.308 Home Defense Loads?

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Why deliberately choose any rifle or handgun cartridge at all if penetration is an issue?

Name one that won't.

Riiiight.

The real issue is thinking that bullets will be getting sprayed in a 360 dome of fire. I don't know of one self defense scenario where you would be completely surrounded on all sides, including above and below. If you are, then may I recommend the use of explosives? You aren't getting out of it, take as many with you as you can. Think of the next victim.

Nope, what everybody forgets in a gun centric forum is the tactical application of firepower. There's a reason the team practiced for weeks in a simulated Pakistani townhouse - to get all the lanes of fire mapped out, outgoing and incoming.

A firefight inside your house is a two way range. And the perps could care less where their rounds go or how many neighbors are shot dead. But - you should.

Will your bullets directed at the open front door go across the street thru your neighbor's front living room window? I don't know of any ammo that won't break glass but still have enough energy to stop an attacker.

False hopes and fantasy ammo won't make any difference in selecting self defense loads.

Your best choice is the same as one commonly used to stop other live 180 pound animals - open or polymer tipped hunting rounds with good expansion. Yes, they will go thru sheetrock - same as the FMJ steel penetrator import ammo the perps could be using.

If you are aiming at an attacker and get a hit, do you want to have to shoot them again - and again - with low penetration ammo meant to keep from hurting your neighbors?

If you don't want to shoot your neighbors, don't shoot where your neighbors are. Map out the shooting lanes and then use self discipline and restraint. The perps won't - so map out their downrange bullet traps and start thinking about which ones you are responsible to prevent them using.

Gets complicated real quick, doesn't it?

Goes to what IS recommended - if someone is beating down the door, beat feet out the back.

If you are an attractive victim and know perps would like to get what you have, change locations to one that is safer, change your lifestyle so you are not in contact with them, change your desire to live among them and have them as friends.

Most people are more afraid of change than the dangers they think they know. They accept bad odds, rather than change a bad life.

Your PTR isn't a bad choice, it has advantages and disadvantages. You can't carry it with you inside the home, which is the ONLY way you will have a gun when you need it. Having it in a back room where you didn't make it makes it useless. You use a handgun to fight to your rifle. Map out your shooting lanes and know where your neighbors are. Map out the return fire and know where NOT to put your family who would be sheltering behind you.

And if and when the perps are busting down your safe room door trying to get to you - use that .308 to reach out and touch them. It WILL penetrate just about everything in typical residential construction, and that isn't a bad thing in and of itself. When you DO know it's a BG busting on the door - no mercy. It's you or them. Shoot thru the door. You can.

Unless you find the magical bullets that don't penetrate anything except a bad guy and only when he's standing still not trying to shoot at all. Hope that doesn't get caught on video, it's gonna be hard to explain.
 
First, any firearm you use in a one bedroom apartment with typical drywall construction is going to launch a projectile that will exit that apartment if you miss - pistol, rifle, 12ga with #6 dove shot. So you need to understand that and start thinking now about probable lanes of fire and what your background looks like. Any big windows? Because a rifle round launched out a window will go a lot further than buckshot.

So, first problem in using a firearm for self-defense is we really do not want to miss in that environment. That tends to favor a long gun of some kind and any fancy red dot optics you can swing.

As to .308, the 110gr Hornady VMAX from a 16" barrel has penetration comparable to heavier 5.56 fragmenting loads and leaves an impressive cavity in ballistics gel. If you want to limit penetration and it will cycle reliably, that is probably your best choice; but again - if you miss, this round can still be plenty lethal to someone on the other side of the wall (as will a 9mm JHP).

ETA: The PDX1 Defender 120gr load looks impressive as well. One thing to keep an eye out for in defensive rifle ammo is words like "barrier-blind" or "bonded core" - while those can be good in pistol ammo, in rifle ammo they are going to mean increased penetration. If you wish to limit penetration, I'd look for something on the low side of the FBI criteria (12-18" of ballistics gel)
 
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Thats a lot of gun for an apartment.

On the bright side, you will probably never have to use it for HD.
 
Thanks everyone, I've read all the comments and appreciate them all.

So far, it looks like the Hornady TAP 110 grain Uraban load and the Winchester PDX1 120 grain load like like the best option. Here are some ballistics gel results for both:

Hornady TAP 110 grain Urban (click on "Gelatins" tab)

Winchester PDX1 120 grain (video)

Both exhibit a large wound cavity with penetration of between 10-15" in ballistics gel. These are the same "formula" of a lightweight, high velocity bullet that will fragment very easily and not over-penetrate much like the various .223/5.56 defensive loads.

What do you guys (and gals) think?
 
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I like the ballistics of both of those rounds for personal defense. My only semi-auto rifle is a .308 also, and while I keep a loaded 20 gage and pistol in house, I could certainly see where these lighter 308 rounds gives one more choices. Thanks for the informative discussion.
 
No problem! I'm still doing plenty of research, but these are the best loads I've found so far. They really are meant to not over-penetrate, which is a good thing.

The PTR-91 is the rifle I have, and I've sank quite a bit of cash into it and accessorizing it. I am pretty much stuck with it, which is no problem because it's a GREAT gun, but I'm going to use it for this purpose because it's the most viable choice of the guns I have.
 
If your building was built in the past 40 plus years(suspect it's far longer), you're living in a big, reinforced concrete, box. The only place any bullet will exit is the door(s) and windows. Only the internal walls are dry wall.
You have far more to be concerned over than excessive penetration. The riccochets will kill you. .308 will go right through a cinder block and leave 'em in wee pieces and a pile of dust(it was great fun demonstrating the difference between cover and concealment.), but not reinforced concrete.
There's no need for a rifle of any chambering for SD in town.
 
I live in a one bedroom small apartment house made in the 1920's.

My neighbors live in similar houses, the closest of which is about 30 feet away.
 
What type of interior and exterior wall construction do you have exactly?
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I'm not really sure, but they seem quite sturdy for the most part.

I just ordered 60 rounds of the Hornady TAP .308 110 grain Urban load. I'm going to see how reliable they are in my rifle. Everything I've read about and all the tests I've seen indicate that like the various 5.56/.223 defensive loads, these will expand and fragment and not overpenetrate. That is what they're designed to do. Many recommend using AR-15s for home defense, and with this load my rifle should exhibit very similar levels of penetration through various mediums as the .223/5.56mm loads, but with great wounding potential in the form of increased temporary and permanent stretch cavities.

Hornady specifically designed this load for an "urban" setting, hence the name. All the evidence points to them being best for my purposes, but I need to make sure they'll cycle my gun first before I order a full loadout of this round, hence why I only ordered 60 rounds. My PTR-91 has been reliable so far and they are well known to be reliable in general, so I feel 60 rounds should be sufficient to determine reliability.

I'll keep everyone updated on what transpires, and I am still open to other considerations and comments.
 
As an M1A owner my advice is if your going to use a .308 for HD in a heavily populated apartment complex just make sure you have a good attorney on retainer.;)
 
The premise of this question and the responses, so far yielded, demonstrate, once again, that so many people have no idea of the energy involved when firing a high-powered rifle.

Common handgun rounds will penetrate common interior walls.

Using a center fire rifle for HD even in a subdivision is the height of civil irresponsibility.

You've got to be kidding...Big Time. Stop the delusion.
 
Using a center fire rifle for HD even in a subdivision is the height of civil irresponsibility.
Click to expand...

All the cops here use centerfire rifles in subdivisions for patrol cars, warrant service, special tactics, etc. I'm doubting it is because they aren't sensitive to civil irresponsibility.

As it turns out, energy is only one part of the equation. Bullet construction also plays an important part. A lightly constructed bullet that breaks up easily with a lot of energy behind it becomes many small irregular fragments that quickly shed energy and stop soon after hitting something.

A much slower hunk of lead with less energy to start with maintains its ballistic shape and much of its momentum after hitting something and may travel even farther than the higher energy bullet.

Mythbusters did an episode about shooting at a target underwater that demonstrated this concept very well.
 
I'll join the chorus of bad HD choice. Nice rifle, just not for HD. The concussion and noise inside your house will leave you deaf for a few minutes.
 
I can only thank my lucky stars that I am not one of your neighbors if you insist on carrying through with this terrible idea. Even though you are using what is probably the least penetrative round available, a full power .308 is still a terrible choice for this use. There are so many better choices available for relatively little money that I find it hard to believe that to get one would be beyond your means. What you're proposing to do is so likely to end in tragedy for an innocent bystander neighbor that I can't believe any responsible adult would be considering it.
 
It's not a terrible idea. The concept of using a rifle for home self defense is one the LEO's already made.

What do you think the SWAT team will be carrying into the house to clear it? Not paintball guns. Most teams in America will be using the AR15, and many are equipped with government issue M16's with full auto capability.

There's going to be a lot of M855 steel penetrator flying around if the Department issues it. Of course, they will clear the surrounding neighborhood - if there is time. Often not enough if they show up and there is still gunfire.

The new tactic, home or school shooting, is to go in - not wait twenty minutes for the shooter to finish up. And it was changing long before that. The first responders DON'T WAIT - they start with the most favorable opening and if they get a target, they shoot first and ask questions later. That is an oversimplification - but it brings up another issue.

If you do successfully get to a safe room that the intruders can't readily enter, and they aren't shooting thru the walls (or simply removing them - and all it takes is a single edge razor, right?) then your next danger point is when the SWAT team enters and they start shooting.

It goes right back to this - you can buy all the highly developed low penetration scientifically proven magic bullets you want, the perps WON'T, and at best the Police will use TAP. Bullets are going flying thru walls and windows and there's going to be collateral damage. Hopefully not human.

Also goes to: your new sketchy neighbors who has visitors all night for less than ten minutes at a time. Are you really sure they aren't selling off their druglords stash, because I can almost guarantee that in the next six weeks he's sending a hit team to teach them some respect.

They won't care if their bullets come flying into your bed room windows or thru the walls of your kids room. Not to mention the driveby's from competitors who start firing at your front door so they can get his house covered wall to wall as they speed by.

People living in built up areas need to recognize it. Start stacking homes vertically and your floors or ceiling might be the entry point. Again, most of it will be from the lanes of fire, but there is no guarantee once the bullet hits a solid object and richochets.

Traditional stick and sheetrock construction is no match for ANY reasonable self defense cartridge. There is NO magic bullet that won't go thru a wall and will go 12" into a bad guy. Choose the most appropriate and reliable expanding tip bullet that will work and then worry about the bigger problem - where you choose a backstop.

Your neighbors will thank you.
 
First, nice rifle and good of you to think of over penetration.

Second, House construction. Concrete box? Many of the places that have been built around here from apartments to high value homes in gated communities are some combination of plywood, 2x4 frame, styrofoam sheets, moisture barrier paper or plastic and sprayed on plaster. Same-Same for through out the sun belt.

Third, Something is wrong with my eyes. The M-14 (the military version of the M1A if you will) with M 80 ball were quite noticeable at night and the M-60 with the same was startling with not just muzzle flash but also flash at the vents on the gas system. In fact the older AN PVS-2 Starlights that used a cut off to deal with to much light exposure would shut down for a second or two with each shot of the M-14/ M80 combination which annoyed the beejeezers out of me.

At a Carbine night class I took where everyone used .223/5.56 the standard flash suppressors on the AR 15s did work better than a bare barrel, but were noticeable from the sides and slightly from firing, thought the 10.5 guns were more noticable. The suppressed guns even produced a teenie amount of flash at the muzzle but it was hard to see what with all the light escaping the ejection port. The Nitex a sort of twisted three or four prong worked best of all. Strangely the open three prong AR-180 flash suppressor worked better than the standard GI M16 type A1 or A2. A early Ruger Mini 14 with a bare barrel was the worst of the lot....with some ammo, but not other.

It seemed the ammo choice had at least as much to do with noticeable flash as the type of flash suppressor. I have noted in the past this is certainly true in handguns, that the choice of powder makes a big difference in the amount of muzzle flash, so I suspect the same is true of rifles.

I would suggest that anyone interested in this topic rather than looking at what any of us (even me) post as gospel take the opportunity to find some way to fire a few rounds of your choice ammo in low light conditions.

-kBob
 
I have to laugh... SWAT... no home owner is an advanced stage tactical professional law enforcement officer using tactical assault proceedures, SWAT doesnt enter a house as a defensive team, they enter as an offensive team.. SWAT.. Special Weapons And Tactics....
Only kids would think they are SWAT or want to emulate SAWT.. home defense in not a video game...

Defensive protection uses completely different weapons and tactics... As a Combat veteran and retired military with 35 additional years as a civilian defensive tactics under my belt.. I can tell you, a high powered rifle is the worst possible choice to keep a round contained within a structure. I wont go into the many many negatives about this choice, only to say, back away from the video games, and think about your neighbors. and their lives and the lives of their children living on the other side of that sheet rock and insulation...

My suggestion might also keep you out of prison...

SWAT, indeed.
 
Hmmmm. Ok, so Cooldill, I hate to jump on the bandwagon here, but I gotta say I agree with what a lot of the others have said.

Firstly, that's a cool rifle and I'm jealous. You have good taste. I could definitely see using this as a "property in the country" type of gun, where animals may be a problem, or where if a HD scenario came up you didn't need to worry about over penetration to the same degree, but it doesn't sound like that's the type of setting you live in. (I'll assume you'll be using electro muffs to keep your hearing.)

Kudos for thinking about and trying to choose a load that will limit over penetration, but honestly, I don't think the load matters in a 308. If you live in an "apartment house" that isn't brick, you are looking at serious over penetration issues. Heck, brick may not be enough.

Lots of folks point out that even a 115 gr 9mm can over penetrate, and it certainly can. However, there is a big difference between a 115 gr 9mm moving at 1500 ft/sec or under, and a 110 gr 308 moving close to, or possibly over 3000 ft/second. The load you are looking at says even at 500 yards, the bullet is still moving over 1500 ft/second. A neighbor 30 feet away, or 300 feet away is still in danger of stray bullets flying through their home. I have to agree with the above poster that stated a 308 is a bad choice if you live in town. I just don't think it's a wise choice, or even a very practical one.

As others have said, that particular rifle is long, and heavy, which could work against you in a HD situation.

We all make do with what we have at times though, and if you really feel the need to have a semi auto rifle on hand, that's fine of course. It sounds like you have spent some money making this gun what you want it to be, so funds are probably limited right now, but I guess if it were me, I'd save for a pistol caliber carbine of some kind. At least then you are limiting velocity a bit, but still increasing your capacity over a handgun in many cases, and increasing your velocity too, but nowhere near the velocity and potential range of a center fire rifle. (CX4, MPX, Taurus whatever) Maybe a 12 gauge pump with birdshot would be a good idea. There is still potential dangers with any gun, but I guess I'd look to limit that potential by veering away from the 308 as soon as I could. That's just me though. In the mean time, as was stated earlier, figure out your shooting lanes, but remember that level of cognition is going to be very difficult in a panic situation.

On that note, don't you own a GP100? That is a perfectly viable HD gun with warm 38 loads or 357's. In fact if I felt the need be armed the way you will be for HD, I would sell a lot of my stuff, and move to a much more safe and secure location.
No offense to the above posters, but ignore the SWAT team comparisons. It is irrelevant to your question. SWAT teams clear areas when ever they can before an incursion. That won't be the case for you. They also work as a squad or team. That won't be the case for you either. The equipment the police use doesn't matter as it's a totally different situation.

Good luck to you. I hope your over penetration worries are never tested.
 
Cooldill said:
If so, why do ammo companies make .308 loads specifically marketed for this use if the caliber isn't appropriate to begin with?
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Simple marketing man. Though of what's available, that load may be your best bet.

I guess if I was really going to use a 30 cal rifle in my home, it would be a 300 Blackout.

Oh yeah, one more note. Don't be fooled by gelatin tests. All gel test represent is the potential way a bullet may act in a human or animal body. Bones and varying densities of internal organs can play havoc with terminal ballistics and expansion characteristics. Gel tests are not even close to a guarantee of limited penetration.
 
Hypnogator said:
Personally, I wouldn't go with a .308 battle rifle for HD, but, to paraphrase Stormin' Norman, you defend your home with the rifle you've got, not the rifle you'd like to have.

I would think these would minimize the risk of casualties two houses down the block: https://www.lehighdefense.com/collections/rifle/products/308-winchester-110gr-high-velocity-controlled-chaos-ammo

:cool:
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Terrible choice. Controlled Chaos ammo is designed to only open up and fragment when it hits "wet" substances. With hard barriers it's supposed to act like an FMJ.

Cooldill, if you're going to use a .308 for home defense in a structure like you've described, you might as well buy some pulled-down .30-06 AP bullets and roll your own .308 ammo. You're going to overpenetrate with a .308, might as well make sure you can still stop the bad guys if they break in wearing body armor.

But honestly, as much as you'll spend buying 160 rounds of .308 Hornady TAP (60 to test reliability, 100 to keep on hand), you could easily go buy a perfectly reliable Maverick 88 pump shotgun and some proper SD loads, and still save money over ordering the TAP ammo. That TAP ammo is at least $30/box anywhere I can find it online, plus shipping. You're easily talking $250, and you're going to pay shipping twice since you already made an order for 60rounds. There's much better options than your.308 battle rifle.
 
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