.357 Home defense bullet designs

I suggest....

........you to consider the importance of bullet placement.
I know you are civilian but you are participating in a tactical exercise when you decide to defend your home with a deadly weapon......and I say do it.
Consider that there is a very near professional well of info to drink from on this site and go for all of that as well..........
Now consider from where I have been and pass along to you.
Your handgun is for killing. That is the design and intented purpose of it. Do not shoot a person unless you are doing your best to kill him.
You will be fighting in close quarters in your home and the first shot or two will end the encounter.
If you depend on bullet 'type' to provide the stopping power you need then you are not taking the correct approach. You should think of hitting a area where the person will not get up or continue to pose a threat to you and that place is the head.
When you begin to talk of shooting a person then you are talking very serious consequences if you are not justified.
Does this shed any new light on the subject for you?

Don Mallard
 
When you say home defence I assume you mean inside the home. Personally, I consider the .357 to be a bit much for such close range, close quarters use - blast, flash, recoil and over penetration are issues. I would think a .38 would be better. I personally like the 158 gr LSWHP +P - and consider it to be about the maximum "in house" load. A heavy flat nosed .38 target wadcutter in standard velosity might be best in terms of a very low flash, blast and recoil load. Another option may be the Glazer Safety Slug - which is claimed to have the "stopping power" close to that of a .357 (presuming it's just going through light clothing). All of these expend their energy very rapidly when they hit something (IE: the wall between your house and the neighbor's bedroom window).

If you must use .357, the lightest and most fragile bullets would likely be best - like 110 gr SJHP. I would avoid bullets that are very heavy or with solid nose's due to the penetration issue.
 
"You should think of hitting a area where the person will not get up or continue to pose a threat to you and that place is the head."

I disagree a bunch here. Although a head shot will stop the threat pretty much toot sweet, the head moves around much more than does the body, it is smaller & more difficult to hit.

No training facility I'm aware of teaches head shots, & for good reason.

Center of mass (chest area) has the most & biggest vitals.

You never shoot to kill (you shoot to live). You shoot to stop the threat. At times, that causes the death of the perp.

"All of these expend their energy very rapidly ... "

Expending energy doesn't kill or stop anything.

Hemorage, through tissue destruction, or cutting arteries/veins, blood loss does - but it takes time for the blood pressure to drop an extent to cause "a stop." A central nervous system shot will stop by "cutting the connection" which allows those motor functions.

Pick a bullet of proven design that will reach to & through the vitals. Practice with it.

Shot placement beats design.
 
Thanks for the advice. I have real walls in my house, not siding, plywood and drywall. I'll go w/ the Hydra Shocks

nsf003
 
think twice about .357 for home defense

I've been shooting for 45 years and have had a single unfortunate accidental discharge: guess what it was and where it was?? Yup, a full-load .357 mag round fired into my bedroom floor! It took my hearing a month to return to a semblance of normal and I may have permanently damaged my already poor hearing. When that thing went off, I was instantly DEAF for about 3 days! Oh well, I suppose it is better to be DEAF than DEAD. I personally would opt for a .38 spcl; I think the .357 mag is a bit of overkill for the home.
 
Bullet design....what's the best load....which caliber for home defense.....all of these subjects are beaten to death.

Shot placement is MY concern, and if I'm not confident that I can put a bullet where I want it (which would be the head), that means I need a lot more practice.
 
The noise concerns are a serious matter.

Assuming a 4" or more barreled gun, you can make a good case for any of the .38spl 158+P LSWCHP (or Nyclad equivelent) being able to "do the job" barring only your shot placement. And in a K-frame 4" or heftier steel/stainless piece, they're pussycats to control.
 
Confidence and shot placement. If you aren't confidant enough in your abilities to stop the threat with a handgun then perhaps a handgun is not the best weapon. I know for me I would rather use a 12 gauge shotgun to defend my house. I have confidence in my ability with a shotgun. I need to defend my house now and not wait until I get better with a handgun.

My skills with a handgun are not that great and shooting for center of mass or a head shot might get me in trouble. I need lots and lots of practice. I can only imagine that it is not the same as standing in front of a target. High stress high pressure. As Mr. Mallard said it is something to think about. I do not want to take a human life but if put in that position I think it best that I use a tool I am confidant with.
 
Man, alot of great points on this thread...I will jump in.

Expended energy of a bullet IS important in stopping a perp, if the ammo you select doesnt expand to expend ALL of its energy or at least as much as possible...it will most likely overpenetrate and you make holes. If you pick a caliber and ammo type that offers the velocity, energy and expansion to utilize all of the energy for your advantage you are better off. I agree that shock to the vital organs is what will cause a perp to stop his aggresive actions, but that is best handled by a bullet that will cause trauma to the system/s, not by one that will only release part of its energy on the way thru....JHP's and good ones at that.

Weight is a great factor in recoil and second shot timelyness.
For a house gun...weight has its advantages over a carry gun...which IMO still should have some weight but less for obvious reasons. The other factor in recoil is bullet weight.
Heavy gun-light bullet = less recoil
Light gun- heavy bullet = Way more recoil

For home defense I have either my 40 w 165 gr JHP's, 9mm w 124 gr +P JHP's or my 357 w/ 124 gr JHP's...I think after reading about the AD in the bedroom...it will be the 40 or 9 on my nightstand.
I also keep my alarm on w/ keyfob w/ panic button on my night stand..cell phone, bright flash light all readily available.....because you just never know.....Shoot well
 
I know I'll get some argument about this, but there are only two PROVEN handgun rounds that will give you a somewhat reasonable percentage of stopping a drug crazed, 180 pound, viscous attacker with one center mass shot:

Revolver - .357 Mag. Hollow points are best, but any will do.

Auto Loader - .45ACP. Again, hollow points are best, but any will do.

(maybe the .40 S&W - but I'm not convinced the rounds and weapons have been around long enough to be sufficiently proven yet)

From there we move into questions of expansion, recoil, blast, etc, etc, etc.

As someone posted - the shotgun is best. Point in the general direction and pull trigger. Lots of projectiles fly out, once they hit someting they stop.

But the original question was what's best in a .357 revolver. Since the application is presumably inside the confines of a home, I think the .357 is too much. Don't think so? - go to a dark room, put a fire cracker in a coffee can, light it and press it up to your ear. At the same time old out the other hand and with a camera pop off a flash bulb in your face. And at the same time have someone give you a light pop to the shoulder of the outstreached arm. That's a .357.

So what's best "in house" round that a .357 revolver will shoot. In my opinion something with reasonable bullet frontal area, something that won't make you deaf, something that won't blind you after the first shot, something that won't nail the neighbor if you miss.

I think that pretty much narrows it down to a .38. A 158gr LSWHP is PROVEN to be pretty good at one shot stops (short of .357's and .45's).

When it gets right down to it, anything is better than nothing. A couple of years ago a home owner in the area affected a one shot stop with a .25 Auto - through a door no less. Go figure. But it would seem that for "in home" defence, something you can handle, won't blind you won't make you go deaf and won't injure your neighbors or family members is the best option.
 
As to the noise issue...
I have the rather dubious distiction of having fired both a .357 magnum revolver and a 16" .30-30 lever action indoors, and I can say quite conclusively (and concussively;) ) that the .357 was the meaner of the two. I use .45's and .38's for home defense - relatively low pressure rounds - and feel quite well armed. I love the .357 and consider it to be the most versatile chambering for my kinda recreational shooting, but I would never consider a full-house 125 or 158 gr. for defense in a confined space. Based on my experience, i would sooner reach for the ol' thuddy-thuddy during an unravelling unpleasantry than my .357 6".

BTW, the .30-30 produced a dramatic one-shot-stop on a rather feisty rabid skunk in my 10'x10'x8' laundry room...gave new meaning to the term "fabric softener":rolleyes: .
vanfunk
 
Do you reload? Try a hollow based wadcutter, reverse loaded with hollow out. Find speer loading manual and load as a bevel base wadcutter. Can load 38 to about 900 or so out of 4 inch. Should be very interesting load.
 
Years ago when I was a teen, the local fire dept. was going to do a controlled burn of an abandoned farm house. The local police and sheriff dept had a go at the house before it was burned the next day. My father and several other people were invited to shoot. (You wouldn’t see this today – too much liability.)

The house construction was typical of the 1920/30s, two by six framing, chicken wire and plaster on the inside, one by eight wood siding with some insulation.

Weapons used were .38s, .357s and 12 gauge “crowd control” shotguns loaded with deer slugs and 00 shot.

The interesting thing was the .38s from the inside would penetrate to the outside if shot went between the studs. But from the outside would only dimple and crack the plaster on the inside.

The .357s were loaded with SWC and SJHP. The wad-cutters punched through from both directions. The jacketed hollow points would pass though (from the inside) the plaster, continue through a stud (on angle) and still pass out of the exterior wall. Retrieving the spent bullet showed a tight pack of the “cone” area and still a recognizable bullet shape.

The shot filled 12 ga. made a mess of the walls, but very rarely passed though the exterior wall. Firing from the outside in was useless, unless though a window. The deer slugs passed though at will. I noted that a deer slug in a hunting shotgun (26 or 30 inch barrel) would pass through the hot water heater from the outside of the house and still have enough to cause damage to interior walls.

Granted the above is based on observation, not any scientific approach. The patrolmen and deputies were there to actually learn something, while I was there to have a good time and watch the destruction. ;-D

And a good time was had by all.
Michael.
 
It's all a matter of personal opinion.
Obviously, home defense and ammunition selection is a multi-faceted, fairly complex matter.
With all the options in defensive ammunition on the market today, it gets more involved yet.

Personally, I'd initially choose the old stand-by 125gr JHP if my primary home defense handgun were a .357 magnum revolver. I have plenty of confidence in these loads as I have a fair amount of experience with them.

Though this may deviate from the norm a bit (I'm not a devout believer in conformity to consensus anyway), I would also feel equally well armed with Triton's 125gr Quik-Shok JHP or Glasers Silver line prefrangibles.

Needless to say, you must obtain reasonable proficiency with your chosen handgun before you can justifiably question the ammunition performance.
 
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