colospgsAVID
New member
Are there real legal repercussions to using a hand load in a defensive encounter. I make rounds legally. Defensive in type:. Can I use them in that role?
.Are there real legal repercussions to using a hand load in a defensive encounter
I think no matter how careful we are as re loaders the factory has and does a better job at Quality Control than we could ever think of doing. The chance of a malfunction IN MY OPINION is far less with factory ammo than my own reloads. When it comes to MY life I'll trust it to factory ammo instead of my reloads.
I think I will follow this posts evaluation. Yes I have made mistakes reloading I had a round that the primer was missing and 1 that the primer was in upside down. Human nature to error no matter how carefully one is. If you reload IT WILL happen eventually. Saying never is like saying I'll never have a negligent discharge. The possibility is always presentMas Ayoob
Senior Member
Join Date: December 1, 2005
Posts: 214 Bob, the defense moved to get the remaining rounds examined. The prosecution used the arguments that (a) the defendant literally manufactured the evidence, and the round in the chamber could have been made intentionally different from the others to throw the investigators off; (b) that since the test was destructive, the defense was requesting the court to destroy the evidence; and (c) the defendant had mixed slightly different variants of the light load in the same box, and it could not be determined which was in the chamber.
Hopefully, (c) would not be a problem for anyone here. I thought (b) was BS myself, since one key purpose of having evidence is to test it if necessary. The (a) argument was what stuck. "The defendant literally manufactured the evidence, your Honor! The court cannot accept it" is an argument that resonates in a courtroom, and will come back to haunt any of us who carries hand loads.
I appreciate Al Norris' dedicated research and the absolute honesty with which he has presented it here. He has noted that none of the hand load cases he found revolved around GSR testing to determine distance.
Therefore, we're down to one case where the use of the hand load sent the guy who loaded them in the family defense gun to prison, and zero cases where the hand loader's records or testimony as to the load was accepted. One to nothing is a score that gives us a fairly decisive preview of what we can expect if we're involved in a disputed, close-range shooting with hand loads.
One situation where it could make a difference is if forensics tries to replicate the scenario to verify your story. Ideally they would use ammunition identical to what you were using in the incident. If they have to use a commercial substitute it may not provide results consistent with what your handloads did. That would make your story look like a fabrication.Seems to me who put the bullet in the brass case is irrelivent.
I think I can prevail upon Double Naught Spy to allow you to use your reloads in the IIISHOT1000 scheduled for this spring. It's really meant to test the reliability of semi-auto handguns, but I suppose it could test the reliability of the ammunition used in a semi-auto handgun just as well.I am extremely confident in my reloaded ammo since I can personally verify things like flashole presence, powder charge, amount of crimp, etc. I don't know how the factories verify these things, but I can tell you I don't trust their methods as well as verifying with my own eyes.
That's the Bias case. It's discussed in more detail in the various threads to which I've provided links. The "take-home message" is that if gun shot residue (GSR) evidence, for example to corroberate your testimony regarding the distance at which you fired, would help you and you used handloads, you'll be out of luck because you will not be able to introduce test data into evidence .JohnKSa said:...I recall reading one incident where a man committed suicide using his handloads but his wife/GF was charged with murder because the powder stippling that should have been present based on the results of experimentation with commercial ammunition was absent. That made the story told by the wife/GF implausible as far as the forensics expert was concerned....
True fact, no question about it.A self defense shooting is a self defense shooting, its ligit or it isnt. Regardless whether you loaded the ammo or the factory did.