Practicing with reloaded ammo

I agree with what you say, but it doesn't explain why it's okay to practice with a .22 but not okay to practice with target ammo in your carry gun. The things that transfer from target ammo to defensive ammo are the same things that transfer from a .22 to your carry gun. That goes for both helpful things and destructive things.

The idea that you have to practice with your defensive ammo implies that you won't be adjusting your sights or changing your point of aim. If it were okay to do those things, then it wouldn't matter which ammo you used, because you would compensate. People who say you have to use the same ammo clearly expect you to have everything set up the same way, and to shoot the same way, regardless of what ammo you're using.

They can't seriously expect a person who owns 20 pistols to leave the sights alone for all types of ammo and think, "Okay, this one shoots 3 inches to the left at 30 feet," during a crisis.

When I shoot in my backyard, I use whatever I want, and I always use the same technique. The results are about the same, shooting at up to 60 feet. I would have to be shooting some very weird stuff to see a big difference at defensive ranges.

I've seen Paul Harrell change ammo and get a 4" change in the POI from a long way off. I think he shoots at 25 yards. I think that is wonderful accuracy and something very, very few cops could manage in a real gunfight.

I doubt the advice about practicing with the same ammo pans out very often in real life. If anyone has a true story about someone missing because of an ammo problem, it would be interesting to hear it.
 
For myself, I don’t find practice with a 22 particularly telling of a person’s performance with centerfire cartridges. When I introduce people to shooting I always start with a 22, pistol or rifle. It’s been my experience that those people are often surprised at how mild a 22 can be, to the point where they remark that they’ve used things in the past that were harsher. When I move them to a 9mm then the flinches and the recoil anticipation comes out. I do agree that going back to a 22 can expose faults in your fundamentals and certainly there are many very capable shooters that use 22s, but getting used to recoil is a part of shooting that can often be harder for people to overcome than the fundamentals, in my experience.

I have not been in a shooting, but I have done force on force. In my experience while I did have to fight tunnel vision and adrenaline and the different situations seemed to pass very quickly, recoil was still a thing. I still had to control the pistol while shooting in a way that allowed me to deliver hits. Whether I was focusing on that fact or not at the time, had my ammo been notably more or less powerful and the recoil differed accordingly it still would have affected my performance. We can argue how much it would have affected my performance, but it wouldn’t have had no effect. In one particular scenario I did mash that trigger and blast away. I ended up missing the assailant and the fight kept going. I had to force myself to focus on that front sight and actually make hits. This wasn’t a long distance engagement either. It was at a distance I’d normally find very easy at the range. It’s for these reasons that I personally avoid using loads for training that are much softer than my carry ammo. In the current ammo shortage that might not always be possible and budgets are what they are, I get that. It’s something that in that case I’d just try to keep in mind and understand that my actual performance with carry ammo might be different.

A note on adjusting sights by load, this isn’t something I personally do. The majority of the sights I have on my pistols aren’t elevation adjustable and are only drift adjustable for windage. That’s a fair point that you could simply adjust your sights accordingly for POI shifts, though many service pistols or concealment pistols aren’t sold with fully adjustable sights.


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You should be able to do head shots at 7 yards even with a 642 revolver, that's 21 feet. Really should be doable at 10 yards. If you can't you should practice til you can. I'm not likely to take a head shot unless no other option. I can do heads at 25 with a service revolver but under pressure of a self defense situation, I don know. 25 yards it a stretch for self defense. More likely 1 to 7 yards.
 
One time, at a two day PPC match, I went prepared for two 60 round courses of fire in duty gun, so I took 150 rounds. Turns out, they were implementing a new, 150 round duty gun match, so I shot up all my ammo the first day. The second day, I scrounged around among the assorted shooters, and came up with another 150 rounds, everything you can imagine. And I shot the same score as the first day! Granted, this match only went out to 25 yds., but there was no appreciable difference, with my scores being high in the expert class.
 
Some defensive shootings are not belly gun distance. I'm thinking of two church shootings
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Two isolated incidences among thousands of self defense shootings isn't really a reason to "overintelectualize" on what ammo to practice with.
Why worry about bullseye accuracy on a stationary target when in self defense use the target will be moving, jumping, charging, grabbing, punching, stabbing, shooting, or who knows what else.
All those shots fired on paper that are an inch or two off point of aim aren't going to be of any significance anyway.
 
dyl said:
I'm thinking of two church shootings, a head shot with a single round on the man that had the shotgun, and the one where the two citizens chased the man in a truck afterwards.
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The second one was a man who lived half a block away from the church responding to the sound of gunfire with a scoped AR-15, and engaging the shooter from across the street. That's hardly a typical self-defense situation, and IMHO not even a little bit applicable to this discussion.
 
Cheapshooter said:
Two isolated incidences among thousands of self defense shootings isn't really a reason to "overintelectualize" on what ammo to practice with.
Why worry about bullseye accuracy on a stationary target when in self defense use the target will be moving, jumping, charging, grabbing, punching, stabbing, shooting, or who knows what else.
All those shots fired on paper that are an inch or two off point of aim aren't going to be of any significance anyway.
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I disagree to an extent on the last part. A few inches one way or the other can turn what would have been a debilitating shot into something that wasn’t and then the fight goes on, giving your assailant more time to hurt you. I agree that it is not a bullseye competition, but we can look at a number of shootings where assailants were hit multiple times and kept fighting (perhaps the Miami FBI shooting being one of the most famous examples). The assailants weren’t stopped until a shot to the right area was delivered.

These are two other examples, and we can find more as handgun wounds are generally survivable (I understand these examples are police shootings and we can argue that they represent circumstances unlikely to be seen in a self defense shooting, my point here is to demonstrate that shot placement can be critical):
https://www.policemag.com/340305/shots-fired-jacksonville-florida-01-26-2008
https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/why-one-cop-carries-145-rounds-of-ammo-on-the-job-clGBbLYpnqqHxwMq/

Now is shot placement something totally under your control? No, as you pointed out the target will be moving and has a will of his/her own. But given how much is out of your control why add to that by using ammunition that doesn’t match your point of aim, one thing you hopefully can control?


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Cheapshooter said:
Why not? Again, another case of over thinking. In a defensive shooting situation you, tye gun, or tye attacker you are defending against aren't going to know any difference.


Says it all!
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You’re practicing to potentially save your life…I for one would not want to practice with anything other than ammo that “feels” the same to me. Granted you are correct, in that 99.7% of people will never know the difference when the balloon goes up and shots are fired, however I’m not going to be in that .3%. if it truly didn’t make a difference what you practiced with why do all the pro’s practice with the ammo they use…a 22 would save them a train load of cash through their career.
 
My IDPA loads are mild 147 or 124 gr loads.

My defense loads are 115 gr factory JHP.
I will every once in a while load a batch of full power 115s for practice, or buy some econoball on sale. The bullet type doesn't matter, as long as I get something close for flash, bang, and kick, it is good for practice. The last I made up with plated bullets I got from a friend who was changing to subsonic for match shooting.

I have read of people going to a lot of trouble to match their defense or duty ammo. Most are content with same bullet weight, same velocity like I am. But I recall one long thread describing a search for a reload that FELT just right.
 
I disagree to an extent on the last part. A few inches one way or the other can turn what would have been a debilitating shot into something that wasn’t and then the fight goes on, giving your assailant more time to hurt you.
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The "few inches" I was referring to was on that stationary target.
I'm not saying no practice with your carry ammo. Always good to run a mag or cylinder full to make sure it is hitting where you think it is. At least increasing your odds to some extent of hitting an important area of that moving target. But it isn't necessary to practice exclusively with your expensive carry ammo. Unless your practice is only that mag or two.
That in itself could be a very good reason to practice with reloads, or range ammo. Can you afford to shoot a hundred rounds of carry ammo? How often? If not, under the guise of practice with what you shoot, how much practice can you afford.

but we can look at a number of shootings where assailants were hit multiple times and kept fighting
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But again, hitting that magic spot on a moving, possibly charging, attacking target Is as much influenced by luck as itbis pinpoint accuracy.
Simple example, but for possible safety reasons, don't really do it....but, every try to dove hunt with a 22 handgun?

if it truly didn’t make a difference what you practiced with why do all the pro’s practice with the ammo they use
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LOL, because the ammo companies give it to them to promote their products! Then they, with due diligence, convince people that the negligible difference in range ammo, and expensive defensive ammo is much more important than it is.
You want to shoot up a hundred plus bucks in defensive ammo to practice every couple weeks or so, the ammo companies will certainly appreciate it
I find that after a hundred or so rounds of range ammo, or reloadt, I can still hit with a few rounds of SD ammo exactly where I did before all the cheap ammo practice.

FireForge said it all in post#8
I think you guys are overintellectualizing the process. This sounds like one of those threads where someone who carries a +p load feels that the sky is falling if you don't practice with a +p equivalent. I just cant get on board with that being some sort of big deal. To me, its not.
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Cheapshooter said:
The "few inches" I was referring to was on that stationary target.
I'm not saying no practice with your carry ammo. Always good to run a mag or cylinder full to make sure it is hitting where you think it is. At least increasing your odds to some extent of hitting an important area of that moving target. But it isn't necessary to practice exclusively with your expensive carry ammo. Unless your practice is only that mag or two.
That in itself could be a very good reason to practice with reloads, or range ammo. Can you afford to shoot a hundred rounds of carry ammo? How often? If not, under the guise of practice with what you shoot, how much practice can you afford.


But again, hitting that magic spot on a moving, possibly charging, attacking target Is as much influenced by luck as itbis pinpoint accuracy.
Simple example, but for possible safety reasons, don't really do it....but, every try to dove hunt with a 22 handgun?
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At no point here have I said you need to practice exclusively with carry ammo. I’ve been saying the opposite since the beginning. The question that was asked by the OP is whether you would have to practice with hollowpoints. I and most of the people I have seen respond here has said no you don’t. What some people have said is that finding range ammo that matches the POI of your defensive ammo may be a good idea. Some people have disagreed and that started a back and forth.

I completely agree that hitting a moving target is a challenge (I said as much). My point here is having ammo where the POI matches the POA takes out one variable that you actually can control, which is why I responded to your comment about a few inches not mattering. The shots that ended those fights weren’t luck. The positioning of the assailants isn’t under your control, but the bullets had to hit those critical areas, the brain and the spinal chord, to end those fights (if you read the accounts they were deliberate shots). Doing that while knowing your shots may hit inches off makes it even harder.


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Again, what I am saying is knowing that your cheap practice ammo might hit a few centimeters off point of aim from your carry ammo makes little difference. Being able to afford more ammo to practice with does. Be it handloads, or cheap range ammo. If there is such a thing as "cheap" range ammo any more.
 
And as I stated way back at the beginning, I never said it had to be exact to the point of dragging out the calipers. I've found plenty of range ammo that matches the POI of the ammo I carry to a point where I say, "Good enough".

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My response in #27 was because it seemed like the post I was replying to was downplaying the role of accuracy in a self defense shooting. While I agree it’s not a bullseye match and there are factors you can’t control, the generally low lethality of handgun rounds do require good hits.

Now if I misinterpreted that and the only point was that slightly off target hits don’t matter with range ammo okay then. To that I would say is a big reason I go to the range is to evaluate my own shooting. If my range ammo doesn’t match to the POA of my sights, with the sights set to have POA/POI for my carry ammo, then it makes it somewhat harder to evaluate my shooting if off target hits might be the ammo and not me. That’s why I personally like the POI of my range ammo to match my carry ammo, at least to a point that visually seems good enough. And again, I’ve not found it hard to do this. I don’t reload but I do look at cost when I buy ammo. Even cheaper 115 gr loads still match the POI of my carry ammo. As for shooting my carry ammo, I usually run a box through each pistol once and call it at that. Then I shoot carry ammo as I take it out of use from age.
 
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In reality my 9MM guns print 115 and 124s in the same place on the target. Maybe +/- an inch, maybe closer than that. In the revolvers sometimes there is a great difference between a 110 and a 158 gr bullet, better test this before depending on it. Again, most self defense situations are gonna be close range. To be really prepared for any situation from 3 feet to 50 yards I would want a 6" .357 revolver, I'm too uncomfortable carrying a 6" gun concealed. There is no 100% guarantee on this stuff.
 
It isn't that accuracy doesn't matter. Being able to repeatedly hit that right spot on a stationary target will to a degree improve your chances of hitting the right spit on a moving, sometimes erratically moving, target.
When practicing are all your shots hitting the same exact spot? All one hole? Or are they in a group.
Now, what if you shoot a group of five with the best, most expensive SD ammo you can find. The best, most accurate ammo you can find for your gun. Then, without changing targets, or point of aim, shoot five rounds of the cheapest range ammo you can find. Are there now two distinctive groups of five holes? Or did the original five round group just get a little bigger?
 
I get where you’re going, but let’s just skip to the point. You seem to be arguing that a person doesn’t have to spend large amounts of money to have effective practice. This is something I have stated myself since this conversation started and I have explained how what I do fits with that just fine (see my previous responses). Rather than keep repeating myself, I’ll call it a day.


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I agree with what you say, but it doesn't explain why it's okay to practice with a .22 but not okay to practice with target ammo in your carry gun. The things that transfer from target ammo to defensive ammo are the same things that transfer from a .22 to your carry gun. That goes for both helpful things and destructive things.
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I never said that there is a clear border between "okay" and "not okay" to practice one or the other. In fact, I did say that there were gains depending on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go. How into simulating your carry load are you? Then you make the judgment call based on your factors, such as cost, convenience, and equipment (reloader or not). I don't always practice with the same weight projectiles as my carry loads, but I have let my knowledge of how well a certain carry load prints and availability inform my chosen carry load so they are close enough for me.

The second one was a man who lived half a block away from the church responding to the sound of gunfire with a scoped AR-15, and engaging the shooter from across the street. That's hardly a typical self-defense situation, and IMHO not even a little bit applicable to this discussion.
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I mention the church shooting because I didn't feel like digging around for half an hour for common home invasion news stories that are less well known. I could look for all these citations from news channels, but I do believe I could instead say that most home invasions where the homeowner had time to call 911, but still had to discharge a firearm (surely you've heard/seen a few of these) were not done at *belly gun distance*. That's all my assertion was, that not all defensive shootings are at belly gun distance where you are nearly guaranteed a hit barring a malfunction or interference. Because the impression I was getting was that folks were assuming factors affecting accuracy don't matter. Also, with that church shooting, if the responder didn't have an AR-15 with a red dot (which he did) but only had a pistol instead, that would be an argument for saying accuracy makes a difference, as he chose shots in gaps in his armor.

Being able to repeatedly hit that right spot on a stationary target will to a degree improve your chances of hitting the right spit on a moving, sometimes erratically moving, target.
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Hey we agree on something! Shooting an optimal load on a stationary target will tell you how your fundamentals are doing in optimal conditions. Some of which will translate to an emergency situation. Under stress the 1 hole group probably opens up to a 6 inch pattern. But if your best is a 6 inch pattern on a stationary target at 7 yards and add stress to that, it may not be good. In a dynamic situation where you add in a moving sight picture, instability, I'd rather start with a load and fundamentals that do allow me tighter groups as a baseline, because in addition to my instability, imagine a load that adds a couple inches high when my sight picture is already higher than it should, or say 2 inches low and to the left when my sight picture is already low and to the left.

Anyways, any deliberate practice is better than none. Any other factors you want on top of that to simulate your carry round is gravy. Some like more gravy than others and it informs their decisions, and consider their gravy a personal requirement.
 
Hey we agree on something! Shooting an optimal load on a stationary target will tell you how your fundamentals are doing in optimal conditions. Some of which will translate to an emergency situation. Under stress the 1 hole group probably opens up to a 6 inch pattern.
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So in that thinking your best SD practice would be done with quality target loads that may well be much less powerful than your carry loads.
Which again reinforces my thought that what you practice with isn't nearly as important as how much you practice. A lot of shooting with more affordable range ammo, with some additional shooting with your expensive carry ammo is much better than a little practice with the high priced ammo.
 
As long as the reloads are identical to carry ammo, not problem.
You are practicing with equal rounds, so you know the recoila dnreaction of the firearm.

I carry a .38 Spl load that hornady doesn't make, my practise loads matched the bu;llet and velocity and I would soot "bowling pins" with that ammo froma 2" J-frame.

Agood hit on the central axis column, would SLLOOOWly push the pin backwards and off the table.
 
Being concerned that your training ammo is not the mirror equivalent of your carry ammo, is just silly business(IMO)

If I wanted to do some handwringing over something, I would consider whether or not my personal skills are up to the task, not whether or not I might experience a fraction of a kilogram difference in inertia or that my POI with carry ammo might be a few millimeters different.

There are plenty of issues which can likely make the difference between winning or losing a gunfight. In my opinion, this aint it.
 
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