best pistol ammo for inside home

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floritucky

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With my old xd i had, and my with my 1911 now. Im using 230 grain hollow points (hornady tap right now) for self defense in general.

What i have been thinking about and researching lately is the fact that we might be moving into a trailer. With the next one maybe 6 feet away on either side (hopefully a temporary place... im not a neighbor person) and it seems to me the walls are "thinner" too. I fear that with any round in my .45 there is too much possibility of it going into the neighbors trailer or another room.

What say you? If so, that basically puts shooting in most directions out of the question.

Now, i know we can get into shotguns here. But lets stay with pistols.

Is there a .45 round that would be better suited? What about another pistol caliber all together.
 
I appreciate your situation and you are right to be concerned about a 230 gr. JHP in .45 ACP. It's kind of hard to recommend even a 185 standard pressure load because of the likely penetration. The simple solution would be, DON'T MISS! But we all know anything can happen in a gunfight. There are frangible loads available but I don't trust them. If I were in your shoes I'd get a 9mm and load it with standard pressure 115 gr. JHPs or a .38 Special and load it with 110 gr. JHPs. ;)
 
To put it bluntly, if it will make a hole in a man, it will make a hole in a wall. This sounds easier than it really is, but the important thing is to not miss. A conventional jacketed hollowpoint will usually stay in the body, largely rendering wall penetration moot. Failing that, you can do a "walk-through" of your house or apartment and determine which walls, if you hit them, lead to which rooms. You would not want, for example, an errant bullet to go into your child's bedroom or your neighbor's apartment, but damage to the kitchen or bathroom can be repaired.
 
My advice is similar in goals to the one recommending Cor-Bon 165, but mine is to get the widest expanding bullet you can.

I'd go standard pressure HST. Do everything you possibly can not to miss if it's ever an issue, and try your best to land your shots in a thick part of your attacker, and the bullet will almost certainly not leave his body.

But like Lone Haranguer said, if it will inflict enough damage on a human being to be useful for defense it will go through more than a pair of walls.
 
A trailer is long & relatively narrow, I would guess most any shot other than at the initial entry point would be taken lengthwise. Can you set up the trailer so that there are barriers such as bookcases full of books or other such dense materials at either end to act as a backstop? Another thought is to use a specialty load like a Glasser. Other than that it sounds like you would be better advised to switch to a shotgun, maybe using a goose or turkey load rather than buckshot. The smaller shot are less capable stoppers but would have less ability to penetrate through to cause collateral damage.
 
Part of why i wanted to leave out the scatter guns are becausebim thinking of when the 1911 is on me, but the shotgun is in another room. It stays in the bedroom, but if im in another room, or say walking out the bedroom door. Im not taking time to turn my back to BG to get it. Im pistol only for defense at that point.

Not sure what glassers are... googling now...

I do have shome 165 gr low recoil hydro shoks. I have not used them for anything but maybe i shlould consider them?
 
I carry Guard Dogs in my Colt Agent 45ACP(Full Time Carry), and CZ-75 (9mm Backup Home Defense), along with a (Rem 870 Tactical with Lights, loaded with these new NASTY bullets, a Slug, 3 Copper plated OO Buckshot and a Disk that is also copper plated), the effects of the Guard Dogs is tremendous, also another round to consider is one from Corbon I think, Glaser, also called Frangibles, they will not penetrate the walls of you home, yet expolde on contact and transfer energy at contact. Neither is very cheap, bit I don't use them for practice, if you know what I mean. Also, along the more traditional path, XTP's in 180 pr 200 are very impressive and cheaper. Good Luck, as soon as you get the one you really like, they will come out with a new one and you'll have to run get a box or two of them. But that is natural.

Dan
 
Amen, Not cheap, but in an Urban area, they are the ****, they won't penetrate the walls of your house and hit a famly member in the next room,ut in a 45ACP, they will stop the show with a center mass hit PERIOD.

Good Luck
Dan
 
Is there a .45 round that would be better suited? What about another pistol caliber all together.
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There are no rounds in .45 (or 9mm or .40S&W or .38spl) that have effective SD performance that won't penetrate minor barriers like trailer walls with enough power left to be potentially deadly.

The only exception I know of might be prefragmented rounds like Glazer Safety Slugs, but I'm not comfortable with the reported under penetration and failure to stop of such rounds. YMMV.
 
Trailers and any kind of defense ammo does not make for a good out come. what ever you use,it (bullet) won`t stop till it gets to the coast. J s/n.
 
Frangible ammo is bunk - and anything with the energy to cause signifigant trauma to a human being will sail through walls

Sorry, but there isn't an ammo solution to your problem that doesn't involve unacceptable compromises in terminal ballistics. Good ammo has the power to give a chance (yes, a chance, no handgun is a death ray) at an involuntary stop. If it won't go through some drywall and insulation, it simply isn't even as good at stopping violent criminals from doing violent crimes as proper handgun ammunition.
 
The FN 5.7x28 V-Max bullets are made for this. The ammo is ideal for interior situations. There are at least two other pistols that now chamber the round now other than the FN, which is quite expensive.
 
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also another round to consider is one from Corbon I think, Glaser, also called Frangibles, they will not penetrate the walls of you home, yet explode on contact and transfer energy at contact.
Click to expand...

Really? They won't penetrate the walls of a trailer?

I'm sorry, but that really is false hope. While they won't penetrate as much as a round like a Gold Dot, they most certainly will still go through a trailer wall like a hot knife through butter.
 
The idea behind frangible bullets is that they become dust upon striking hard targets like walls, but otherwise act like FMJ bullets.
They do the former quite reliably, but they also often disintegrate in soft targets as well before reaching the vitals.

If over-penetration is your primary concern, then frangibles (iffy) or a shotgun (ideal) are really your only choices.
 
It doesn't matter what ammo you use "inside" a house. Almost ALL rounds will penetrate walls and doors easily. You need to worry about what's behind the target and stop worrying about what kind of ammo you're using. There are no magic rounds that will disable a human but stop inside a wall. That is simple marketing crap.
 
I know its not always feasible in the middle of the night during a high pressure situation, but you could always try to point (angle) down at any perpetrator coming into your trailer. A red dot like a Crimson trace grip may help with that. After all, isn't any shot within a trailer likely to be point blank, or 12' at most?

Before anyone jumps on me about proper shooting technique, I too (like the OP) would be worried about bullets easily penetrating a few thin walls. You're responsible for where it lands. The other option is non-lethal self defense, like baseball bats or pepper spray.
 
allaroundhunter said:
Really? They won't penetrate the walls of a trailer?

I'm sorry, but that really is false hope. While they won't penetrate as much as a round like a Gold Dot, they most certainly will still go through a trailer wall like a hot knife through butter.
Click to expand...

They may go through. But they are at least somewhat likely to come out the other side as a cloud of tiny pellets, which will each lack penetrative power sufficient to penetrate the trailer next door; they may also lack the power to seriously injure or kill someone once they break into that state. That's the idea/claim, at least.
 
Many years ago we experimented with 9mm and .45 ammo. Both were fmj. The .45's were 230 gr. and I don't remember the weight of the 9mm. We were inside an old single wide mobile home 50' long. Shooting from one end of the trailer the 9mm went through 4 walls and exited the other end of the trailer. The .45 did not exit the trailer. The smaller faster bullet penetrated farther than the slower heavier bullet. Like I said, this was with ball ammo, I don't know how hollow points would react.
 
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