Any Self-Defense stories involving reloading?

[PaladinX13]

When I read self defense stories on http://www.keepandbeararms.com/ or similar websites/magazines, I don't generally read anything about reloading or encounters taking more than a cylinder/magazine. I'm sure such encounters could occur but do we have any real world examples to look at what such a situation looks like? Under what circumstances have citizens had to reload during self-defense? (Handgun defense, obviously, shotguns and rifles need not apply... I guess unless there was reloading involved)

I'd like to see some real world examples/stories if possible.

 

[pax]

John Farnam has an interesting take on it: http://www.defense-training.com/quips/2000/20Dec00.html

pax

 

[PaladinX13]

Appreciated, I've seen that article though and not entirely sure I count a police shooting as equivalent to civilian self-defense. I guess I'm curious what circumstances a civilian has to find themselves in to reload and keep shooting (even in that article, I believe the point is that they actually DON'T usually run through more than one magazine- stopping around 8 shots- but train for if they do).

 

[Rockstar]

Heck, I thought this thread was about using reloads for self-defense!

 

[Moonclip]

If youn look at some of the writings of Massad Ayoob, especially "The Ayoob Files" book and articels from American Handgunner, I'm sure you will find such stories.

 

[PaladinX13]

I don't subscribe to AH, but I've read a lot of Ayoob files. Of hand, I can't remember any civilian stories involving reloading.

I remember one story where a female cop gets shot during a traffic stop (.44?), surivives due to a vest, unloads her entire weapon which jams, then reloads to clear the jam. This applies to civilians in the sense they can reload to clear jams, but 1. A civilian wouldn't be pulling over angry drivers. 2. Most civilians wouldn't be wearing vests.

Another story two guys are working late and a perp appears upstairs but they get involved in an exchange of shots. The guy with the pistol reloads once but doesn't fire anything from the new clip.

The only ones I can recall that involved reloading were always soliders in enemy territory or tales of the lawless old west.

I may have read some, but I just don't recall any... does anyone recall any real world stories (not just potential situations) involving a civilian reloading and using his weapon?

 

[Rockstar]

I'd have to assume that any "stories" by Ayoob would have been made up of whole cloth between his ears, like his legal "theories."

 

[Gary A]

Not vouching for the veracity of any article or author, but I remember reading an article by Chuck Taylor where he asserted that studying thousands of cases of self-defense, he only found a handful of cases where a reload was involved and even less where a reload had any bearing on the outcome. His take, train for it but it will likely never be a factor. FWIW.

 

[Sunray]

If you need more than one mag, you're in a fire fight, not a self defense situation.

 

[Dienekes]

Newhall CA, circa 1970. Sort of an anomaly but sufficiently awful to where it was the grandfather of the eventual "Street Survival" movement. As I recall a two man CHP unit stopped two seriously hostile ex-cons in a large parking lot, and the BGs opened up on them. Many training and mindset mistakes made--tactics, carefully putting brass in pockets while reloading, heads in the cockpit, etc. The initial two troopers were killed. The second similar CHP unit rolled up into it and they were killed also.

1981 Miami shootout featured reloading but was a general cluster. The agent who ended it did do reloads. Other agents who attempted to do reloads had varying degrees of difficulty in so doing.

In both the above cases things went plumb to hell from the first minute and reloading per se was not a big factor.

Reloading in the police sector has not proven to be crucial and even less so in the civilian world. Just because people practice it a lot doesn't make it important. Good skill to have but other skills matter more.

 

[pauli]

Heck, I thought this thread was about using reloads for self-defense!

i came in with colorful visions of some guy quickly unbolting a single stage press and throwing it at an attacker

 

[Graystar]

I think that as soon as the perp realizes that his intended victim is of equal strength all they want to do is get out of there. Which partially explains why the percentage of victim wins in a gunfight is so high (I think I read that they win just about all of them.) By the time you reload the guys is dead or gone (well...that's my guess anyway.)

If these guys wanted to work for their money they would get jobs.

 

[MICHAEL T]

It seems us poor civilians are better shots than the trained Police, We settle out problem with a min number of shots and a higher hit count. Just look at the reported shootings Don't see 20 civilians fire 400 rounds a 1 BG and hitting him in the foot.

NYPD figures show 62% of shots fired at a distance of less than six feet were complete misses. Thats trained officers.

 

[James T Thomas]

it's not that simple

...and if your hand is trembling, and your heart pounding, and pressing that single action trigger, you just empty that magazine, and the threat continues on your life or your's. Yes, you have missed, or he is soaking it up.
You are damn right you're in a fire fight! Expand your scenarios beyond self defense from that threating menace who just is placing himself in a position to be shot. If you imagine that only one or two simple situations are likely, you are decieving yourself.

 

[PaladinX13]

I'm sure any of us can imagine extraordinary circumstances to be prepared for... but I'm not seeking imaginations, but citations of reality. Actual stories of actual events involving what you imagine could happen.

 

[Trebor]

I remember one incident in the last two years where a homeowner wished he would have been ABLE to reload. The bad guy broke in and the homeowner shot at him six times with a .357. He made two or three hits. The bad guy kept trying to get past the homeowner into the bedroom where the homeowners children where. The homeowner didn't have a reload for his revolver, so he got his unloaded 12 gauge and beat the guy with it until he stopped. Evidently the homeowner didn't believe in having spare ammo around.

If I can find the story on my HD, I'll post it. I saved it at the time, but I don't know where. It may have been posted here as well.

 

[Dienekes]

There are plenty of documented after-action reports involving police officers with the good and the bad. Also plenty of good training in both the public and private sector. In other words the answers to this and a lot of other questions are available if you really want them.

There is even more fourteenth-hand anecdotal evidence on the web.

Pick your flavor.

 

[Moonclip]

Yes, C.taylor seems right about that. And "civilian" shootings seems to almost never involve reloading. train for it, but focus on other compnents of training more. Miami(IT WAS IN 1986 guys!) involved reloading but one guy could not reload well as his bone fragments and blood from a gunshot wound made it hard for the cylinder to close

Police shooting probably have more reloading incidents but not that many still.

Newhall had many "tactical" mistakes including poor reloading by the officers. One thing though was the perps were very well armed. They had just been out target shooting!

 

[VG]

I've never seen one. The FBI had a stat that the "average" gunfight was 3 shots and over in less than 4 seconds, but I din't have the citation.

If you examine the odds, you're better off spending the time you'd spend practicing reloads exercising or buying healthy food: you're a whole lot more likely to die of heart disease than in a gunfight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopping_Power

 

[Marko Kloos]

pax,

Farnam's anecdote is a bit fallacious...it only proves the point that cops will empty their guns under stress. To argue the necessary capacity by the number of rounds fired per incident is kind of circular, since the whole thing is like money expenditure..."the more you make, the more you spend." I seem to recall that the number of rounds fired by police per incident has tripled since the introduction of autoloaders, but the hit rate has remained about the same, which leads me to give credence to that theory.

I have never read a verified account of a civilian CCW holder getting killed because their gun ran dry.

 

[ACP230]

I saw a story on a case in which a civilian got involved when a police officer was under attack. He was on his way back from the range and used several full cap magazines keeping the attacker from closing with the police officer or on him. The phrase "suppressive fire," was used I think.

I think it was in Ayoob's series in American Handgunner, but am not sure.

I met two of the people profiled by Ayoob. One retold the story of his attack and, although the language was a bit more colorful, the story was the same.

 

[Boss Spearman]

We had to go through moving drills and live fire reloads during the NRA tactical course, but that isn't a situation with someone shooting back.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

In 1966, Charles Whitman took over the U. Texas clock tower observation deck and started sniping anyone he could hit. As far as I know, this was the only time in recent US history where the local civilian population rose to the threat and showed up on scene armed and put their guns to good use. The various LEO agencies involved did not curtail the citizenry from participating.

Austin Police officer Houston McCoy, DPS Trooper Ramiro Martinez and non-LEO civilian Allen Crum and one other were the four people who actually made it out onto the observation deck and who fired at Whitman.

If you ever get a chance to see any of the original film footage of the folks on the ground that are firing, you will see at least a couple that were reloading as well.

Sunray said,

If you need more than one mag, you're in a fire fight, not a self defense situation.

What a strange thing to say. A firefight can't be self defense? Where is it written that the number of magazines used is what denotes the difference in self defense versus a firefight? If I use my Beta mag on my AR15 for self defense, firing up to 100 rounds, would that still be a self defense shooting since I only used one mag?

Needing to reload and reloading does not mean you are not in a self defense situation. It just means you in a really good fight (or can't shoot worth a darn).

 

[Dirty Bob]

Graystar makes a good point!

If these guys wanted to work for their money they would get jobs.

Or, as "Longbaugh" says in Way of the Gun:

These days, they want to be criminals more than they want to commit crime.

I'd never stopped to compare motives of the participants. The victim's in it for his/her survival, while the attacker is probably looking for something quick with little effort. This doesn't make me want to stop carrying a spare mag or SpeedStrip. The Mike Platts of this world do exist. Thankfully, though, I believe they are rare creatures (Platt was the "man on a mission" in the April 11, 1986 FBI shootout in the Miami area).

My wife and I walked out of an attempted mugging by two guys in a stairwell in 2001. I still believe it's because the goblins decided I was too much trouble. I had a knife in my hand -- in my pocket -- and was preparing to use it when they faded back.

Regards,
Dirty Bob

 

[Correia]

ACP230 brought up a good one. It is in Robert Water's book In the Best Defense. I believe it happened in Texas, and involved a lot of rounds fired.