Do you carry with your own reloads?

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AK103K said:
"What are the chances that anyone is even going to KNOW it's a reload, as long as you're using good quality bullets and polished "once-fired" brass?"
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Ive often wondered the same thing. I have reloads you cant tell from factory, and Im sure no one else would either, unless they pulled them apart.
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And you don't think a forensic lab is going to pull them apart? Suppose your defense hinges on how close the assailant was to you, and the presence or absence of powder burns on his clothing is crucial evidence in establishing the distance.

Factory ammo is standard enough that someone (the prosecution or the defense, whichever side thinks it'll help their case) can bring in an expert from the manufacturer to testify to how their ammo will perform in that situation. Production is sufficiently controlled and consistent that there is acceptable reliability to such testimony.

With handloads, even if you have 5,000 rounds in boxes in your basement, there's no way to conclusively establish that the handloads you were carrying during "the incident" were the same as those 5,000 rounds at home. If you load a lot of calibers and use multiple powders, it gets even worse. How can you even prove what powder you used, let alone how much of it? I only load a couple of calibers, all handgun, so I have only one brand and type of powder. But I still would have no way of proving how much I had in my handloads if I were carrying them.

The issue isn't reliability. I have no worries about the reliability of my ammo. But the issue of being able to get ballistic and forensic evidence admitted if/when it helps you is HUGE. One the M1911.ORG forum, the attorney there (Frank) has cited a case in which a defense expert witness was not allowed to testify -- because there was no way to prove that the ammo about which he would testify was the same as the ammo involved in the shooting.
 
I wonder what's the difference in reloaded ammo that a prosecutor could say was loaded by you to do more damage, and factory ammo that is designed and loaded to do more damage? :confused:

Sometimes I carry reloads. Sometimes I don't.
 
CajunBass said:
I wonder what's the difference in reloaded ammo that a prosecutor could say was loaded by you to do more damage, and factory ammo that is designed and loaded to do more damage?
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The difference is whether the defendant's expert will be allowed to testify.

Aquila Blanca, I'm not a member of M1911.org, but if you could dig out the name of the case cited over there, I'd sure like to see it.
 
So this thread has taken the predictable path; let's spin it in a different direction. :D Next time the ammo supply totally dries up again like it did 2 years ago (you know it will someday) do you carry reloads or leave the gun at home? At home do the guns have reloads in them, or are they all unloaded?
 
No. While I probably can duplicate factory ammo to a pretty close degree and, in all likelyhood make it nearly as reliable, I won't carry it.
With factory ammo it's simply one less factor or variable that needs to be explained. In any dealing with law enforcement, the less I have to explain or justify, the better.
 
For me after reading some threads and articles as well as the case that was put out in this one....ill buy factory ammo...and here is my reason why....i load my own ammo have for years and i would say mine is very reliable and are not hot loads in any way at all. a factory round is a factory round and they have way more money than i do to be able to make that point valid in a court trial. they are the "experts" with ammo.
its not the fact that my ammo is any better or worse in my eyes....in a court battle your attorny has to make that point valid in the eyes of the jury...who might not have any idea what a hand load is or why you would even use a hand load over some factory rounds.

for the one person who said how would they know if it was a hand load fired out of my gun vs a factory round fired out of it....if i fire 2 shots into said BG that is attacking me...if im carrying a full mag in my G23 thats 13 rounds there are still 11 left in the mag....the court could pull them apart and inspect them...if they are all the same a a factory round then fine...if not..then what...could make for problems.

no matter what instance it is you have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that it was a good shoot no matter what...you will be tried by 12 not 1 and some might not be gun owners at all and that is what you have to worry about.
for the chance that it could go bad....buying factory rounds is cheap for SD
 
Well I do carry my own reloads. But it is not my intent to have to face down a bad guy on any given day. In fact it's not even my intent to have to go to town on any given day. As a rancher, I carry for ranch needs. I might have to dispatch a snake or coyote. So my first two rounds are snake shot followed by regular ammo all that I reload myself. Should I have to go to town I do and should I have to use my reloads to protect my own life I will. I'll just hope my situation is somewhat better defended than some of you. I've had this discussion before and the end result is always, use what you have and defend it later.

Now, should it happen that the need to defend someone else, would I? I don't know. I have that argument in my head all the time. I suspect when the adrenaline gets going I would. But can I say so for sure, NO. Defending someone else when you could as easily called 911 would surely play into any defense. But as others have pointed out, this argument has become quite old. I say, do what you want and defend it second and hope the jury sees it that way too. I will continue to carry based on my ranch use because that is at least 90% of my carry time. Some of the rest of you won't be able to say that and your situation should dictate whether you use your own reloads or not.
 
Spats McGee said:
Aquila Blanca, I'm not a member of M1911.org, but if you could dig out the name of the case cited over there, I'd sure like to see it.
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NJ v Daniel Bias

http://www.defensivecarry.com/forum...es-where-handloads-caused-problems-court.html

http://articles.mcall.com/1990-10-31/news/2773510_1_gunshot-residue-mrs-bias-accidental-gunshot

Mrs. Bias died of a gunshot wound. Mr. Bias claimed she shot herself, but there was dispute over gunshot residue evidence. He claimed that the gun was loaded with powder puff handloads because she was senitive to recoil, and that was supposed to explain how she shot herself without leaving GSR.

The court declined to let a defense expert testify to GSR matters because there was no way to document that the handloads tested by the expert were the same as the handloads in the gun that shot Mrs. Bias.
 
Threads like these are funny. People think every shooting is going to be taken into a long, drawn-out trial, that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, in which every aspect of their shooting will be presented to a jury, most of whom will find you guilty because you are a gun owner. More often than not, a "good SD shoot" or "good SD stabbing", or "good SD beating with a sledgehammer" will never see the inside of a courtroom. If you go to court, there is something questionable about your conduct during the incident. Personally, I follow the rule of not shooting unless it is a last resort...pretend you don't have a gun until it is necessary to defend yourself or a loved one. You shoot an unarmed carjacker with no witnesses around, and you might be in the situation everyone fears in this thread. Of course, you can drive off from an unarmed carjacker, right? Then, you would never have this discussion. If you irrationally fear that a prosecutor is out to get you (maybe he/she is running for State Atty?), then you would be going to court regardless of your reloads. Of course, we're getting into tinfoil hat territory there.

I sure hope you guys don't take everything else in life so seriously. Do you think you will be taken to court over a modification to your vehicle, should you get into a car crash? Are you looking at wreckless driving and 3rd degree homicide because you T-boned someone with your supercharged Mustang, as opposed to a factory stock version?
 
Lots of interesting comments in this thread.

One thing I've noticed - everyone talks about prosecutors and jail time. That's only the criminal part of it. Like has been mentioned, if you are in a situation that legally justifies using deadly force in defense of your life, then that means the law says you are at a point where you will not be committing a crime if you kill the attacker to stop the attack. It doesn't have a table of allowed methods. Deadly force is deadly force.

More of a concern to me would be a possible civil case. OJ Simpson was found innocent in a criminal case but still lost most of his wealth in the wrongful death civil cases that followed, for the same alleged events.

Civil law is strange. You can be found 30% negligent while the other party is 70% negligent, so you only have to pay 30% of their medical costs. And rather than a reasonable doubt, the proof level is "preponderance of the evidence", i.e. 51% certainty.

Someone already mentioned that you really don't know what factors into a jury's decision. You will never know if that last point that tipped the vote over to "guilty" or "liable for damages" was whether or not the gun was hand-loaded with special bullets or not. You just hear the verdict.

I've been on juries before and it's an interesting experience, which I would recommend to everyone. It's an excellent education on the real legal system, not the fantasy world portrayed on TV.

To answer the original question - I personally don't reload so for me it's not a choice, I use factory produced ammo for everything, target as well as SD carry.

I believe (though I may be completely wrong) that the topic would probably only come up in a civil case, where an unintended person was injured - i.e., you missed the bad guy, bullet hit someone else, or hit an accomplice of the attacker and they are trying to sue you for damages, which they can claim were exacerbated by your ammo choice. Sounds weak to me, but the plaintiff will try to use everything they can to tip it to that 51% point.

From a criminal case perspective, the only thing I can see would be like in a Bernhard Goetz case, if the prosecution was trying to make you out to be vigilante out looking for trouble and they'd use anything showing you to be a gun afficionado to bolster that claim. Unlikely to affect you in a home defense situation, since obviously you aren't out looking for trouble if you are sitting at home. Again, pretty weak, but you never know. In that situation the fact that you were using evil PLUS P! HOLLOW-POINT! factory ammunition would probably be run up the flagpole too, so probably not a big differentiator.

I say go ahead and carry handloads if you want. At the worst, it will finally give us a legal case to review in minute detail if you ever have to use your weapon.
 
This issue has been beaten to death. There is no case, never ever, where someone has been convicted of a crime because they used reloaded ammunition in self-defense. So since that is a fact beyond dispute the only remaining argument has always been the "It costs so much to hire experts." That is why you have insurance otherwise few of us could afford experts regardless of what ammunition is used. I have been an attorney over 20 years and have represented defendants and plaintiffs in firearms cases both civil and criminal. I think a jury would be impressed, the bad impressed, by the advertisements and claims by the ammunition manufacturers as to how destructive their ammuniton is to a human "victim." Here is an example of something we know for sure, a man using a 10mm handgun was whacked, in part, by a judge, prosecutor, and jury for using a gun more powerful than the guns used by the police. It would make far more common sense to avoid using a 10mm or other powerful gun than to avoid using reloaded ammunition. Don't understand why people get the vapors over this simple issue.
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Exactly. What everybody touts is what could happen. Innuendos and might have beens. References to cases other than SD shoots. Use what you feel most comfortable with and what shoots best from your firearm. Any reloader that can't make better ammo than standard factory ammo needs to go back to school.
 
I have seen juries do stupid things; I have seen people do stupid things.

Not surprisingly, they share the same base element.

The thing to remember here is that the problem is stupidity. If you place yourself in dire straits or remain there long enough, the odds of a bad outcome increase exponentially.
 
NO!

Because choosing the same ammo as the police has proven to be very court defensible.

Using the same ammo to protect yourself has the wisdom and judgement of your local police working in your favor.
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Using the same ammo as the cops has proven more defensible than any other typical self defense ammo? Really? I gotta read the study showing this. Please enlighten me.

Sorry if I missed it, but how do you determine which LEA to choose from when making your ammo selection and how local do they have to be? The dog catcher carries .22 lr. My local cops are allowed a variety of ammunition types. The Sheriff's department was only allowed one type (handgun), but sadly it isn't an optimal round, but was 10 years ago or so.

The court declined to let a defense expert testify to GSR matters because there was no way to document that the handloads tested by the expert were the same as the handloads in the gun that shot Mrs. Bias.
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Not a self defense shooting, problematic case, but not a self defense shooting.
 
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Good point, DNS. If you use the 'same loads as the police' you could carry reloads. In 1977 I was a cop, had a Charter Bulldog for my second gun and couldn't find a box of factory loads within 50 miles. So I did the expeditious thing and cranked out 75 rounds (all the brass I had) of .44 Special reloads with a 240 SWC and a long-forgotten charge of Red Dot powder said to give 800 fps.

Yes I carried them, put down a couple of vehicular deer with them, and nearly had to dust an a wanted felon I stumbled into while off-duty one day. The only thing I cared about that ammo was that it would go bang, shot to the sights and it'd and knock a good-sized hole through whatever I turned it on. After all these years, that's all I expect from the .40 HST's I get issued for my duty gun.
 
I reload to save on range ammo.
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As do I, and even though I trust my own reloads far more than ANY factory ammo, I will never use them for self-defense. Using a proven factory SD load is not so expensive that I can't afford to keep in practice by rotating it out first at the range. Any "fun" I then have will be with my own reloads.
 
Generally speaking no, I carry factory ammo in my carry guns. The one exception is my .44 spl. I don't carry it often anymore but when I do its with my own cast 200 grain FWC moving at about 850 fps. That ammo will put 5 rounds on a target that can be covered with a quarter at 50 feet.
 
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