self defense & frangible ammo

[tweek]

After the CHL stuff and what I've learned I'm interested in finding ammo for my M4 that is suitable for home defense. Specifically: if I gotta get all gansta on some MFer in my house and I miss I'd like my bullets to stop as soon as possible. The first wall would be ideal.

So would frangible ammo be the correct solution? We want something that will terminate the bad guy, but rounds that miss the mark stop upon hitting a wall or something.

Hollow points don't seem to bad, but they can still behave like FMJ if you put them through wall board.

Any suggestions?

Also, from the stuff I've read you handgun ammo is that much better about stopping posthaste. It will also over penetrate just like high velocity rifle ammo. So again: is frangible ammo a good choice for this application? I'm not worried about engaging the people in Denton or anything. Just the zombie that came through the door thinking he just arrived at Ponchos and it's snack time.

Also, given that this ammo will probably never be needed - how long can you store it? Given the need for it you want it to work, so would you store it for 12 months? 24? 36? Obviously the magazine needs to be swapped about every 6 months to make sure the spring doesnt get comfortable where it's at. But how long for the ammo? For instance if I go buy a box of 223 & 9mm frangible today, then next year should I throw the used pumpkins in my truck and take them out for some frangible target practice?

Just looking for some feedback and thoughts about this.

 

[Bithabus]

I've thought about this and here is what I decided:

No round that won't penetrate drywall can be counted on to stop a violent felon. Rifle rounds should penetrate less than slower and heavier handgun rounds, and rifle rounds will cause more damage to your assailant.

It's true that if you miss the felon and hit your neighbor, and your actions are found to be negligent, you could face criminal or civil penalties. But bullets are tiny and the chances of one connecting with a neighbor are slim. If you fail to stop an armed felon, the chances he will cause serious harm to you are pretty high. Which is the greater risk?

 

[codygjohnson]

No round that won't penetrate drywall can be counted on to stop a violent felon. Rifle rounds should penetrate less than slower and heavier handgun rounds, and rifle rounds will cause more damage to your assailant.

It's true that if you miss the felon and hit your neighbor, and your actions are found to be negligent, you could face criminal or civil penalties. But bullets are tiny and the chances of one connecting with a neighbor are slim. If you fail to stop an armed felon, the chances he will cause serious harm to you are pretty high. Which is the greater risk?

Yep. Also, your ammunition, if kept dry in a climate controlled environment, should last forever. Wouldn't hurt to cycle it every 10 years or so, but I wouldn't see it ever "going bad" in your lifetime.

I've read (take that for what it's worth) that as long as your mag springs are not stainless steel, they will not wear out from being loaded. Supposedly, only repeated compression and decompression (normal use) can wear out a chrome silicon spring. I've had magazines loaded for years and haven't had any issues with them. I still tend to empty them now and then anyway, just in case...

 

[txinvestigator]

I've thought about this and here is what I decided:

No round that won't penetrate drywall can be counted on to stop a violent felon. Rifle rounds should penetrate less than slower and heavier handgun rounds, and rifle rounds will cause more damage to your assailant.

It's true that if you miss the felon and hit your neighbor, and your actions are found to be negligent, you could face criminal or civil penalties. But bullets are tiny and the chances of one connecting with a neighbor are slim. If you fail to stop an armed felon, the chances he will cause serious harm to you are pretty high. Which is the greater risk?

Excellent post!

 

[SIG_Fiend]

Ditto what Bithabus said. If it will barely penetrate 1 or 2 layers of drywall, then it will not have enough penetration to reliably, physically disable an attacker. Frangible rounds will fragment/vaporize/whatever the correct term is once they hit pretty much anything. They are a compressed metallic powder that, when hit, will basically turn back into powder so there are no solid fragments to do serious damage. Really, the only purpose I can think of for a frangible round is for firearms training and shooting steel at close range (like as close as ~3yds) with no risk of ricochet.

For an AR for defensive use, I would recommend getting a good open tip round like Hornady TAP or Corbon DPX. Put the rounds where they are supposed to go, and they will do the job without going through 8 neighbor's houses.

The one recurring theme we always see when it comes to questions like this is, training is probably the most important aspect. How many people here have ever shot in low/no light, with a flashlight (weapon mounted and also hand held), practiced clearing rooms at night, etc? If you haven't, you owe it to yourself to try. Remember, under stress, you will default to the level of training you've mastered. If you've never done any of those things and haven't started to get used to it and built some muscle memory, should you be put in that situation you will likely just point and shoot in the dark and have no clue where any of those bullets are going. Hmm, maybe we'll have to see about putting together a TGT low-light range event at some point.

 

[codygjohnson]

Hmm, maybe we'll have to see about putting together a TGT low-light range event at some point.

Dude, I'm down. They do them up here at Elm Fork every once in a while. Maybe the Centex guys could drive up and we could stake it out for a weekend.

 

[dalto]

Hmm, maybe we'll have to see about putting together a TGT low-light range event at some point.

That would be friggin awesome, count me in if you ever get that one planned out.

 

[tweek]

Low light training is a great idea. that was how I got introduced to a handgun. Talk about jumping straight in to the deepend. Proactive Defense does low light training on Wednesdays if anybody up here is interested. I'm probably going to try and go out a few times. Turns out they have 2 pretty cool tactical pits to play in.

After finishing up at my clients place I ran by the store and bought 2 boxes of fragglerock stuff. One box of Dynamic Research Tech 75 grain .223 and one box of SBR 9mm Lead Free Frangible Bullets (wanna be green when I'm doing the dirty harry). I had not read the responses yet, but I'm not worried about the cost.

One of the points made in the CHL class was that you want to use a hollow point or any type of round that will leave a very big wound channel as it makes its way through your target. Which is why FMJ isn't ideal.

I'm going to keep researching this stuff. It's actually pretty cool. I wonder if I can get some ballistic gel or make my own block. It would be cool to take a few blocks to the range and have at them with the eatible stuff and some various hollow points and other stuff just for comparison. I know its been done before but I wanna have fun too!

 

[Bithabus]

.

After finishing up at my clients place I ran by the store and bought 2 boxes of fragglerock stuff. One box of Dynamic Research Tech 75 grain .223 and one box of SBR 9mm Lead Free Frangible Bullets (wanna be green when I'm doing the dirty harry). I had not read the responses yet, but I'm not worried about the cost.

Throw that stuff in the garbage and get some real ammo.

 

[texas_teacher]

One of the points made in the CHL class was that you want to use a hollow point or any type of round that will leave a very big wound channel as it makes its way through your target. Which is why FMJ isn't ideal.

This is also what I've read but I've also seen that when dealing with 380 that because of the size of the round and the velocity a FMJ will achieve more penetration and you aren't sacrificing any mushrooming because there isn't a great deal to begin with...