Cosmoline said:
There is no reason I can see why the same expert who uses exemplars from a factory batch cannot also use exemplar handloads with the same equipment and measurements the defendant used, if GSR is an issue. The burn rates and properties of storebought powder are also well established, and the rest of the rounds in the firearm or in the case can be pulled apart and analyzed to verify the shooter's account in the unlikely event it becomes an issue.
If they don't believe you about that, then you have bigger problems since that same jury is going to decide whether your self defense justification is legit. You could also be lying to them about using a factory slug. Maybe you pulled the bullet, changed the charge, and pushed the bullet back in. If you keep good records of your handloads, these would certainly be admissible in court. Or are you claiming that the DA would then argue that you were somehow clever enough to run home after the shooting, cacluate the precise powder charge and type needed to create favorable GSA analysis in your favor, and then FORGE THE DATA in your handloading journal. Oh and quickly handload twenty or so UNFIRED rounds using this data, and replace the rest of the bullets in your piece with these legally favorable handloads? All before the cops arrive? Give me a break.
How so? If the attorney can argue handloads are extra deadly lethal force, then he'd be able to argue you INTENTIONALLY PURCHASED extra deadly lethal bullets. He could, for example, have loads of fun mocking your decision to buy so-called "safety slugs" that actually blew up in the victim.
Mas, I appreciate your comments but it really seems to me that you are viewing this as a lay person, not as an attorney. HOWEVER, I think you make an excellent point regarding the ACTUAL NEED for handloading ammunition, esp. for handguns. A few decades ago the choices and options for HP and SP handgun ammo were dismal. Now there is a huge selection for all major cartridges and even for more obscure rounds. It's really not worth the shooter's time to labor over a custom self defense load when one can be purchased so much more easily off the shelf that will proabably work better anyway.
The only firearms I load self defense rounds for are my rifles, simply because no factory makes self defense ammunition for Mosin-Nagants. I am confident my rounds can pass muster in the unlikely event I actually have to use them in self defense. The data is not only in my load books, it's on line and in the many other rounds from the same batches. If my expert can't figure out the burn rate of 45 grains of 3031--one of the oldest smokeless powders on the planet--out of a known cartridge with a known bullet and a known rifle, then I need a new expert!
Thanks for your many good points, Cosmoline. However, I'd like to respectfully debate a few of them.
First, I don't take the viewpoint of layman OR attorney. My viewpoint comes from experience as the witness brought in to explain things like why certain ammunition does not constitute malicious intent.
The overwhelming majority of attorneys advise us not to speak in great detail to investigators in the immediate aftermath of shooting a criminal suspect. I would give the same advice. Discussion of the handload would probably come from client to defense lawyer and thence to prosecutor and investigators. There is a good chance that it would be some time after the fact before this information was submitted. By contrast, the medical examiner's office, crime lab, and investigators may well have determined GSR in a matter of hours.
By that time, there will indeed be time enough for a defendant to either put loads together after the fact to submit, or to steer officers to a box he already knew would produce more or less GSR to suit his purposes. The fact that it was a clean shoot, as you and I both know, will be irrelevant if it's a political prosecution or a money-hungry lawsuit.
If there's a chance of this happening and muddying the waters, obscuring a truth that favors the shooter, why should we take the risk at all?
Counselor, is it safe to say that the fewer battles your client needs you to fight for him, the less chance there is of him losing one?
As you pointed out, there is no actual NEED for a handload over a factory load in a modern defense gun in a common caliber. Why trade something for nothing, in this case, taking on the risk of opposing counsel casting doubt upon the evidence without getting any tactical advantage (street OR court) in return?
Thanks for your contribution, sir.
:banghead:
By the way. Your thoughts look good to me.
