I have a 4" 44 Mag that is my "nightstand" pistol. A friend of mine is fairly critical as I live in a housing development and he thinks that the risk of a round going through my walls and into a neighbor's house is to great.

Having this pistol gives me great comfort, but I know he is right in the fact that, despite a home intruder, once a round leaves my house, it's on me.

Thoughts? Any "lower powered" loads that I could possibly use?

I have a 4" 44 Mag that is my "nightstand" pistol. A friend of mine is fairly critical as I live in a housing development and he thinks that the risk of a round going through my walls and into a neighbor's house is to great.

Having this pistol gives me great comfort, but I know he is right in the fact that, despite a home intruder, once a round leaves my house, it's on me.

Thoughts? Any "lower powered" loads that I could possibly use?

A lighter bullet can help with overpenetration, but there is no free lunch. Any bullet that penetrates adequately on the human body won't stopped by a couple sheets of drywall. Corbon 165 gr. JHPs in either .44 magnum or special would be excellent choices. I use a 5" 629 as a carry/house gun and run 165s in mine. IMO 165 grs. is about the perfect weight for a defensive bullet from a .44 magnum. It's too bad that more ammo makers don't realize it, or feel that such a weight isn't commercially viable because of most shooter's fixation on too heavy for caliber bullets.

Accurate gunfire and thus firing less shots is the key to minimizing the danger of stray bullets to your neighbors.

This discussion comes up quite a bit on all gun forums. I noticed last night on one of those Personal Defense TV programs, they illustrated various calibers and bullets going through drywalls. Even 9mm made it through couple of walls. It seems that the consensus was use JHP's instead of FMJ to give your neighbor or another family member in the next room a chance of not getting hit, regardless of caliber. A shotgun using bird-shot seemed to be the best.

A lighter bullet will help reduce the risk you are concerned about. I recommend the CorBon DPX. It is a 200gr at 950fps.

Regarding birdshot for home defense... I don't recommend that at all.

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Centennial Every Day

I agree that any bullet fired from any modern handgun is most likely going to penetrate more than one wall. A recent case I read about concerned a guy that was assaulted in a bar. He pulled his .45 and hit the assaulter aside the head with the gun and it discharged. The bullet went through the wall and killed a lady walking on the sidewalk across the street.

You can pick a light load, such as CCI Speer Blazer, or Speer Short Barrel, or even .44 Specials, if you are wanting to mitigate wall penetration. You won't stop it, but you might lessen it.

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Hook686

The Glaser Safety slugs would probably be a good choice if over penetration was extremely high risk.

Glasers are notorious for shallow wounds, and cost prohibitive to practice with. I would use a conventional JHP.
I agree. Lead BB would probably penetrate enough at close range, but there are no doubts in my mind with #4 buck. I shot a coyote at about 15 yds. with 1 5/8 oz. #6 shot from my Ithaca Deerslayer a couple weeks ago and shot at him four times before he was gone. I hit him good and more than once. He wasn't stopped and many people have a 15 yd. shot in their home. I looked for two hours trying to find him. No doubt he's dead, but not quick enough to prevent his escape. Birdshot is for birds, not 200 lb. mammals. Had I been looking to shoot a coyote (I had never seen one before in the wild, so it was quite a surprise) instead of woodchucks, there's no way I would have been using #6. From now on I'm using Federal 00 (Flite Control Wad) for chucks or coyotes. I wish #4 buck was available in a Flite Control Wad.

If you're really worried about over penetration, the one option that might balance "frangible" with "quite lethal" would probably be to obtain an M4 clone and load it with relatively light varmint loads. If your twist rate doesn't lend itself well to that, then try M193 type FMJ.

Anyway, one of the advantages of a 629 is that it can fire a relatively heavy bullet at a decent speed. Much smash'um under whatever theory you subscribe to. Try the Gold Dot JHPs, they tend to make a mess of gelatin. Over penetration is something for your lawyer to deal with under such things as the doctrine of competing harms.

My own 629 is left perpetually loaded with 240 gr JSPs under the theory that if I'm shooting at things with a 629 I'd want penetration.

An AR 15 loaded with 55 gr Hornady TAP rounds is an excellent choice for home defense. This round has very minimal penetration as the high velocity and yawing of the bullet breaks it up relatively quickly after initial impact. Usually not much beyond the first wall of sheet rock. It's hard to believe that a rifle would make good sense in a home environment, but an M4 carbine with this TAP round is really an excellent choice....just make sure you are wearing electronic muffs if you were to ever fire a round or more indoors.

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Federal 357B 125gr JHP

I keep my 29 loaded with Speer 200 grain Gold Dot Short Barrel. I have some concerns about it, but I think in the .44 flavor, it's the best thing currently available.

I currently have a M624 next to my bed. If I had a 629/29 instead of the 624, it would be loaded with the same .44 Special Silvertip. Less recoil, Less muzzle flash, and less risk of over penetration.

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Formerly know as Lucky Derby

44spl. is the answer for this situation. IMHO

Try loading the first 3 chambers with Glaser Blue, and the last 3 with Blazer 200 gr. GDHP. Both in .44 Special.

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USAF, 69-92
Vietnam, 72-73

While this can be an amusing topic to fantacise about, it is unlikley to be a real issue.

The odds of ever having to shoot an a home intruder are probably in excess of 100,000 to 1. Then, if you add 1,000 to 1 odds of that bullet hurting someone in an adjacent abode, the odds increase to 1 million to 1. You are much more likely to be struck by lightening, and/or win the daily lottery. Not worth anguishing over.

Nevertheless, use whatever bullet you wish.

gold40

I used to keep a shotgun beside the bed but I read more and more about crooks with body armor so I replaced the shotgun with a 30-30. My first mission is to stop the threat in my house. Gold 40 says the chance of hitting someone outside the house is 1,000 to 1. I am not a mathematician but I think it's about a 1,000,000 to 1, so I think Gold 40 has good judgement. Just my thoughts. Larry

A person needs to be aware at all times where he's shooting at in his house no matter what. If you have children in the next room are you going to shoot at an intruder that's between you and them? Then why would you take a shot at someone if he's lined up with you're neighbors bedroom? A person better know where they're shooting 'cause if someone shoots somebody in my house by "accident" I'll be coming for them!! There won't be any trial to figure out if it was a accident or not it'll be instant revenge!

Smitty

Body armor is actually rare for home invasions. Oh it happens, but not very often. Drug dealers sometimes wear it - a status symbol at times in some areas - and lots of people will be wearing it if the SHTF, but it just isn't commonly encountered. (And I say this as one of the few people who wears a vest every day and who also keeps tac armor by the bed at night.)

If you are worried about, most anything that you stuff into an AR is going to penetrate soft body armor, yet still not do as much structural penetration as a .30-30 hunting round will.

That only goes for soft armor mind you. If someone is wearing rifle plates, then no, a 5.56mm won't penetrate (unless you have access to the new M955 black tip AP rounds sometimes found on SAW belts), but neither will your .30-30. You'll also be having a very bad day since if someone is wearing rifle plates, then they probably came to deliberately murder you instead of just rob you.

If you want something that looks more pedestrian than an M4 clone, there's always the Mini 14, it doesn't look much more threatening than a .30-30.