[Spats McGee]

While fiddletown is correct in saying that this path is well trod, I'll go down it just a little this morning.

Originally Posted by nate45

. . . .If someone shoots someone, with handloaded ammunition and there is a GSR issue involved. Why couldn't the remaining ammunition with the firearm, or the partial box, bag or whatever the person had at home be used as evidence? . . . .

Remaining in the firearm: That's part of the crime scene, and testing it would result in destruction of evidence. A big no-no.

Remaining in the box at home: If you're referring to handloads, for starters, because it would be evidence created by the defendant. As such, it's already suspect. Nobody has more reason to lie at trial than the defendant.

Evidence created by an impartial third party (Remington, Speer, etc) would not be suspect, as those third parties have no (obvious) motive to lie about what's in the cartridge. The defendant, possibly facing a long stay as a guest of the State, or perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, has very large motives.

Originally Posted by nate45

. . . .If a person loaded a hundred rounds in virgin brass and carefully weighed each load. Why would that ammo be inconsistent or not provide good testing material?

For the same reason as above: evidence created by the defendant. It's not a question of how good or consistent the reloader is, nor how good his records are.

Originally Posted by nate45

. . . .Also, one lot of factory ammo could differ from another lot. If the forensic lab only uses ammo, that is like yours and not those, that actually were yours. What's to say that the different lot of ammo, even if it is factory and the same bullet and load, would provide reliable GSR results?

That's an attack that can be made by defense counsel. If the defendant suspects that the factory load is inconsistent from other lots, he should, by all means, talk to his attorney about that! It wouldn't be hard to get a box or two from a different lot and have them tested.

Originally Posted by nate45

. . . .I'm not advocating handloads for defense, I just find it perplexing that with all the small boutique/designer defense ammo companies there are and all the commercial reloaders, how ones own carefully constructed handloads could be so different.

The whole way the term reloads is used in the debate, conjures up images of haphazardly constructed, oddly assorted once, or thrice fired brass and miss weighed powder charges.

It's not a matter of how meticulous a reloader is, nor how well he or she keeps records of the loads created. The Rules of Evidence just won't let you get that stuff in. It's evidence created by the defendant.

Originally Posted by nate45

. . . .The point about giving up your fifth amendment right if you had to testify about your handloads was a good one. Besides the possible biasing of the jury with the possible prosecutorial claim that you needed extra deadly ammunition. The giving up the fifth possibility, is one of the most compelling reasons not to use handloads for defense I've seen.

If you're claiming self-defense, you're probably going to have to testify anyway. SD is an affirmative defense, which means that the shooter's story is, in essence, "Yeah, I shot him, but I had a really good reason."