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Posted on 02/27/2013 8:30:21 AM PST by EXCH54FE
decisions… it seems like when it comes to defending your family there is a lot of them. Caliber, type, make, model, ammunition, stopping power, capacity, training, and the omnipresent legal repercussions—self-defense is a hailstorm of life or death choices and another one of these (and one often neglected) is over-penetration.
Shooting Through Walls
Situation and terrain determine tactics and nowhere is this more evident than when firing a gun inside a closed environment like your home. Accordingly, a self-defense minded gun owner needs to first take into account where he lives (a suburban house, a farm, a studio apartment etc.) and then assess the location and materials used in its construction. These factors will determine your choice of gun and round.
Factoring in location and terrain means knowing where targets will appear, potential backstops and beyond. Since most inner walls in homes in western societies are made of sheet rock and many outer walls made of brick or siding, it’s important to realize rounds could leave your home and keep traveling. That said, thinner than usual walls, glass windows or close neighbors should all play a part in your assessment of your home as should the sometimes strange angles and backstops inherent to ranch style or multi-level homes.
Remember, firefights are dynamic with people moving about helter skelter and this may include your children, so it is important to be aware of the location of spots where over-penetration can: a) occur and b) injure a friendly target. Practice identifying these places with your family with both the lights on and off; most home invasions occur during the daytime, but they also happen in the early morning and evening too. This underlines the importance of knowing and remembering your backstops and beyond.
(Excerpt) Read more at guns.com ...
Use Glasers or Magsafes,
“sawed off shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot should pretty much cover the hallway.”
I’ve tested this. 14” barrel with birdshot. Spread was about 1” for every yard to target. How long is your hallway?
Magsafe what I have in my gun now, I was worried that the light grain bullet wouldn’t feed the powerful spring on my Colt 10mm, but it did just fine.
Good stuff, I sleep better knowing my kids are 4 sheets of drywall away and that stuff won’t get that far.
My kids know that if the dog goes off in the middle of the night, they go to certain corners of their bed room and huddle close to the floor. It's happened twice, both just loud neighbors on weekend nights. But it was good training. We do fire alarm training as well (GET TO THE MAILBOX YELLING FIRE!)
Why the corners of their room? Structural considerations. My house is built with 2x4 floor trusses as a apposed to joists or wood beams. They are spaced 24” on center. Given the layout of the downstairs and where shooting might likely occur, both at me and at them from somewhere between the top of the stairs and my front door, I have thought about the potential angles and trajectory potentials. My goal is two fold. 1) Put as much structure between potential trajectories and my family as possible and 2) I will have a better idea of where my family is in the house if a drawn out firefight (10 seconds or more) erupts.
As far as the structure goes, think in angles. Angles are our friends when considering penetration. Rounds hitting walls at 90 degrees touch less material and are less impeded. We want rounds to go into walls at as large of angles as we can get. It improves the chances of finding wood (a stud or floor joist or two or both) and slowing it down if not stopping it completely depending on the caliber.
BTW - When my wife hears my fingers playing a tune on my bedside gun safe in the middle of the night, she is trained to grab the phone, roll to the floor, cue up 911 on the receiver, open the shotgun case under the bed and start pushing shells. If she hears "danger" after I exit the bedroom, she pushes send on the receiver, chambers a round and clicks the safety off.
I'll tell you about helium balloons and ceiling fans in the middle of the night sometime. That was good training if not a bit too exciting.
Sounds about right.
EXCELLENT.
Do us all a favor (a great favor) and post that response.
We need insights like that for every one to learn from. We all think differently and EVERY insight is important.
Some of my ideas will stick with people and possibly save their lives.
Your ideas will stick with other people and possibly save lives.
Both together will possibly save even more lives and THAT is what is important.
PLEASE “Post” your ideas as a separate POST so that it will have maximum benefit to all.
Even expand on it from time to time to reinforce the point.
Thanks
Please post it for me. I don’t need credit for the thoughts. But I’m happy to share. I’m not very good at posting stuff. I’ll comment on it if you’ll ping me.
Thanks.
If I were to get a dog. I'd disable the motion detector. The dog could replace that. However, I'd retain the alarms on doors and windows. I want to know immediately if the perimeter is breached.
“So I guess that new 10mm I bought with the full power hardball ammo in it might be an overkill for a trailer park?”
That round should go through about 3 trailers.
My POV is that the best advantage you can get in a home invasion is by being at the end of a hallway, in a prone position with most of your body being in a dark room, and your weapon pointing up at average head height for an adult male entering the other side of the hallway.
Primary weapon is a large magazine firing .22 LR. Secondary weapon is a .357 with hardened steel core bullets, which I believe is currently illegal to sell, if not to own, so is probably a home load.
Here’s the logic.
The tactical advantage to being low and having the enemy come to you is that you get a huge, relative advantage of ID’ing them prior to a head, chest or belt buckle shot; or combination thereof; whereas they first have to see you, then lower their weapon to your much reduced profile.
If they are the typical Juan Tyrone, .22 LR will only have about a 40% chance of dead-on-the-floor, but unless they get him to a hospital and pump him full of about 1,000,000 of penicillin, he will get the notorious “.22 peritonitis” with a high probability for his demise within a week or two.
Personally, as long as they are incapacitated and going to die, I don’t mind when they do it, so I’m not going to fuss with any one shot kill or over-penetration worries.
The secondary weapon is in case Juan’s smarter cousin, Pedro Remora, is smart enough to buy or steal some slightly used police body armor, typically type IIa or II. I don’t want to be limited to just head and leg shots, when I can dog tag him. No other reason for the policia to know about that gun or its rounds.
Correct. When I lived in an apartment, I got a bunch of "apartment rounds" that were dsigned to shatter on impact with something hard, like a wall.
Fully concur. I bought one for my car and loaded it with 5 PDX1, figuring at any longer range, I'm outta Dodge. Liked it so much I am getting another for the house. For those who question this choice, check out the gazillion vids on YouTube.
Here's a couple I found informative, and backed up my decision to use Winchester PDX1s (12:25 in 2nd vid):
1) Four types of ammo and penetration tests.
2) varities of ammo
You called?....;)
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