Loading your defensive ammo pros and cons

[HoughMade]

How many rounds of self defense ammo do folks run through their gun to determine reliability and accuracy?

A couple of boxes at first, then I shoot the loaded mags about once or twice a year and refill fresh.

 

[lovemachine]

How many rounds of self defense ammo do folks run through their gun to determine reliability and accuracy?

1 round.

 

[SERparacord]

1 round.

I just rack the slide 10 times, why waste ammo.

 

[88E30M50]

The only real benefits I can come up with to support loading your own SD ammo is that you could tune a load for a particular gun and that loading your own would allow you to practice more with your carry load than you can if you buy your carry load. While those are benefits, I still carry commercially bought ammo. I do buy SD bullets for loading, but those are either used to try to duplicate commercial loads for cheaper practice or stockpiled in the advent of needing SD ammo but not being able to buy it. The last reason is not overly realistic though, since buying a couple of spare boxes of carry ammo for each gun you own will probably give you enough carry ammo for a long time.

With Underwood selling boxes of 50 for not too much over the price to reload the same thing, we really do have the ability to practice with our carry loads if you go that route.

 

[ScouT6a]

Would you care to explain? I definitely don't see the benefit.

edit. Other than cost.

You can get training benefits from practicing with a .22 Training on the four basic fundamentals of marksmanship can hone your skills if done with a sub caliber weapon or reduced loads. At some point, if you are serious about your skills, you have to train with full power loads in the weapon you are going to carry. You have to know where the rounds hit, how the weapon recoils, experience the muzzle blast. In the Army, we called this "train like you fight"
Factory loaded (self defense, personal protection, tactical) ammunition, call it what you want, is not cheap and most today come in twenty round boxes. For the cost of one of those boxes of twenty rounds, I can load 4-5 times more SD ammo. To me, that means that I can practice with my actual carry rounds 4-5 times as much. My hand loaded ammunition is loaded within industry accepted standards, it is accurate, it functions flawlessly and I trust my life to it.
Just my two cents and probably worth every penny.

 

[SSGSAD]

Just thought I would bump this up, for the new ones to read..... GOOD INFO !!!!!

 

[Paul30]

When shooting matches, we use to reload for many reasons. When you win or lose by fractions of a second, a round that does not fire can cause you to lose a match. We use to reload because we could visually verify the primer has a priming compound and an anvil to set it off. You visually verify the powder is in the case and the right amount. In short, you can be more certain that your round will actually fire than one that rolled off an assembly line with a million others. I don't have a lot of misfires with center fire ammo, but the video I watched on reloading for shooting matches stated these things. If it makes ammo more reliable for a shooting match, then it would be just as beneficial in a self defense situation where you could lose you life if the ammo failed to fire. This is about as good a reason as any to use reloaded ammo for self defense. Most don't, but if I were on a jury, I would buy that explanation.

This has come up before as well as many other questions about your choice of factory ammo. It seems to all come down to "is it a good shoot", and " can it be proven that you used something to cause additional unreasonable injury. When I say additional unreasonable injury, I mean coating it with hiv, ebola, etc., not just a properly expanding round that is common in defense ammo. As far as defense ammo, you could explain " I asked the local gun shop for self defense ammo, and this is what they sold me". In a self defense shooting, motivation is as important as what happens. If they ask you why you used hollow points and you tell them " so I have the best chance of burying the thug" then that will not go well. If you tell them the real reason, that "it is designed to stop an attackers action as efficiently as is possible with today's bullet technology, while slowing down inside the attacker and preventing it from over penetrating and injuring a person beyond the attacker" then you are good to go.

It seems that one might be able to have the whole thing thrown out in a pretrial by not having anything that would be usable to a prosecutor, thereby saving you extra stress, money, and a chance at losing your freedom and personal rights. I'm not sure carrying reloads would be worth the extra risk, but I wanted to throw my 2 cents in that reloaded ammo is more than just about cost savings, it's about being absolutely certain of what is in every loaded cartridge when the shot has to count. Also in case anyone does carry reloads, they can tell their lawyer the reason why since they are the ONLY one you should be doing any talking to in detail until it is resolved.

 

[rxer]

Good info. I reload all the ammo I shoot except the carry ammo. One more piece of advice is to probably not say anything to anyone until you get a lawyer present with you. After the stress of that, you probably aren't thinking clearly and could easily say something damaging.

 

[Drail]

Most (but not all) factory ammo is mass produced junk that is only made to sell and make a profit with no guarantee to actually function when you really need it to work. If I get killed because a round will not fire I don't really care how many boxes of replacement ammo they are willing to send me. I have never trusted factory ammo to be reliable enough for competition use or for CCW use. Seen too many rounds with no flash hole or with primers inserted backwards or sideways or primers with no anvil in them. Gotta do better then that. I have on occasion pulled down factory loaded self defense rounds and resized, checked for an open flash hole and reloaded with the same powder and a new primer and original bullet.

 

[rvb]

So, in the end it was legally irrelevant what sort of ammo you used.

that was my takeaway from the OP's story...

[oops, didn't realize this was such an old thread]

-rvb

 

[JettaKnight]

[oops, didn't realize this was such an old thread]

Old thread, and the OP seems to have abandoned INGO...

 

[Paul30]

Another thing some manufacturers like FN are doing is "lead free primers". I'm sure the earth thanks them, but some information says it has a shelf life. Some disassemble the round and install a regular primer. I know we should not keep defense ammo forever, but time does seem to slip by quickly for some.

 

[Robert Richardson]

I look at it this way, If my gun comes out and I drop the hammer, I do mean to kill them. It really doesn't what ammo or bullet I use. I will not shoot to wound, I will shoot to stop them. As far as ammo goes, I trust mine a lot more than any factory made stuff.

 

[Paul30]

I look at it this way, If my gun comes out and I drop the hammer, I do mean to kill them. It really doesn't what ammo or bullet I use. I will not shoot to wound, I will shoot to stop them. As far as ammo goes, I trust mine a lot more than any factory made stuff.

I'm sure you mean you intended to discharge a round to Stop them, an intent to kill or a statement that your intent was to "kill them" not "stop them" would not go well for you in court, regardless of justification. I know what you meant, and stopping an attacker is must successfully done by shooting center mass, which just happens to be the highest odds of causing death as well as stopping their actions fastest before they do great bodily harm or kill you. Just a word of caution, a statement like that misinterpreted by a jury could result in a loss of freedom (prison time).

But yes, as long as your intent was to discharge a round, then it should not matter how many lbs of trigger pull you had to use to make it happen.