I know a lot of folks are very proud of their handloads, but in my 30 years of shooting experience I have witnessed multiple times more failures with handloads compared to factory loaded ammo.
Interestingly, I recall reading about a fellow who, after a failure of factory ammo at an inopportune moment, would only carry his own handloads for self-defense. He would carefully seat the primers with a hand-seating tool, making sure to feel the primer legs bottom out without crushing the primer pellet. He would test the ammo for fit and function, and then mark it so he knew it was his and had passed his tests. Then, he would shoot it up every year or two and make a fresh batch, so he knew the ammo wasn't old... Puts an interesting spin on things, doesn't it?? I have a small collection of factory mistakes at my loading bench, including a case with no flashhole between the primer pocket and the powder chamber...
As far as carrying cast, I can't due to dept. policy, but in the right calibers I wouldn't have any qualms doing so. Here's a Lyman 358156 hollow-pointed for me by Buchshot over at Cast Boolits:
This one is my "Winchester" HP design that I based off the curvature of some Winchester JHPs (in a different caliber, actually).
A cup point for high velocity HPs in the 357 Mag loadings (smaller HP prevents over-expansion/disintegration of the HP at high velocity).
Replica of the standard Lyman HP pin shape for comparison testing.
The reason I sent the mould to him for HPing. This is a combination of my thoughts and another CB member named BEN who is an excellent caster and experimenter. I came up with an idea, and Buckshot pointed me at a picture of what he had already done for BEN, and I changed the tip of the pin at the bottom of the cavity and this is what Buckshot sent me. This should open at very low velocities, like 600-700 fps. I imagine it would explode like a Glaser safety slug at high 357 Mag velocities. (This is actually bad, because it significantly impairs penetration.)
One of these days I'm going to get a gelatin test done on these four variations for comparison testing.
The interesting thing about the OP's question is that the dead-soft pure Lead RB and Minie ball garnered a good reputation for killing because soft lead tends to hold together while expanding, even without a HP. So, if you stick to low velocity, and a very soft alloy (like 95-5 lead-to-tin), a SWC or something with a mild HP will still expand, and if it's heavy enough, it will penetrate. I'd take the cup point above out of 95-5 in a 200gr bullet mould and bet it would expand, and penetrate and do a good job of putting down an attacker. Not dissimilar to the WWII British 380-200 revolver load, but with dead-soft bullet with small HP cavity...
He very reasonably might not care to discuss it in public, though.
