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legality of hand load ammo

10K views 30 replies 18 participants last post by  farronwolf 
#1 ·
I am sure this has been covered before, but I didn't find any hits when I searched for it.
What are the legal ramifications of using hand loaded personal defense ammo. Have there been cases where the ammo was a deciding factor in an otherwise "Legal" shoot?
 
#4 ·
I'd give you my opinion as an attorney as to the perils of using non-factory ammo in the aftermath of a use of force encounter; however, due to the fact I am an attorney, I've found my opinion is considered worthless.

After all, people who have learned far more than I could possibly know about the aftermath of a shooting from TV, magazines and the internet tell me I'm wrong all the time.

Dam. Look at the time.

I've got to get back to the courthouse for a hearing.


(Use the handloads. People usually don't give police & prosecution enough help to make them miserable after they defend themselves. Talking to the police without a lawyer doesn't hurt you bad enough. You need to add another wild card to your situation which can confuse and mislead a jury into thinking bad things about you.)

Ta-ta.:wave:
 
#5 ·
threadjack my own thread

Maybe I should worry less about the "Evil sounding Name, hand loaded ammunition and worry more about the brand of gun I carry.
In researching my carry brand I find it has been a favorite of mentally disturbed creatons for years!

Examples
The revolver was used by Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz in his murder spree.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of using this revolver in the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
Mark David Chapman used this snub-nosed revolver to murder musician and former Beatle John Lennon.
Arthur Bremer attempted to assassinate Presidential Candidate and Governor of Alabama George Wallace, Jr. with this snub-nosed revolver.

The choice of crazys;
Charter Arms Pug, Bulldog, Off Duty or Under Cover.

Maybe I should buy a S&W.
 
#6 ·
MitchellCT, I appreciate the fact that a lawyer will hang around these parts and weigh in on those topic we gun owners are concerned over. I know this topic has been beaten to death on forums all across the i-net and I don't want to contribute to the continuation of that process. However, having said that, can you cite a case wherein a person making an otherwise legitimate shoot was convicted due to the use of reloads? I'd really like to read the transcript of a trial where that happened.
 
#9 ·
To answer the core question, hand loads are perfectly legal, for carry and anything else in VA. Handgun hunting does have a power floor you must meet.

My criminal defense attorney said no one in VA has been convicted in a shooting just because they used hand loads, that he knows of (of course he used the qualification, because he may have missed one who knows).

As a defense attorney he likes to win. As someone who likes to win he likes to have the advantage. So he recommends to his clients that they carry factory ammunition. By doing this the prosecution should not bring up the ammunition, and if they do he counters with a nice factory box you can buy at Walmart.

His concern is having to explain to a jury about reloading. We all know that we don't sit around cooking up and manufacturing special "man killer" "extra lethal" ammunition, but try to get someone who can't get out of jury duty to understand that fact. He believes he could, but why waste the time and take the chance. Being as he likes to win, he doesn't want his clients taking the chance, and it removes a variable should you ever go to trial.

If you are going to carry, find a good criminal defense attorney and talk to them before you have to make the call to them at 2AM. They can give you information that may keep you out of court, jail and or the poor house. It will probably cost you whatever they charge for an hour or two of their time depending on what questions you may have, and in the unlikely event that you have to defend yourself, that advice will pay for itself exponentially.

As for carrying reloads in you PD firearm, no law against it in VA. I'm not aware of any law against it in any other state, so go for it. For me, I will follow my attorney's advice and carry factory ammo in mine. Should I ever need him, I want him to have every advantage and to not have done anything to give the prosecutor any advantage.
 
#12 · (Edited)
It's certainly legal. But there are some who believe that it aids a zealot prosecutor in the business of hanging you by your toenails, if you willingly offer up a situation that cannot be clearly and decisively explained and justified by you. (Issue wouldn't be the justification of the defensive steps; issue would be documentable performance of ammo, justification of how much power was enough, blah blah blah). Ammo which has performance you cannot prove to the satisfaction of a "spun" jury might well fall into that category.

The point isn't about case law. Nor is it about a case hinging on a single point or fact. It is about what can or cannot be used as leverage against you. We can all appreciate how twisted an unjust much of the "justice" process can seem. Many claims are leveled and many threads are woven into a supposed whole, during criminal proceedings. Doesn't mean that your flavor-of-the-month, homespun ammo will or won't be used as leverage, anymore than your choice of a given factory load, calibration or weapon would be. It does mean, though, that the risk of a zealot taking it and running with it is something to be considered.

For me: factory ammo works and is readily available. However compelling the reason to go away from that, it's simply not worth the risk of inability to disprove/deflect the (albeit lunatic) claims that may be made against my choices, particularly when it's my choices that would be under fire in such a situation.
 
#13 ·
In Texas there is nothing in the law that says you can not carry handloads, nor does it even mention handloads that I am aware of.

So apparently it is perfectly legal to carry your own hand made ammo.
 
#14 ·
The less attention you attract...
The less attention you attract.

Why is this so hard to understand?

You are a file to everyone in the court system other than your attorney.

You are not a person.
You are not a father.
You are not a son.

You are a dangerous person. You are a person nobody believes. Why?

You are a CRIMINAL defendant. You shot someone.

Everyone thinks the worst of you.

The prosecutor thinks you are a menace to society. The police are happy to be rid of you and have a case cleared. The judge isn't all that hot to see you go free without being seriously convinced you were justified & that he won't be on the hook in the press when you shoot someone again and the media finds out he put you back on the street.

I don't care if it's legal to use handloaded ammo for carry.

Legal has nothing to do with it.

I care how much of a sticking point it will be in a questionable situation and how likely it is to make a judge in his chambers during a conference just shake his head and say "No. I'm going with the state on this one. Your client is a fruitcake. This making his own ammo thing is just freaky. You can make your case for self defense at trial or you can plead this guy out to the very generous offer of 2nd degree manslaughter and take 7 years with a right to argue for less at sentencing. I'll give him consideration for his community involvement and for having no record but he's got to do some time."

Ah, what the hell.

After all, everyone is just going to keep asking for caselaw even though I tried to explain how relevant it is to these situations.

(Caselaw...Caselaw...the battlecry of the ignorant...)

I'm just a lawyer who does criminal work as part of my practice. What could I possibly know about criminal defense work?

I mean...I didn't learn it reading gun magazines or on the internet, so how could I be right.

Use the handloads and ignore everyone who says using them can be more trouble than they are worth.
 
#16 ·
I don't care if it's legal to use handloaded ammo for carry.

Legal has nothing to do with it.
My rights! My rights!

Thank you, MitchellCT, for a dose of reality and real world experience. Good series of posts.


I mean...I didn't learn it reading gun magazines or on the internet, so how could I be right.
You're kidding right? No one needs to go to school anymore. A few hours on Google is the equivalent of four years undergrad, three years of law school and decades of working in the profession.
 
#18 ·
If I was carrying Id use a top quality factory ammo, and use reloads for target practice etc.. If you end up shooting someone, in court they could say you were some type of gun nut that was 'just waiting' for the opportunity to shoot someone, sure the same could be said either way but I think the sheep would lap it up more if you were packing reloaded rounds.
 
#19 ·
I am sure MitchellCT has seen this happen, as far as they way the prosecuter does things and how they treat someone after a defensive shooting. Without getting into a wetting contest, I will venture to say that it is going to have a lot to do with where you live and the circumstances of the defensive shooting. I am sure there are circumstances where the ammo that is used is not even questioned.
 
#20 ·
Here is another dose of reality.

With a criminal case you are paying by the hour for your lawyer, and you also have to pay for any expert should you need one to testify.

Your lawyer costs in the range of $150 to $500 per hour, and experts run in the range of $500 for a consultation on the case and a written opinion given to your lawyer on the issue, and around $2,000 per day to be available to testify.

The incident will be confusing enough with possible factors such as:

a) Entry wounds in the back of the attacker;
b) The defendant running off at the mouth and saying...who knows what before he realizes he should shut up;
c) A video which shows the situation in a way which reflects poorly on the defender either via angle of the video or showing only part of the whole incident;
d) Your 6 foot tall, 275# attacker is actually 15 years old and a minority;
e) You emptied a magazine into the attacker;
f) You thought his candy bar/cell phone/comb/hairspray was a gun and you shot him...

Or so forth.

Any combination thereof.

What? You thought your situation would be clean and simple?

Get real. Real life is messy. Real life is as screwed up as it can get.

Your defensive shooting is really unlikely to be a clear cut case of self defense.

It's going to have at least one issue that probably needs to be "smoothed over".

That, in and of itself, is not fatal. After all, you aren't required to be 100% right, just subjectively and objectively reasonable...

But the more factors you throw in, even if they are individually simple and explainable -

1) Cost money to deal with. Lots of money. (Which, to me, isn't a bad thing...I mean, I'm a vampire and the more of your blood I get, the better...however; you might not agree...but I can't say I care)
&
2) Can add up to something, which taken together is much uglier than the sum of its parts.

The more factors, the uglier the situation.

The uglier the situation, the more it costs you.

I don't care if you can make a handload for carry that is 3 times as accurate, consistent and higher quality than Black Hills.

Just by virtue of adding the issue to be dealt with you may be adding thousands of dollars to your legal bill in the aftermath.

Then again...that isn't a bad thing from my point of view so go ahead and cook up something interesting for carry.

:image035:
 
#21 ·
Here is another dose of reality
Another very good post, MitchellCT.

Just curious, but you post smacks of specific experience in this area. Have you defended (or prosecuted) a self defense shooting or are you writing from a wide ranging knowledge of the legal process in general?

In any event, the 'Castle Doctrine' in Arizona puts the onus on the prosecution, which is certainly a benefit. It certainly must be easier to justify a self defense shooting in a home invasion than out on the street.
 
#23 ·
Somewhat (but not totally) contrary to MitchellCT, I firmly believe you should use the ammo that is best for saving your live and the lives of loved ones. Maybe it is handload ammo and maybe it is factory ammo. I don't care. It helps to be a survivor of such an encounter to be able to be in court over it.

With that said and in spite of the claims of many on the internet, I have yet to meet a shooter with handloads that are of a higher quality than quality factory rounds. Here, 'quality' refers to reliability in function and performance.

If you truly believe your handloads are better quality than any factory ammo, then that is what you need to use to protect your life. If you are carrying handloads because you are too cheap to buy a box of factory ammo to carry for personal defense, then you are not thinking through the ramifications very clearly, specifically in regard to the potential costs as noted by MitchellCT.

For those who believe in only carrying what they train with and so carry handloads because they train with handloads, rethink your paradigm. If you are such a good handloader, then load up some handloads to match the performance of some good factory ammo. Even if the performance isn't exactly the same, it isn't like that 1" at 50 yards difference in performance is something that is going to be within your grasp of control that will make a hill of beans difference at 50 yards and it sure as heck won't matter at 0-7 yards.
 
#24 ·
MitchellCT,

Then from your experience in the field, would you not agree that the state and the community in which you live will have as much or more to do with a defensive shooting than what type of ammo you are using at the time.

I am sure that some of the cases presented on the personal defense threads, and the lack of prosecution or even remote interest of the police to take a serious look at the shooter have struck you as odd. I would have to guess by my reading that most of the cases in which there is little interest in the defensive shooter happen down south here were laws are much more friendly to those not engaging in criminal activity, and are only trying to protect their lives or their loved ones.
 
#26 ·
No. I wouldn't.

Janet Reno used to be a State's Attorney down in Florida, so don't make the mistake of thinking that because you live down south EVERYONE thinks as you do.

Prosecutors are lawyers, and where to the prosecutor's offices recruit from...law schools.

They like to have top notch people just like everyone else, and many of the schools they recruit from, UCLA, Yale, Harvard, Suffolk, NYU, Pace...aren't knows for ardent support of the right to bear arms.

The guy who reviews your file and makes the decission to prosecute you may be 3 years out of law school, hasn't even hit 30 yet, isn't acclimated or acultured to your location and thinks of guns in very limited catagories such as:

1) Cops carry them;
2) I prosecute people who carry them without permit;
3) Guns & drugs = Refer file to the federal prosecutor so I can clear my caseload;
4) To get this job as a prosecutor they made me shoot one and issued me a permit to carry one, but I'll worry about that when I get assigned to prosecute someone important...;
5) I think you can't hunt on Sunday around here, but I'm not sure because I don't hunt...but I read it in a statute book that posession of a shotgun in a field on a Sunday was a $500 fine & a class D Felony. Or something...but I don't care;
6) People shoot other people with them, and then I try to put a needle in the shooter's arm...

Just because a person works for the prosecutor's office in X-county, Southern State it doesn't mean squat.

For all you know he could be a Pace University School of Law graduate and a hardcore Obama supporter who doesn't like guns, believes very strongly in the collective rights theory of the second amendment (as he learned in law school and it was on the bar exam...) and believes that people who shoot other people should be prosecuted...and if they can prove self defense, well, that's what defense attorneys are for.

I would not make plans on the assumption things will break my way.

I'm suggesting that you give up on trying to make carrying hand loads for self defense sound reasonable. It is not.

It is as reasonable and smart assuming that simply because you are living it the south it is a good idea to start talking to the police after a use of force incident without asserting your right to counsel, because the cops are 'on your side'.

You can keep making all the argumets you want for carrying reloads. If that is what floats your boat, go ahead.

You decide for you.

For everyone else, make an informed decission that isn't based on a desperate adherence to an ignorant idea rooted in the deep seated (and likely mistaken) belief that "I live some place that is different!!!" with all the attendant foot stomping.
 
#25 ·
What I can't understand is why carry handloads in the first place? Do we think it to be superior to factory? Does our handload have any street record? Could it be that we could somehow develop a load that is a better performer than the factory ammo that has undergone extensive development and testing?

Even if our handloads are superior, there's that - "So factory ammo isn't lethal enough, you have to make your own..." that surely wouldn't fair well in court.

So for me, the question is with all the factory tested ammo with street records, why would we want to carry handloads in the first place?
 
#27 ·
So for me, the question is with all the factory tested ammo with street records, why would we want to carry handloads in the first place?
Because people tell him not to.

Because Ayoob says not to.

Because people who want to carry handloads knows better that everyone else.

Those people I couldn't care less about. It's the people who might listen to those people that I'm writing to.
 
#28 ·
And then there is the guy that is doing hard time for using a 10mm with factory ammo. The court found that it was too powerful a round for self defense.

As for me--There isnt any ammo made that is too powerful for me to consider if my life or that of my loved ones is at stake. And that includes nuclear weapons. Harry Truman did it and they are still talking about it, but no charges have been filed to date that I am aware of.

Truthfully, I will grab the first thing that comes under my hand in defense of those for whom I care! I could not possibly care less if it is a .22 short or a .600 Nitro Express.
 
#30 ·
I have carefully read all the posts and find many interesting, compelling and thought provoking ideas regarding the carrying of handloads in defensive firearms. As a handloader of over 40 years, one thing comes through clearly. Some of the (assumed) defensive carry pro-gun people who commented do not really understand why people like me handload and would be willing to trust my life to my handloads. Now if pro-defensive carry people don't understand it, why should I think that a jury would understand?

I have hunting rifles that have never been fired with factory loads, and most of my handguns enjoy a steady diet of handloads. I live in a rural setting with some acreage (within 15 miles of the edge of a metro area) and do sometimes carry handloads in revolvers when on my property. However, neither my wife or I ever leave our property with handloads in our handguns. We fully appreciate that "a lawyer is attached to each bullet we might fire" and it is ludicrous to hand a prosecutor anything that could be used to help convict us of a crime. I also know that factory ammo is slightly more dependable in our autloaders. I want every advantage I can muster if I ever am faced with having to fire in self-defense.

I agree that we should (and are) able to carry handloads if we choose, that it shouldn't matter what you shoot someone with if the shooting is justifiable, and that jurors should understand these issues. Unfortunately, I believe I would be putting myself at increased risk from the legal system by doing so and choose to carry factory ammunition when I leave home. I also practice situational awareness, avoid places where problems are more likely to occur, maintain enhanced levels of self-control, and would do anything rational to avoid ever having to shoot in the first place. If those things don't work, I'll be in court and relieved that I used factory ammo to stay alive.
 
#31 ·
I'll say this and then finish with this thread. The question was legality in the OP's question.

Secondly, for anyone that thinks location doesn't matter I will offer this extreme case, in that I would rather have been Joe Horn in Pasedena, TX with reloads than I would be him in a whole list of other states with factory loads.
 
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