How much of your ammo is self defense?

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my percentage of sd ammo is very small.

i shoot mainly cast and pc reloads. i would be in the poor house if i shot all premium self defense ammo.
 
At least 90-95% of my ammo is meant for SD/HD. I have a few boxes of "unfamiliar brand" .357 to be used for practice, but I reload for that too. I reload about equal amounts of semi-jacketed hollow points and semi-jacketed flat points and both types of bullets weigh 158 gr. and get the same powder charge.
I also have a goodly amount of .22LR ammo that is the 40 gr. LRN solids. While a poor choice for defensive use, with a 10/22 and a 50 rd. magazine being fired rapidly, your opponent will be very likely to keep his head down or run like crazy.
 
It's both a very small percentage and all of it at the same time.

I have only a few boxes of "carry-ammo" for each of the three handguns that are my carry guns. I put enough of my selected carry ammo through them till I was happy they were reliable but have only a few boxes in the cabinet. Compared to my competition and hunting ammo supply it's a very small relatively percentage.

That said if the SHTF it's all SD ammo.
 
It's both a very small percentage and all of it at the same time.
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This.
I usually buy 4 or 5 boxes of dedicated SD ammo for my 9mms, (usually gold dot/golden sabers) same time same lot, shoot 2 boxes to make sure everything is ok, rotate out every couple years.
My 9mm match loads are using RMR MPRs and I try to keep a couple k bullets on hand.
Any ammo could be used for SD/SHTF if the need arose.
 
All of it is SD, potentially.
When I practice with my BHP, the first ones out are what was in it, and my spare magazine. I have a lot of FMJ too, but they are loaded to the same spec as my JHP, so I’m pretty sure they could fill the role, if need be.
even my “lighter side” target-ish revolver rounds get loaded in the wife’s sidearm... so yeah, even those are SD potentially, and I’m confident they’d fill that role ok.

for my AR and other rifles, I load JSP exclusively, as I find them to be the most accurate for me. So by happy accident, they are near perfect for either role.
 
“100% should be everyone’s answer since anything can be used for HD.”

This ^^^^^^!
All of my ammo could be HD.
 
magyars4 said:
All my ammo is SD. Some is more effective than others.
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Exactly.
I doubt that any intruder could tell the difference between handloaded 124 lrn and 124 hst at SD ranges. Neither could they tell any 5.56 round, theyight know difference between 556 and 7mm08, but I doubt it.
 
Ever single round I own can and will be defense ammo if the need arises. I keep a decent amount of hollow points and fmj. Also I keep some Ruger only loads for my 44. Bought reloading equipment looking for 44 dies. But that's for another day.
 
Mars5l said:
Just curious, seems like FMJ is hard to find but self defense styles are easy to find online and my local stores. Just wondering how much everyone keeps on hand that's self/home defense. For me I have a box or two each for each caliber, so maybe 100 rds each or so. I wonder how much do you really need?
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My opinion? You should, when you practice, shoot 50% or more of the amount of practice ammo you shoot on SD ammo, that said, I keep at least that much on hand most of the time.

That’s said, at the moment I have a slightly depleted supply. All my mags are loaded and I have a bit more but I don’t see myself bringing ammo outside the mags I have, at any given “non-range trip” outing so why have more than that?
 
I have a few mags worth of hollow point 9mms and other than that I would say no real " self defense " ammo. I have the mindset that if I shoot an intruder with a regular .357 load , it should do the trick. I'm sure many have a different opinion than mine , but to each their own.
 
ALL of it. If I ran out all the normal SD rounds I think odd balls like my 8x56R Steyr, ,444 Marlin and ,348 Win will work fine. Then .22LR, 22 Hornet, 25-20 will still give someone a headache. Heck it if goes BANG you can use it for SD. Then there's crossbows and arrows. They worked real well at one time.
 
My goal is to have 200 rounds of HP self defence ammo in each caliber I own (for me, that's HST or Gold Dot in 9mm and .45ACP) and an additional 500 rounds of FMJ practice ammo for each caliber (for me, that's normally WWB). It seems whenever I get close to those goals, I start to slack off and end up scrambling to replenish it when I realize how low I am.

For non-SD ammo, I try to keep 50-100 rounds of center fire rifle ammo per caliber, and at least 1000 rounds of .22LR on hand (mostly CCI SV or Mini-Mags).

I'd be happy to have two or three times that much ammo on hand, but between cost and storage space, I aim for those numbers.
 
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This really isn't that difficult a question. I'm not sure why people are being deliberately obtuse.

Between the two of us my wife and I have four handguns that we use for self-defense. We each use four magazines. It takes 110 rounds to fill all 8 magazines add a round in each chamber and it's 114. So I use 114 rounds of SD a year.

A case (2000 rounds) should last me 17(ish) years and no matter what it's going to be cheaper in 2020 than (assuming it's even available) it will be in 2037.
 
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