I apologies for posting here is this is a Law Enforcement only part of the forum. I checked above and did not see a notation that people other than LE were not allowed to post, and if I am in violation of the rules, I apologies.
I currently work in the legal field, and graduated from law school although have not passed the bar yet, but I'd like to offer my opinion on this issue.
(Ok, please...put the shotgun down...you have to be sporting...just use the handgun and leave something for someone else to shoot at!!)
Tort liability will likely be determined from the totality of the circumstances and the subjective and objective reasonableness of the actions taken.
Translated into English, were your actions, taken as a whole, reasonable to you at the time they were taken, and is a court (the finder of fact, judge or jury) willing to accept your definition of reasonable?
You may feel that when a suspect you are trying to cuff elbows you in the face, knees you in the balls and then reaches into his waistband the proper response is "shoot him till he drops".
Someone unfamiliar with guns may not know that handguns are not good stoppers, people who have been shot can still be dangerous, ectra...and so your decision, to shoot the suspect who just assaulted you and made for his waistband (golly...no one carries a handgun IWB, do they?? Gag...) isn't obvious to them. Explaining it to the finder of fact at trial (or before that which might end the ordeal on motions alone) is how you get the tire of fact to accept your decision as reasonable.
So, are hand loads likely to be a cause for concern? I would recommend not doing it for several reasons, the first of which is that an issue which is never brought up...is an issue which is never brought up.
Yes, it is something that can be dealt with by a competent attorney, but why should it have to come up? When the facts are on your side, argue the facts, when the law is on your side, argue the law, and when you have nothing, pound on the table.
Even in a good shoot you will have enough to worry about. I'm sure you all know of times when a good shoot, civilian self defense or law enforcement, has turned into the saga of a "disadvantaged minority youth killed in a hail of gunfire by the police(or insert your description of a white male authority figure)...".
Why add anything to the mix that you do not need to?
The second reason I would avoid hand loads is your own safety. Are you really better than Black Hills or Federal when it comes to loading? Maybe you can load to spec, but sealing the bullets for carry?
(If you are...um...let me know...lets talk about a load for my .38...)
The third reason I would avoid hand loads for carry and duty is forensics. I won't pretend to know more than I do, and if I am wrong I welcome the correction, but during a shooting investigation wouldn't they check powder burn patterns to determine distance from the muzzle and things like that? Were are they going to get a baseline sample from?
If you have a shooting with a glock 22 loaded with 155 grain gold dot loaded by pro-load or black hills, they can get exact samples of what was used for tests to show the distance via powder residue. Can they do it from your hand loads? Will you have to "manufacture evidence" after the fact for testing? Wouldn't you love to see the questioning on how the lab came into posession of the rounds used for testing...
Q: Were did you obtain the lot of ammo used for testing?
A: From the defendant.
Q Was this lot of ammo manufactured for the test?
A: Yes.
Q: By who?
A: The defendant.
NO THANK YOU.
Is the problem insurmountable? I don't think so.
I would simply ask one question before doing it, thought: Will you get anything from an hand load that is so significant that it cannot be obtained by the use of factory ammo?
In closing, I have never heard of a case were liability arose ONLY on the use of handloaded ammo in what was an otherwise clean shoot, however, I simply see no reason to introduce the issue and questions into what will be a terrible situation already.
