I am going for indoors.
I have my share of general purpose ARs and AKs that are set up for a little bit of everything. I fully expect to never need any of these for anything other than occasional shooting class. However, that is not what I have set up as a home defense gun.
I live in a very suburban area. My take on a home defense gun is pretty simple. There are two firearms set up: a conventional handgun (Glock 48 MOS https://bit.ly/47S0Dm0 in my case) and a AR-15 pistol (Honeybadger Pistol https://bit.ly/3TAu5J9 in my case). Both are loaded with subsonic ammo and expanding bullets. Both are set-up with suppressors. I have other people in the house (wife and kids). I have to retain my ability to hear, best I can. Now, all in, this is a fairly expensive way to go. However, I did not get it all done overnight and the important part here is the concept. This can be done pretty well for a lot less money too.
The handgun has a Streamlight TLR-7 Sub flashlight on it (https://bit.ly/3tdQH7l), Shield RMSc https://bit.ly/3Tjvd3x red dot sight and cowitnessed irons. That's the same exact setup as my primary carry gun. I like redundancy and commonality, so I have a couple of them.
The AR has a Mepro MOR Pro https://bit.ly/41fvt5r on it, which gives me an "always-on" red dot sight, vis laser and IR laser in one package. I fully intend to never need the IR laser for anything other than occasional training. Vis laser does give me a little bit of redundancy. For playing at the range, I sometimes put a magnifier on there. When I get home, I yank it off. SImilarly, for training purposes, I often setup my Photonis PD Pro 16m monocular behind the optic. However, for home defense purposes, I yank it off. If I had a larger property to consider, maybe I would keep it on the gun.
Indoors, my house is set up in such a way, that NODs are not necessary. I have sufficient night lighting in all the important spots to be able to see exactly what is happening. If I want more light... that's what flashlights are for.
One of the really important things for me is to have a minimal amount of stuff to mess with when under stress. I know I do not train enough. I know I need to minimize reliance on fine motor skills. Both of my home defense guns are set up in such away that under nearly all circumstances, I do not need to press any buttons to turn anything on. I can focus on figuring out what I am dealing with. The flashlight (Inforce WMLx https://bit.ly/3NiroHS for the time being, but I am considering other options that would mount to my M-Lok handguard more cleanly) and the laser in the MOR Pro are obviosuly button activated, but those buttons happen to be right where my support hand ends up on the handguard.
Indoors and at night, magnification is not your friend. Mild astigmatism does not matter. The dot does not have to be perfectly round at across the room distances. You want reliability, redunduncy and ease of use. I have experimented with the Mepro MOR Pro, Vortex UH-1 https://bit.ly/46QKGv5, Shield SIS https://bit.ly/46RR0SQ and a few others in this role. They all worked fine. UH-1, being a holographic, needs more frequent battery checks, but that is largely it. I would prefer something that is on when you grab it. With UH-1, you need to press a button, but it is a pretty large button.
The one thing that is important for me is a supplementary sighting system of some sort. On some guns, I use XS SIghts' offset XTI irons. On others, I add an auxiliary laser. I generally prefer passive sighting systems. That's why I am considering swapping out the Inforce flashlight for CT's CMR-301 https://bit.ly/3Rjtbh8. I have a couple of them and they have worked well for me. More improtantly, CMR-301 has both a light and a laser. MOR Pro runs off of two AA batteries. If one dies, it can run on another. CMR-301 gives me one more laser running off of a completely different battery.
One of the reasons, I ended up with the setup I have is simply that I was putting somethign together largely out of th epieces I already had for whatever reason.
If I were starting from scratch and kept an eye on the budget (and I might put together something like this for the heck of it), I'd probably just use any reliable 300BLK pistol, PA's SLX Gen2 with Autolive RDS https://bit.ly/4850rzm, CMR-301 light/laser https://bit.ly/3Rjtbh8 and offset XTI irons https://bit.ly/41GaJE1
These three items would set me back about $600 in addition to the price of the gun and the suppressor. Don't get me wrong, if your budget supports the HoneyBadger, you will not regret it. However, there are other options.
You can pick up the gun for about $600 too: https://bit.ly/3uM9Hdo
WIth suppressors, if you do not have one, there is a ton of options and long wait times. For somewhat affordable silencers, I kinda like YHM. I have a couple of cans from them that seem to work well. For subsonic blackout, I'd probaly lean toward the Resonator K for around $550 plus a $200 tax stamp https://bit.ly/3RentNv
Altogether, this would come out to right around $2k with taxes and shipping of variou pieces. Mayeb a touch more with FFL fees. That is still an appreciable amount of money, but you can build a couple of these what a Honey Badger with Trash Panda suppressor, MOR Pro and a good flashlight will cost you.
Note, that nowhere here did I talk about shooting the itrnuder's left testicle from 600 yards away. I like fantasies as much as the next guy and I ahve the gun collection to prove it. However, for home defense uses, we have to set war games aside and remain rooted in reality.
Edited to add: handheld flashlight is something I should have mentioned earlier (@wolfward, thanks for bringing it up). I use Surefire's E2T. I like a momentary on tail cap without clicks. https://bit.ly/47OTl2w
This is a lot of stuff to put onto a short handguard, but it seems to fit well enough.
