At the very end of an impressive row of firearms that terminated right behind the cashier sat an odd and lonely little double-barrel scattergun. It looked out of place in terms of both size and technology, just a relatively small amalgamation of blued steel and walnut, its price tag dangling from a white string tied to the trigger guard. I smiled.
“May I see the coach gun?” I asked the clerk manning the register.
“No,” he said, inexplicably arching his brows. He’d been friendly and accommodating until then, so I was briefly taken aback by his refusal. I guess he must’ve sized me up as a good guy, though, because—after quickly glancing around—he leaned forward and conspiratorially whispered “That’s the store gun, and it’s loaded.”
Genius. They had hidden their primary defensive tool in plain sight just by affixing a price tag to it and setting it next to all the other long guns. Although each employee carried a sidearm, whoever was on the cash register also had immediate access to two blasts of buckshot from what a crook would assume was an empty gun.
It also meant that, among this vast array of advanced, consumer firearms, a little 19th-century-style coach gun offered the best combination of compactness, handling, reliability, simplicity and power to initiate defense of the store and its employees.
Heritage Manufacturing’s new Coachwhip is an extraordinarily handsome rendering of a coach gun. With a Prince-of-Wales grip, splinter fore-end, black-chromed barrels and case-colored receiver, hammers, trigger guard and double triggers, it’s a looker. Of course, looks alone won’t carry the day in a fight—but twin 3-inch, 12-gauge chambers will.
Once you stipulate to the gun lacking firepower, it is otherwise easy to champion the virtues of a coach gun as a defensive arm. First and foremost, it’s a 12-gauge shotgun, long the gold standard of short-range, defensive longarms. But, the other thing about a coach gun is that it’s almost foolproof for those first two shots because there is no cycling. You load the chambers directly; the shells are already in there and await only the fall of the hammers for ignition of the primers.
Hinge the buttstock on your shoulder, angling down the 18.5-inch barrels to the low-ready when moving (especially around corners), then quickly lever up the gun, if and when needed. If you have to maneuver indoors, there are few longarms that can do it as well, and no pistol can match the muzzle energy of those two loads of buckshot.
The Coachwhip has barrels long enough to avoid NFA restrictions on short-barreled shotguns • Case coloring on the receiver, triggers, trigger guard and hammers is nothing short of stunning • Move the barrel-release latch to either side to open the action. All controls actuated easily, for a new gun • A brass bead is a sim- ple and traditional alternative to an optic or even rifle sights—and is all that is needed • Rabbit-ear exposed hammers are easy to cock and make the condition of the shotgun plain to see in an instant.
Authentic coach guns follow the KISS design principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid). There are no lights, lasers or electro-optics, and no means to readily affix them. One of the virtues of the Coachwhip is that all the controls are located close together, making them easy to manipulate without having to move your hand too far from the operating position. The barrel latch, rabbit-ear exposed hammers and tang-mounted safety are right below your line-of-sight and the triggers are right there underneath. All controls actuated positively and without undue stiffness, given this was a brand-new gun. They got even smoother with use, but were pretty good right out of the box.
The downside of the Coachwhip is really a problem inherent to coach guns. Once the two shots are out of the barrel, the reload is, uh, labor intensive. You must thumb the barrel latch and break open the action. The Coachwhip has no ejectors, so you’ll have to pluck out the empties with your fingers, grab two more shells and insert them in the chambers, snap the action shut, then cock the hammers and get back on the triggers. That’s a lot to do under stress. The hope is those first two shots would solve the great majority of problems.
The other concern is settling on a condition for storage if this is your primary home-defense gun. Do you keep it loaded and, if so, with the hammers down or cocked? And with the safety on or off? It requires some thought and once you make a choice, you’ll need to commit it to muscle memory to be able to use the gun quickly and effectively.
At the range, the gun demonstrated the expected reliability. There’s really not a lot to go wrong. There was no spread with 00 buck at 5 yards, just a single hole. Depending on the load, pellets struck 2 to 5 inches above point-of-aim at 7 yards, so know where your preferred load hits should you invest in a Coachwhip. Firing at 10 yards with No. 4 buck produced about an 11-inch spread. Best all-around performance was achieved with 2 3/4-inch No. 1 buckshot. Three-inch loads didn’t produce a conceivable advantage for home defense, unless you are expecting a grizzly to break down your door.
Some will find it nitpicky, given this is a coach gun, but it doesn’t leap to your shoulder the way a high-end sporting shotgun will. But, of course, what does? Also, shooting a high volume of shells through the Coachwhip was no fun—nor should you expect it to be. This is not a gun for sporting clays or trap. Yes, recoil is stiff, but in a defensive use, you’ll never notice, and the gun is controllable, if not pleasant.
In addition to home defense, the Coachwhip will likely pique the interest of cowboy-action shooting participants. If you like retro firearms, or you feel a coach gun’s tactical advantages outweigh its liabilities, the Heritage Manufacturing Coachwhip is a particularly fine example of one. And while you may blessedly never have to use it except for familiarization or fun, you’ll still have something quite nice to look at.
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