So an AR is a good HD but...

[2damnold4this]

To me, the advantages of a handgun for home defense are that it can be used one handed if needed and it's easier to keep on your person at all times within the house. Obviously, long arms can be more powerful than handguns and are usually easier to shoot accurately.

My long guns are locked in the safe but I can keep my EDC with me in the house. If I had plenty of advanced warning, I'd barricade the family and get a long gun out after calling 911 for help. If I had time to do all those things, I should have time to put on some hearing protection.

For folks that want to use a 5.56/.223 type firearm for home defense, they could minimize muzzle blast and flash by careful choice of ammunition and the use of a flash suppressor rather than a muzzle brake. This chart indicates that an AR with some muzzle brakes is more than ten times louder than the same gun fired with the quietest flash suppressor. Even the inexpensive A2 flash suppressor is less loud than any muzzle brake tested. Muzzle brakes may help a little in competition but I don't see the point in one on a home defense rifle when a flash suppressor not only reduces the muzzle flash, it is less loud.

[SHR970]

I am weighing out the idea of a suppressor vs. having hearing protection hanging next to the bed that could both protect and even enhance my hearing.

L2R, if a suppressor is an option for you by all means exercise it. You will already have it on your gun should you need it. You may or may not have time to get the ears on so any advantage you can have is desirable. Not only do you get sound attenuation but you also moderate muzzle flash.

In the sound debate, what most people miss is that properly taken readings are done in an anechoic chamber. If not a chamber then we have to look at the environment it was taken in as it is not "Controlled". Were the measurements taken out doors or in a large room like a firing range? It matters.....a lot.

When fired out doors the sound gets to go away from us: the direction of travel. That is why the sound is much less behind the gun as opposed to the side of the muzzle or in front of the muzzle.

When fired in doors such as in a hallway, much more of the sound is reflected back towards us. You can easily get 10 or more dB GAIN depending on location / distance from walls and corners, and construction. You also get a longer duration of the sound pulse due to reflection. With this in mind if I could use a suppressor to knock 20 or more dB off of the source; I would take it.

[2damnold4this]

I am weighing out the idea of a suppressor vs. having hearing protection hanging next to the bed that could both protect and even enhance my hearing.

I'd go with the hearing protection for several reasons. Electronic muffs not only protect your hearing, they can make it better. Electronic muffs are much cheaper than a suppressor and they work on whatever gun might be discharged, including one the attacker may have. Ear muffs also don't have the stigma attached to them in the general population that a suppressor might.

[lostintheozone]

I see this brought up more and more on different forums. The question always goes something like this one.

AR's are louder than say a 9 mm pistol. If you don't believe me stand between them on the range (with ear protection of course) and see for yourself. How much louder, I don't know, just louder.

Put a suppressor on your AR if that is what you are going to use in your house. You need to be able to hear everything if you are going to defend yourself so ear protection is not a good idea. As far as I know you can't suppress a shotgun so that's out. The least amount of noise is going to be from a suppressed pistol. Lots of good ones available. Here's a Sig suppressor.

http://www.sigsauer.com/CatalogProdu...mm-sig-sd.aspx

Not being able to hear is a disability and a handicap. Vets get paid for it. I lost a fair amount of my hearing in the Navy working with aircraft.

Don't assume that a few shots inside a house won't damage your hearing because it will.

[Theohazard]

Originally Posted by lostintheozone

Put a suppressor on your AR if that is what you are going to use in your house. You need to be able to hear everything if you are going to defend yourself so ear protection is not a good idea.

I agree 100%. Taking the time to grab hearing protection doesn't make much sense to me, especially considering you might be waking from a deep sleep. Also, if it's not electronic you won't be able to hear as well, and if is electronic you have to worry about batteries.

For me, in times where I've fired an M16 under stress I've experienced auditory exclusion; I couldn't hear the shots but I could hear and feel the buffer and spring moving under my cheek. So it's possible the gunfire won't distract you in the heat of the moment. But keep in mind that the auditory exclusion phenomena is purely mental; you'll still experience permanent hearing loss from the shots. Me, I have a silencer on my AR-15. It's my stationary "hole up in the bedroom with my family" gun so length isn't that much of an issue.

Originally Posted by lostintheozone

As far as I know you can't suppress a shotgun so that's out.

You can, it's just a little more difficult and the silencers are pretty big. But shotgun suppressors aren't very common in the suppressor world.

Originally Posted by lostintheozone

Lots of good ones available. Here's a Sig suppressor.

The SIG silencers are garbage. They're just capitalizing on the recent boom in silencer popularity by throwing their name on sub-standard products.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Hearing protection is another tool in the box. No one says it's required for a defensive situation, that'd be foolish. However, if you've got a pair of electronic muffs next to the bed and something goes bump in the night, it takes less than a second to put them on.

[kraigwy]

how do our combat veterans fare?

The VA gives us hearing aids.

and/or

Issue us a wife who repeats everything someone else tells us. After a while you'll learn to read wife's lips.

[Derbel McDillet]

Not sure if I need to say this, but using a rifle in the home will only be safe if using bullets that will quickly fragment or expand and stop.
Do not use FMJ ammo.

FMJ bullets tumble after striking the first wall and then fragment at the cannelure. Other bullets do the same but fragment because the jacket is thinner

I use M193 55gr FMJ for HD.

[Theohazard]

Originally Posted by Derbel McDillet

I use M193 55gr FMJ for HD.

Why? Hollow point self-defense rounds like Hornady TAP will penetrate less through walls and cause more damage in soft tissue. FMJ rounds are OK for self-defense, but they're not as good as hollow- or soft-points.

[WeedWacker]

FMJ bullets tumble after striking the first wall and then fragment at the cannelure.

This is very dependent on velocity, exact bullet construction, and target medium consistency. Don't expect 100% fragmentation, especially if the barrel is less than 16 inches. (e.g. M193 in an 11.5 inch semiauto SBR is a poor choice over 55 grain softpoints)

[JD0x0]

FMJ bullets tumble after striking the first wall and then fragment at the cannelure. Other bullets do the same but fragment because the jacket is thinner

I use M193 55gr FMJ for HD.

Not inherently. The military spent quite a bit of time and money trying to get their 5.56 tumbling or 'yawing' in flesh. The only reason they did this was because FMJ bullets were designed to penetrate, and did very little damage in tissue, for this reason. The military realized that sometimes the long bullets would yaw in flesh and this would do more damage than the bullet penciling straight through, without violating any of the conventions that militaries are bound to, of not using expanding bullets. For a SD situation, you are not bound to the same laws as the military, and using expanding rounds is preferable, unless you are looking for barrier/cover penetration. They generally do more damage, penetrate less, and transfer a larger percentage of energy into the target, and they do it consistently.

[Derbel McDillet]

Why? Hollow point self-defense rounds like Hornady TAP will penetrate less through walls and cause more damage in soft tissue.

I use M193 55gr FMJ to keep things standardized and simple. M193 produces plenty of wound trauma at home defense distances.

This is very dependent on velocity, exact bullet construction, and target medium consistency. Don't expect 100% fragmentation, especially if the barrel is less than 16 inches. (e.g. M193 in an 11.5 inch semiauto SBR is a poor choice over 55 grain softpoints)

At HD distances M193 velocity from a 16" bbl is adequate to produce reliable and substantial bullet fragmentation in soft tissues.

In the event of an errant bullet, M193 is not barrier blind. Walls are hard barrier materials that present shear force resistance to bullet penetration which causes M193 to fragment.

The military spent quite a bit of time and money trying to get their 5.56 tumbling or 'yawing' in flesh.

This is untrue. All pointed non-expanding bullets will yaw in soft tissues because the center of gravity (the majority of its mass) is located nearer the base of the bullet than the tip. The bullet seeks a state of stability in flesh and it does this by yawing 180 degrees to travel backwards. Even the lowly .22 LR LRN bullet yaws 180 degrees in flesh.

[WeedWacker]

At HD distances M193 velocity from a 16" bbl is adequate to produce reliable and substantial bullet fragmentation in soft tissues.

In the event of an errant bullet, M193 is not barrier blind. Walls are hard barrier materials that present shear force resistance to bullet penetration which causes M193 to fragment.

I had a longer reply but thanks to Murphy and his law I lost it all. Cliff's notes:

Read these pages:

• http://counterstrikefox.freeservers.com/mv.htm
• http://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/Bal...st1/Test1.html
• http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot14.htm

Lessons learned:
1. Contrary to what we have been told, XM-193 does not seem to "fragment" when shot into drywall walls. After we were through for the day, we even shot several more rounds of XM-193 into the walls to see if we could get one to fragment. They did not.

It is clear that they were tumbling and deviating from the flight path, but they were still penetrating the walls.

Now, before anyone says it, No, I do not know how much damage they would do to someone after the 4th wall. But they would do some damage as they were still penetrating.

2. Remington 55 grain JSP and Frangible 5.56 also penetrated all 4 walls. So did the .30 Carbine.

When shooting rifles, walls are concealment, not cover.

- Old_Painless

Things to take from this:

• There are no magic bullets that stop bad guys without penetrating interior walls
• Bullets designed primarily to fragment in walls are not as effective as bullets designed to stop a threat
• Knowledge of your equipment leads to confidence, confidence leads to less stress when depending on your equipment.

I'm not condemning your use of XM193, it's my go-to round if I run out of soft points. Just understand you still need to be aware of what is beyond your target, even behind interior walls.

[Derbel McDillet]

Okay, you've convinced me. The "Box O' Truth" link you posted compelled me to do a little more research about 55gr FMJ and the other tests I've found confirm and validate that it's likely to not fragment and penetrate more walls than JSP or JHP.

Now I'll either have to find wall penetration test data for the following loads or perform some of my own wall penetration tests:

"In those situations where intermediate barrier penetration is not a critical requirement, for example LE urban entries or long range shots in open conditions, then OTM, JHP, and standard JSP loads can offer acceptable performance. For 1/7 twist barrels, the Hornady 75 gr OTM, Nosler 77 gr OTM, and Sierra 77 gr SMK OTM are all good choices. The experimental BH loaded 100 gr OTM exhibits impressive fragmentation, even at relatively low velocities, however while capable of shooting out to 600, it is optimized for 200 and under. If stuck with 1/9 twist barrels, the heavy 70+ gr loads are not universally accurate in all rifles and the 69 gr SMK OTM, the 68 gr Hornady OTM, the Winchester 64 gr JSP (RA223R2), the Federal 64 gr TRU (T223L) JSP, Hornady 60 gr JSP, are likely to run accurately in the majority of 1/9 twist rifles. Again it is critical to keep in mind that the above loads fail to offer adequate penetration through intermediate barriers."

-- http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.p...-mm-Duty-Loads

[TDL]

Report and temporary deafness is one thing. But I think flash is more of a concern. I can't find a cite but I believe I have read over 3/4 of home defense firearm use is at night. Temporary deafness is a reduction awareness. Temporary blindness from a flash indoors in the dark is a full loss of awareness for more than a few seconds.

As far as wall penetration this depends on a lot of variables. If you are in a wood frame with many residents it is different than a brick frame with one or two residents

[Brian Pfleuger]

If you can see well enough to identify and fire on a target, it is a virtual guarantee that you have enough light that muzzle flash is not going to be a problem. I have fired numerous guns in the dark. The only one that had enough flash to effect my vision, even a little, was a 18" barrel 12ga firing deer slugs. Even with that one, I was left with a "glare" in the pitch black that was a complete non-factor as soon as I got to a lit area.

[Theohazard]

And it's also amazing how much a good flash hider can lower your muzzle flash at night.

[amd6547]

My own HD AR is a 16" carbine. I keep a 20rd mag of PRVI 75gn Match JHP.
I like that the PRVI is relatively affordable and available. Although my carbine has a 1/9" twist, I got good accuracy at 100yds, so I am not concerned with close range accuracy. I do have a spare 20rd mag of M193 handy.