If you can believe law enforcement investigators, using handloaded ammunition in a self-defense shooting is a bad idea because it greatly reduces or eliminates the chance that the ballistics of the shooting event can be replicated in the shooting investigation. An example of that is determining the across-the-room shooting distance where the self-defense shooter claimed that the assailant was almost at touching distance when the shot was fired. Forensics proved that the shot was fired from more than 20 feet away by finding ball power firing residue across the room from where the shooter fired. The factory ammo used was a slow-burning magnum ball powder and identified after the shooting.

In this example, use of the factory ammo worked against the shooter's self-defense claim, but examples are known where using handloads put the shooter's self-defense case because factory ammo was not used and could not be used to duplicate the shooting conditions.