Home defense carbine: AR, AK, or M1 Carbine?

[Maverick223]

That assumes that the .30 carbine is less powerful in a meaningful way. Bad assumption.

Agreed...for the same energy (or even a bit less) the larger round almost always has a better TK value, and is thereby more practical for HD.

 

[BBstacker]

For home defends a wheelgun is best. It's called simplicity. You can used it with one hand. You don't worry about mags, racking slides.& is there a round in the chamber. You or your spouse can use it without to much training. The object is to stop someone in your house. Try to wake up 1 or 2 in the morning and grab your ak, ar, sks,fal,or shotgun and know where your family is and where the would be assailant is when you start shooting with your asault rifle and bullets are going through walls. Talk to hunters that got buckfever. And deer don't shoot back,take drugs,or are psychotic.

 

[C-grunt]

Id say the 5.56 is a bit more powerful than a .30 carbine in a meaningful way. Calculating energies and other formulas dont account for the fact that the round tumbles and breaks apart.

Not to mention the damage done outside of the permanent wound track because of the much higher velocity the 5.56 is traveling at.

 

[Maverick223]

Calculating energies and other formulas dont account for the fact that the round tumbles and breaks apart.

You do not want a round to fragment, weight retention is best as it enables greater penetration in vitals.

 

[C-grunt]

True if your using something like a 45 grain varmint round. But something like the 193 or the M262 will still have enough penetration while fragmenting.

 

[amd6547]

From zero to 50yds, the difference would be negligeable.

 

[benEzra]

You do not want a round to fragment, weight retention is best as it enables greater penetration in vitals.

For hunting big game where you need a wound track measured in feet, yes. For personal defense with a rifle caliber, even the Fackler school of thought (which favors deep penetration) suggests that loads which fragment are more effective at incapacitating that loads which do not, at least with regard to .223. They still want to see a certain penetration threshold, but if that is attained, by all means use the extra energy for fragmentation.

 

[waterhouse]

For home defends a wheelgun is best. It's called simplicity. You can used it with one hand. You don't worry about mags, racking slides.& is there a round in the chamber.

It may be best for your situation, but I agree with others in this thread that you'd probably be faster and more accurate with any shoulder fired weapon.

You or your spouse can use it without to much training.

Without much training, my spouse learned to operate and hit what she was aiming at very easily with both shotguns and rifles. It took her a lot more time and training to get proficient, even at fairly close ranges, to hit where she wanted to with a handgun.

My experience mirrors hers, although mine isn't a good comparison because I grew up shooting shotguns and rifles. She started everything at the same time and picked up long guns much more easily.

Try to wake up 1 or 2 in the morning and grab your ak, ar, sks,fal,or shotgun and know where your family is and where the would be assailant is when you start shooting with your asault rifle and bullets are going through walls.

As for the first part, the confusion and knowing where your family and the assailant are would apply to any platform of firearm. They don't magically go away with a revolver.

As for the second part, as has been mentioned multiple times in this thread, handgun rounds also penetrate walls, and generally retain more energy after passing through the assailant and walls than HD purpose designed 5.56.

You do not want a round to fragment, weight retention is best as it enables greater penetration in vitals.

And through vitals, and through backs, and through drywall, and through the neighbor's drywall, etc. A major point of this thread is that in home defense you need to get to the vital organs while hopefully controlling the leftover energy after the round reaches the vitals. A bullet breaking apart is a method of attempting to achieve this.

 

[benEzra]

If using an AR-15 get frangible rounds, I dont know how far they will penetrate.
Theres a video with average FMJ rounds going through 12 plus layers of plywood. Im sure drywall, plywood, paint, a few inches of insulation, and siding wont come close to stopping a .223 or 5.56mm.

Lightweight JHP's would be my personal choice. I'm partial to 55-grain JHP, personally.

Some in the wound ballistics field consider the 55-grain JHP's not penetrative enough for police use, but IMO for non-LEO, HD use the penetration is sufficient without being excessive.

Some people like the long 77-grain JHP's, but I don't know of much data on penetration of building materials. I would imagine that the 77's would yaw and break up quickly, but haven't seen the data.

 

[Maverick223]

True if your using something like a 45 grain varmint round. But something like the 193 or the M262 will still have enough penetration while fragmenting.

Yeah, those will certainly penetrate far enough...just don't use something like a varmint grenade.

My experience mirrors hers, although mine isn't a good comparison because I grew up shooting shotguns and rifles. She started everything at the same time and picked up long guns much more easily.

I'm with you, I don't know many people that had more trouble learning to shoot with long guns rather than a pistol. There is no argument that it is much less steady.

Some in the wound ballistics field consider the 55-grain JHP's not penetrative enough for police use

I beg to differ, whilst not a valid test for soft targets, I was trying to build a 5.56 target and used 0.25" steel plate and hollow points. The target didn't last long...It blew .30ish holes through the steel.