Bamashooter said:
I think if you are using lets say remingtom golden sabers and you are loading them to spec from a reloading manual then I dont see how it could be a problem.
Here is how it could be a problem. Let's say you shoot someone charging at you with a tire iron at 10'. When police arrive, his passenger says that you were the aggressor and you shot him from a distance as he was yelling "Don't come any closer." Now police have two different stories about what happened, so they go to the forensic evidence.
If you are using Remington Golden Sabers from the factory, police can obtain an identical load of that ammunition from the factory and see what kind of gunshot residue it deposits at different distances. Based on the testing of the victim's clothing and skin for gunshot residue, they can then estimate at what range (and sometimes position) the shooting took place.
If you are using reloaded Remington Golden Sabers loaded according to a manual, the police now have several problems. The first is that the police don't necessarily know what kind of ammo you had loaded in the gun. You can tell them the details; but since you are also the suspect in a shooting, they may not be willing to take your word on it.
If they decide to instead use whatever factory ammo would normally be used in cases with those headstamps, they might get a totally different GSR pattern than your reloads. The different pattern can lead them to different conclusions about distance - and once your story stops matching the evidence, the chances a jury gets to sort out the facts go way up.
So, you'll just explain you used reloads in court, right? The problem is, it will be next to impossible to get the GSR pattern from your reloads admitted in court. First of all, there is no independent third party who conducts regular QA and maintains records on your handloads. This creates a
foundation problem that can make scientific or expert testimony on the subject inadmissible. Second, it can be very difficult to prove that the rounds you say were loaded were the ones that were actually loaded. These two factors may mean that the jury never even hears your explanation - which can be a major problem if it goes to a jury and the distance you fired is a key issue.
So far there don't seem to be a lot of cases on the subject because you need all of the following factors have to be in play:
1. There is a factual question of what distance the shooting took place and GSR evidence is critical to resolving it.
2. Handloaded ammunition was used.
3. The defendant wants to dispute the GSR tests conducted by the State.
There is one case I am aware of that meets all three criteria (the Bias case mentioned above) and another case that meets the first 2 criteria (the Pease case out of Virginia). As a result, you can make the argument that this is such an incredibly rare circumstance, you don't need to worry about it.
On the other hand, I can point to a number of self-defense shooters who were eventually acquitted (Mark Abshire, Larry Hickey) where the distance at which the shootings took place were absolutely critical to their cases. Admissibility of GSR evidence didn't come up in those cases because they used factory ammo.
It seems to me that this debate boils down to two major issues:
1. Will the defense be able to get its own GSR tests admitted into evidence if handloaded ammunition is used?
2. What advantages do I gain from handloaded ammunition and how do they balance against the above risk?
From my perspective, there doesn't appear to be any advantage to using handloaded ammo. Perhaps a tiny sliver more confidence in reliability and some cost-savings. So it doesn't take much risk to outweigh those advantages in my mind.
As to risk, it seems this is where there is a lot of disagreement. It seems the first step to solving this disagreement would be to show a case where the defense was successful in getting its own GSR tests of handloaded ammo admitted into evidence. Once we have that case, we can look at the motions related to that evidence, figure out what it cost in terms of expert witness fees and attorney trial time and have a rough idea of what kind of extra cost it adds.
If we cannot find ANY case where that has happened, then we have to assume a very real risk that such evidence will not be admissible and that we are going to be at the mercy of the state forensic examiner on any case where the distance the fight happened is relevant.
So if anybody out there has some information that clarifies these issues, I would love to learn more and I imagine it would help all of us get a better picture of the risk/reward involved.
OldMarksman said:
The hand loads issue may also have been mentioned in one of the appellate court decisions, but I don't know--I have not looked.
No, I don't think it was. At least I went through 17 pages of appellate cases on Google Scholar one by one last night discussing GSR evidence admissibility and the Bias case was not one of them.