cast lead for defense

[Match10]

I rationalize what will be my statement should it ever happen that I pull the trigger and have to worry about this.

You see, I mean for my bullets to kill what it is they hit. Period. I want whatever I shoot to be the most deadliest thing I can have. Once I have to make the descision to defend myself or someone else, I think it is largely irrelevant what the projectile was.

I have a load for my 357 loaded as three seperate 66 grain Wadcutters stacked inline. They punch three holes in a perfect centered triangle. I did this to avoid penetration in my home, and they worked nicely out of my 66.

That being said, I now load 158 grain hollowpoints for that weapon. They happen to be factory, as I just have not gotten around to finding any primers in the last few years.

I load Black Talons in my 44.... And Ranger SXT in my other handloads. Gold Dots and XTPs....

A case could be made that handloads are meant to kill. Another can be made that hollow points are more deadly. A solid lead wadcutter could be said to be deadly in yet another manner. In New Jersey, I am fairly certain you cannot use hollowpoints at all for SD.

It all comes back to the circumstances of the shoot. "Yes, I meant to kill to defend myself against an imminent threat of great harm." I used a tool purposefully meant to do so.

 

[Jellybean]

GSR testing is only a tool that might help if there is a question about a shooters statement about how an incident happened.

Factory ammunition is no better than handloads because there are no factory loads that can't be taken apart and tampered with. Most of the brass and bullets used in factory ammo is available to the handloader too, so no matter what you claim you had in the gun, or what kind of box you wrote on claiming it's what was in the gun, once it's been fired there is nothing that will tell you exactly what that load was, or wasn't.

And I've never seen a civil suit based on the fact that a low life cretin was killed with too much force when he was justifiably killed in the first place.

Maybe I should be an expert witness, or am I too honest?

 

[Skip Sackett]

That was the point

GSR testing is only a tool that might help if there is a question about a shooters statement about how an incident happened.

Factory ammunition is no better than handloads because there are no factory loads that can't be taken apart and tampered with. Most of the brass and bullets used in factory ammo is available to the handloader too, so no matter what you claim you had in the gun, or what kind of box you wrote on claiming it's what was in the gun, once it's been fired there is nothing that will tell you exactly what that load was, or wasn't.

And I've never seen a civil suit based on the fact that a low life cretin was killed with too much force when he was justifiably killed in the first place.

Maybe I should be an expert witness, or am I too honest?

That was the point in the famous case noted by the experts. There was no GSR on the Mrs. The handloads that were supposed to have been used couldn't be tested because the "evidence" had been manufactured by the defendant and hence the problem with handloads for self defense. Paul's testing clearly proves that had the firearm been held by the Mrs. in the manner described there would have been GSR on her. If she had been shot from across the room, there would have been none or so little that it could have gotten missed.

Guess what? There wasn't any GSR according the article and court documents.

The jury simply didn't believe that she could have shot herself and not left GSR. Personally, I don't either, no matter how light the load was.

Then again, I'm not an expert witness either!

 

[Paul5388]

Most people assume the methods used by law enforcement are valid methods. That may or may not be true.

Once was the time when people were jailed on the basis of bullet chemistry, where it was assumed all of the cartridges in a box were identical. It later became known that as many as 4 or 5 different lots could be in a single box of factory cartridges.

Here's the article that debunks that whole concept.
Forensics on trial: chemical matching of bullets comes under fire | Science News | Find Articles at BNET

If there can be that many different lots in a single box of factory cartridges, could there also be numerous lots that have different powder in them, which would also affect the GSR? Of course, as Skip noted, there wasn't any GSR in the Bias case to check.

 

[Jellybean]

Quoted from Smith Crazy:

The jury simply didn't believe that she could have shot herself and not left GSR. Personally, I don't either, no matter how light the load was.

Skip, that was my point.

Maybe I should be an expert witness, or am I too honest?

While it is possible to have no GSR on a suicide victim, there would be evidence showing why. Apparently there was none in the Bias case just as there was no evidence that showed Mr. Bias was telling the truth. Duplicating what really happened isn't hard to do, but trying to fabricate results based on deception can be a real chore, no matter who you are.

He was found guilty of intentionally murdering his wife and that decision was overturned on appeal. He was then found guilty of unintentionally murdering her and that decision was upheld when appealed. Had the higher court shown that there was not enough evidence to show he was the one that killed her, the prosecutor would have only been wasting his/her time and money with another trial. If I was a betting man, I'd say that the higher court overturned it only because the state couldn't prove intent.