1) It is beyond easy for LE to determine your rounds are reloads. Forensics are pretty good these days.44and45 wrote:This scenario might hold true in states like Maryland, DC, or New York...that you'd have to worry about reloaded ammo being used in self defense law cases.
Massad Ayoob is probably responsible for this argument being a point of contention with legal sharks who would want to nail your hide to the court house walls.
44and45
2) Not aware of reloads being a legal issue in any case here in TX (in recent years anyway).
3) It is conceivable that an overpenetrating reload could get you in trouble if it injured or killed an innocent person behind the intended target. But you'd also have a problem in that instance if the overpenetrating round was a factory load.
4) Ayoob has documented some cases where the use of a reload lead to a bad outcome for an otherwise good shoot. But not here in TX.
5) Buy high quality SD loads and you won't have to worry about squibs and such. I mean really, what are the chances? How many rounds do expect to fire in self defense between here and eternity? Two? Six? What are the chances that one of them will come up as a squib?
Tap, rack bang! Right?
6) I would always use factory loads for a carry or HD gun. You can almost alwayd handload a ballistically equivalent practice round if you think it is that significant - which I don't.
IMO, once you develop muscle memory with ANY load, and crunch time comes along, you will do what you have trained to do no matter what round is loaded in the gun.
From what I have read of actual encounters, you might not even hear your gun go off, let alone noticing something subtle like a slight difference in recoil.