Responsible ownership.

[Ntypical]

If one of the mods feels that this topic is better placed someplace else then I apologize.

Yes, you probably guessed it, another firearms post. But some may just learn something interesting today.

I would like to talk about responsible ownership, and things we can do to better police our own.

For starters, and this will depend on why you own, and your intended purpose for your firearms.

A majority of what my wife and I own are for our collection, but a few are for personal and home defense. Both my wife and I have our concealed carry permits. I got mine in 2002, and my wife got hers in 04. My primary carry gun is a Kimber Ultra CDP II


As I said in the other thread I do sometimes carry a Model 60 or my 617 during the summer. They are a bit smaller so they are easier to carry during the summer months.

My wife carries a Glock 36. It has a single stack 6 round magazine, chambered in .45 ACP and is light and easy to carry. But as it is light, there is more felt recoil, so you need to be mindful of that.

Now, as we have children in the house we don't just leave them laying around. During the hours where we are awake, we likely have them on us. And when we go to sleep we both have bedside finger safes. They are just simple small touch pad safes that mount to your bed frame. There are four finger slots with a pad at the tip, if you want in you simply enter the code, and it pops open. That way you can keep your loaded firearm ready for home defense without worrying about your children getting access to them.

One thing that a lot of people do not think applies to responsible ownership, is knowing your firearm's capabilities. not knowing what your firearm can do with what load is a bad thing because a through and through could cause serious injury. So, you have to pick a load that lessens the chances of one.

For home defense I stand by the belief that not much is better than a 12 gauge shotgun with the right load.

But before we get into terminal effects let me say one thing. If you are using shot, you still have to aim. Normal engagement ranges inside the home do not generally exceed three or four yards. At that range the shot patter has generally not expanded too much.

Tactical works did a nice piece on shotgun terminal ballistics, so we can use it to make an informed decision on what load to run.

At a range of 4 yards, you can not rely on anything lighter than number four buck. The loads lighter than that lack the mass to keep a velocity that will penetrate to vital organs. So while the wound will be gruesome, it will be shallow. Yes, in many cases it may stop an attacker, but not in one where they are determined, or on some mind altering drug. Also, in most states, simply aiming a firearm at someone is considered using lethal force. So if a bad guy breaks in, and you shoot him with a light load, then tell the cops that you intentionally used this light load so you wouldn't kill the attacker, the DA can charge and convict you for a number of offenses. This can happen even in states where we have the castle doctrine. It can happen because, by you saying that you intentionally used a load that you didn't think would kill someone, then you didn't think there was a reason to use lethal force, but you did anyway by simply pointing the firearm at someone.

Now I say use a shotgun for home protection for two reasons. One, because of the massive wound cavity, with controlled penetration by using the proper load, and because there is a much longer sight radius, so it is easier to hit what you are aiming at. The shorter the sight radius, the less room for error in sighting.

For some reason I can't get tacticalworks.ca to open right now. So I will summarize.

As I said before nothing less than #4 buck. FBI standards tell us that to have an effective round, you must have a minimum of 12 inches of penetration in 10C ballistics gel. They set this because not all hits are straight on center mass, so 12 inches is a good number for good penetration from all angles. I am going from memory because as I said, I can't get the site to open, at 3 yards #4 buck consistently punched to 14 inches. This means that it will be effective from all angles, but yes may penetrate all the way through depending on the bad guy's body type, and density. But as it will have expended most of its energy in the body, it will not be likely to penetrate through the dry wall walls and injure a loved one, or someone outside your home.

Now, the reason I primarily have my carry gun more accessible is because it is easier to secure with easy access than a shotgun is. Our pistols get us to a shotgun. The shotguns are stored in a small five gun gun safe in our bedroom. And the guns that are part of the collection are in a large safe that used to be a walk in closet.

Even if you do not have kids, I would recommend a safe. Gun cabinets are not a good idea, they are too easy to break into, and if you do not carry during the day, then there is a lot of time where your firearm could be stolen by someone who waits for you to leave before they break in.

I do not know about you. But I would find it very difficult to know that one of my firearms was stolen then used to hurt an innocent person.

So because our pistols are the first line of defense, and because we carry often, we also need to know and understand what they are capable of. And as such we need to be able to pick a good load for them.

We both use 185 grain Cor-Bon DPX +P in our carry guns. Cor-Bon DPX has a faster burrning powder than hydrashock, or Federal HST, so it works better is pistols with shorter barrels. If you run the normal Federal hollow points then you are going to suffer from a drop in muzzle velocity, and will get a good bit of muzzle flash. Muzzle flash is a bad thing in the dark. And loosing muzzle velocity is a bad thing, because it will make the projectile preform different. The higher the muzzle velocity, the more expansion you will get, and as such, more resistance in the body, so it lowers the penetration (as a general rule, but there are other factors that contribute). In my carry gun with a 3 inch barrel I get a consistent average of 13 inches with a projectile expansion diameter of .74 inches, and my wife gets a consistent average of 12 inches from her 1.13 inch barrel (both at 7 yards) with the projectile expanding to .67 inches. So, once again we know that we can shoot without hurting someone with a through and through.

Some people still like to use straight full metal jacket in their home defense pistols. I have heard excuses like. Using these will tell the police that I was not planning for an attack and make me look more innocent, to, hollowpoints look evil.

Well, using FMJ in pistols will cause a lot of over penetration and can travel through multiple walls.

For example.



That is more than 60 cm of penetration, aka more than 23 inches. Keep in mind that the average male is only about 9 inches anterior to posterior through the chest.


(I couldn't find any graphics for the load we use, but it shows the point well)



Now, that silver tip does expand more than our DPX loads. But it also penetrates a lot less. So we went with a load that expands less (because of it's construction) but penetrates to a greater depth, though is still unlikely to be able to penetrate deep enough after exiting the body to kill someone else.

So say our lady with the .38 is running 110 grain HPs from a 2 inch sub nosed barrel. She will likely get this.


The expansion isn't too bad. But the penetration is not too good. More than effective in a center mass frontal shot, but not so much at any other angle.

But if she bumps it up to a 4 inch barrel with a heavier load of different construction she gets more penetration, with the same expansion.




So, as you can see, responsible ownership does not just mean responsible storage.