Can a Handload get you jail???

J.T.King

New member
Hey guys!

I had a discussion with my father the other day in which he said that he refuses to carry his own handloads for self defense (even though he claims they are more reliable and better rounds then factory) due to the fact taht he believe that they will get him thrown in jail if he uses them in a self defense scenario.

He has contacts with LEs in both Nevada and CA as well as two retired judges and he says taht their recommendation is to never use your own loads (especially "hot" ones) in a gun you use for self defense or that you will get raked over the coals by a prosecuter who will label you a gun nut and insinuate that you have loaded youor ammunition with the intent to "kill" with it.

Now I dont know... can this case actualyl be made? has it ever been made? Is my dad just a paranoid gun nut? :P

Thanks for any feedback here... with the exception of the reliability issue. is there anything wrong with using your own handloads for defense ammo?

J.T.
 
Yep...I've been told the same thing by LEO and folks in the know.
Once again, Dad is right :)



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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
J.T.,...I agree with your Dad. There is also the possibility of having a cartridge company's insurance and legal assistance in the event you have to protect yourself.

I practice twice weekly with handloads and carry factory.

Sam I am, grn egs n packin
 
J.T.,

Like the others that have responded to your original post I would not have handloads in your carry/defense gun. I'm sure the attorney for the 'victim' would try to make an issue with your purposeful use of 'especially lethal homemade ammunition.'

For this same reason I will not use my remaining original Black Talon in my carry or home defense gun. I'm not going to give them an inch to crawl under because you know they'll take a mile!

Stick with a good factory hollow-point (if they're legal in your area) and don't hesitate to shoot until the threat is eliminated.

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Remember, just because you are not paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you!
 
Would handloaded blanks be acceptable to the attorneys of the cretins I may be forced to frighten?
 
From http://www.plusp.com/lesson22.html: (this is a good site by the way.)

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>LESSON #22


GUN & AMMUNITION CHOICES AND LEGALITIES

It is time to put to rest the gun magazine nonsense about what guns or ammunition you use in self-defense. If you shoot someone the concern will be the legality of the shooting, not the weapons or ammunition used. In the past some lawyers have tried to go down that road and had their legal head handed to them on a platter. Nobody in the legal community would go down this road in the 1990's.

Gun rags had constantly warned of the legal concerns of hand loading ammunition. What is interesting is that they fail to mention ONE documented case where it was a primary issue. Let us assume there is concern that the ammo you used was hyper-velocity in nature. Loaded to the max. Loaded to the edges of safety. Then you use this to shoot someone in self-defense. If the shooting is legal and found to be so, the matter is over. That is the END.

Civil is another animal. However we come back to the issue of legality. In most cases where no charges are filed or you are found innocent, it becomes difficult to make much progress in civil court. In fact, you find that 80% or more of all civil cases never reach court after the original filing. Most will be dismissed, or settled prior to court. Any "expert" that claims any knowledge about court proceedings will know this. In settlement papers both parties almost always wrap it up with no blame or negligence admitted by either side.

Having investigated murders and having been involved in hundreds of shooting cases, I have never once seen any concern expressed over the ammunition or gun used. In fact, the gun and ammunition found at the scene are seldom examined in detail by anyone even when the case goes the civil route. Lawyers are concerned with the LEGALITY of the situation, not the hardware.

Stop and use some common sense. If hardware were an issue, wouldn't the shotgun be the ultimate legal nightmare for a shooter? No other weapon has the massive destructive power of a shotgun. No handgun even comes close. In fact, the lethality rate for a shotgun is 67% vs. 14% for a pistol and 17% for a rifle like an AK-47. If we are talking destructive power, and looking at tissue damage, the shotgun would be a constant source of review by lawyers. It is not.

Years ago we had a shooting where the homeowner used a .36 caliber black powder revolver. The homeowner pushed it into the thug's chest and fired. The blast of burning black powder went directly into the thug's chest. Opened at the morgue the inside of his chest was a black mushy mess. The burning black powder and blast did incredible damage. Should there be some damages paid for a shooter using black powder vs. smokeless?

Also the burden to PROVE that the ammunition you used was excessive would fall with the complainant's lawyers. What is excessive? If your life is in danger that argument doesn't hold much concern for the shooter. You want the most effective cartridge you can use. I'd think the other lawyers should be glad you used a pistol and not a shotgun or larger bore rifle?

Finding cases where anyone took a serious look at the gun or ammunition used is hard to come by and few try it. If the gun is defective that may be an issue. I was involved in a case where an officer killed a motorist and the officer used a gun I had examined prior to the shooting. He had it nickel plated and that included internal parts. If you pulled the hammer back and shook the gun it would discharge. I told him it was unsafe, but he carried it anyway and the shooting followed a few weeks later.

The gun did become an issue as having a "hair" trigger. But the Grand Jury cleared the officer and the following civil suit was settled for $400,000 and the issue in depositions was the LEGALITY. The gun was never mentioned again. The payment was made without comment by either side. In the late 1960's as police moved to hollow points and ammunition like Super-Vel came on line, the issue started to show up in court. I recall one silly lawyer trying to bring the Geneva Convention into the argument. It fell flat and the lawyer lost the case big time.

Defective guns are a whole other issue and will almost always come up in product liability actions, not civil actions for an actual self-defense shooting. It is funny to see gun rag writers that boast of their highly modified guns and then flip-flop to claiming any modification is serious legal problems. I have seen self-defense shootings and cases with strange weapons. One shooter used a .22 rifle that fired when you slammed the pump action home. The trigger didn't work. It was never brought up in the criminal trial and no civil charges ever filed. The shooter was cleared.

The Internet now allows us to search all the states court opinions using keyword. If you want to get bored try surfing those legal libraries and find ONE case where the choice of gun or ammunition resulted in any legal perils or one dime being awarded in damages.

It is time for the gun rag writers post the actual case titles so they can be researched and stop with vague, "trust me" logic. It seems they take pride in trying to insinuate they hold super secret key information that you should pay them to reveal.

As a court approved expert witness we aid lawyers in doing legal research on the cases at hand. We have a segment of our company that can do this legal research and aid in case strategy with the lawyer.

I recall on CBS's 48 Hours a segment on a fellow who shot a thug with a shotgun. Using actual courtroom video the gun they showed was a well tricked out Mossberg 500. The subject of even a shotgun being used was never mentioned. It didn't matter. They had to deal with legality, not emotions.

The decision of which gun or ammunition you will chose for self-defense is YOURS. It is not a serious concern for legal issues. As we tell students, if you buy it off the shelf worry not. If you hand load you will find that few hand loaders would try to exceed factory specs as adopted by ammunition manufacturers. Few shooters want to beat up a gun for a few extra feet per-second. There are some idiots out their, but their guns will probably fall apart before they use it for self-defense.

Ask yourself, what you could reload that would be of concern. How fast can you push a 115-grain slug in a 9mm pistol beyond factory +P+ specs? You won't get much further if you value your gun and shooting hand. As for bullets, do we invent our own? No, we shoot bullets made by someone else or those we can cast from lead. How fast can you push even hard cast slugs? Not much beyond factory specs again. Bullet design? Not much we can do to alter what we buy or make ourselves.

Granted, you may find out a nut case or two but those extremes do not effect us. Next time you see someone boast of the perils of your gun or ammunition you chose for self-defense ask for some actual case law on the subject. At best it may be brought up or mentioned, but it is a bad way to go for any lawyer, as the defense for it is as simple as a rock. I would like to think the opposition would bring up the subject. It would be to my clients favor.

In one case presently in litigation against a major discount chain store the argument is if the store sold handgun ammunition to an underage person, which resulted in a fatal accidental shooting. To date nobody has seen the gun or ammunition since police took it from the shooting scene. The case is near court and nobody is concerned if the gun was defective. The legal focus is the sale of the ammunition. Once again the gun/ammo boogieman just doesn't surface.

Here is what is involved to review a case history. You need ALL of the paper work. Testimony can cover thousands of pages. If you want a copy you pay for it. That can run from several hundred to several thousand dollars. Just right there you can see why the armchair experts have a problem documenting much of anything.

A summons and complaint filed in a civil case may mention the gun or ammunition used. That is a poor legal move, but it can happen. That is NOT evidence, only a complaint and will be addressed in court or depositions, or it won't every show up. Complaints contain a lot of superfluous information and comments.

Also for such information to impact a jury it will have to impact ALL of the jurors to be very effective. If you were a lawyer would you be trying to convince them that John Doe's hand loads were bad or that he acted in an illegal manner?

The gun and ammunition concerns are the least of your concerns. You have to worry about the legality of your actions.

If bullet choice is that important then we would think the gun rag writers would endorse Full Metal Jacketed bullets. Would they be safer? On the other hand, they pimp themselves trying to sell the most effective bullets they can endorse like Corbon or Triton? Can they have it both ways? We think NOT. When pressed to tell us which bullet choices are bad they fall pretty flat real fast.

About modified guns? To date I have not seen ONE gun rag writer claim that any one gun is the safest for legal concerns. In fact, if glass broke late in the night at their home and the only gun handy to them was a fully tricked IPSC gun, I doubt if they'd respond to the threat with a baseball bat our of fears of legality or liability for using their IPSC gun.

The reality just doesn't make good press or sell magazines or ammunition.

(c)1998 Plus P Technology, Inc.[/quote]

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Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
 
If anyone can cite an example of someone being cleared of a good shooting but subsequently sentenced for using handloads please post it. If not, then use your handloads if they are reliable.

Erik
 
The only really good reason for handloading that I can see would be to maximize a load for a barrel length that's "weird for the caliber".

One example is .38spl snubbie (2"). Very, VERY few factory loads claim to be optimized for the fast-burn powder charge needed for these puppies. MagSafe makes a "snub special" load, which is fine if you're into frangibles. Federal's "Personal Defense 110" load CLAIMS to be tuned for 2" but some pretty trustworthy independant testing proved otherwise - see also www.firearmstactical.com .

Right now my snubbie load is the Winchester factory 158LSWHP+P, the old "Treasury Police" load doing maybe 750fps. But I'm concerned about overpenetration in that heavy, slow load, especially if the hollowpoint clogs on clothes.

I'd rather drive a 90-95grain JHP at over 1,100fps or so, preferrably 1,200. It should be possible in +P IF you ran fast-burn powder. This is a handload-only proposition. The idea would be to increase both effectiveness and SAFETY in that particular small gun.

Could you get away with that in court? Can't see why not.

Another example: you have a 10mm revolver, and work up some handloads to duplicate the projectile and ballistics of the better 40S&W loads, for a reduced-kick street-carry load. They gonna complain? Heck no.

There's one issue that Daryl (PlusP) missed though: you want extra samples of the same load available. Reason being, in a few cases your actual range to target at the moment of firing may come up as an issue. If forensics has test-fired samples of your load at various ranges, they'll be able to compare ash patterns and figure out range at firing.

With that caveat, handloads don't have to be a problem.

Jim
 
My previous reply was deleted on the 3rd, and I'm too tired to do it again. Consider this: You can buy brass cases from the Big-3 for loading. You can also buy, Golden Saber, Hydra-Shok(& Nyclad), and Silvertip bullelts. With the proper bullet, in the matching case, how would this ever come up?
 
Most factory ammo has sealed primers. If you reload your primers are not sealed. They could do an analysis on the powder too. Since factory powder is not available in bulk to the public, but it would be highly unlikely that a test like that would be run.
 
Massad Ayoob has for years recommended not using handloads not because a case could be made against but because a lawyer would try to use anything against you in a court of law, whether it be a politically motiviated DA or in civil. In this discussion, Massad gave several cases where small things were used against a client that had to be dealt with by the defense, successfully mostly. His point is to not give them something in the first place. Sorry I can't give specific references but it was in several articles in Combat Handguns, which I used to get from 1982 until 1995.

I would listen to Ayoob a heck of lot more than "Mr Plus P", whose credentials have already been put in serious question on another part of this board (reference the lethality of handguns vs shotguns etc.

I use nothing but Corbon in my 9mm Sig and .40 Glock 23.

Albin
 
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