I have a LaRue 5.56 that has a collapsible stock, angled foregrip, Ledesma Arms Featureless Grip, Sig Romeo 5 red dot sight, Streamlight TLR-8A laser, SureFire flashlight, 40 round PMag's , & Viking Tactics V-Tac Sling.

300 Blackout suppressed, sub-sonic or 9 mm. This video shows the results are surprisingly similar. I like the CMMG Radial Delayed Blowback for 9mm though I've never shot one.

ElGoatarod said:

---

Pistol or sbr, what caliber, any particular barrel length, optic, trigger, suppressed or unsuppressed, any particular brands you prefer and why, etc.?

---

Pistol or sbr is personal preference. I use an SBR because pistol braces really are poor substitutes for an actual stock when it comes to actually shooting a lot and I believe your HD gun should be something you shoot a lot, take classes with, etc.

Barrel from 10.3-12 is preferred for a suppressed gun. My personal build is an 11.5. If you cant/dont want to deal with NFA, a 16" gun can serve just fine. Hell, Marines were stuck fighting house to house in Iraq with 20" A4s. Not ideal but itll work.

Red dot reigns supreme here. Aimpoint, Eotech…even holosun if on a budget.

Trigger doesnt matter much for this application. I use a Geissele SSA-E just because thats what I use in most of my ARs.

If buying a complete upper, I'd go with BCM, SOLGW, etc.

You didnt mention a light. You need a light on any HD gun, period. Positive ID before you shoot is by far the most important thing. I use a cloud defensive rein, but any quality surefire, cloud, modlight, or streamlight if on a budget will serve (no olights or knockoffs).

As for ammo selection, read this and choose a quality load.

https://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/Self_Defense_Ammo_FAQ/#RifleAmmoDocGKR

Eta: this should be obvious, but ill say it anyway. Zero your gun with your defensive ammo. Know your holds at 7 and 15 yards.

10MM banshee ar15 sbr suppressed, laser, light, with a 33 round Glock mag

Rifle rounds move too fast and will over penetrate. As me how I know....negligent discharge....thankfully no one home and I was pointing the gun downstairs. It went through a comforter, mattress, frame, floor, ceiling, then bounced off conference garage floor and almost went through the garage door on the bounce. It left a golf ball sized dent going outwards.

theJonatron said:

---

10MM banshee ar15 sbr suppressed, laser, light, with a 33 round Glock mag

Rifle rounds move too fast and will over penetrate. As me how I know....negligent discharge....thankfully no one home and I was pointing the gun downstairs. It went through a comforter, mattress, frame, floor, ceiling, then bounced off conference garage floor and almost went through the garage door on the bounce. It left a golf ball sized dent going outwards.

---

Worried about over penetration but using a 10mm?

Second for the SBR 300blk, subsonic suppressed. Actually put it in action tonight, defending the wife's garden from a dillo. Such a satisfying round to quietly shoot without even waking her.

theJonatron said:

---

10mm has about 1/3 of the velocity and less than half the energy, so yes...

---

A screen shot from the ammo faq link I posted above….

Pretty much everything Bender said and a few others.

SBR or Pistol in 5.56, 300BLK or 7.62x39.

Platforms: AR, SigMCX, and BRN 180 are all great options.

See my LMT build from last week.https://texags.com/forums/34/topics/3488396/1

Suppressed is a must for any enclosed space.

If you go SBR and don't plan to put a can on it then use a caliber other than 5.56, in a short barrel it makes a big flash. Something like a .300 blackout would be better

Not sure I'm following your logic here. Why not use the best possible weapon for the task (assuming that's an NFA item SBR/suppressor)? Because it goes to evidence during the investigation? You can always replace the weapon. I wouldn't trust my life to a gun I wouldn't mind losing. If it's a justified shoot and legal for you to posess, you will get it back.

Figured I should post a pic of the gun I described earlier: (11.5", suppressed, quality weapon light).



*Slightly off original topic rant time*.....I will say I can't stress enough how important it is to actually do some training. I've taken multiple classes that involved some component of moving through a shoot house, either force on force with sims or even just moving unopposed with nothing but paper targets.

In every single class, regardless of high or low stress the shoot is, two things happen commonly that have to be trained against:

1) safety comes off before target is properly identified, often as early as before someone even enters a room
2) once you look through the sights, you stay locked in on the sight and only look through the sights

Both of those things always lead to someone moving into a room and immediately engaging a target before IDing it. I've seen it time and time again, and done it myself in my first run through of a shoot house. It is sobering.

You will not rise to the occasion. You will default to your level of training and practice. 3 am in the dark after you hear a loud thump and your dog goes nuts is not a great time to start training shoot/no shoot scenarios or learning your hold over for a 7 yard shot.

If you don't have time/money for a class, make or buy a couple of targets, one with a gun and one with empty hands. Have your spouse or a friend put it somewhere in your house. Practice (dryfire only, no ammo anywhere near the gun) moving through your house to get to your kids room knowing there is either a shoot or no shoot somewhere along the way.

Thankfully, home invasions are uncommon. But if you specifically keep a gun to protect yourself and your family from a potential intruder....spend the time and effort to be effective and intentional with it when it matters. You owe it to your kids.

/rant off

Smeghead4761 said:

---

One thing to keep in mind with a defensive firearm: it doesn't matter how well a defensive shooting is legally justified, it is a homicide. The police will investigate. That investigation will most likely entail taking whatever gun you shot the bad guy(s) with into evidence, at least temporarily. Especially if you live in a locality with an anti-2A district attorney.

For those reasons, I, personally, don't use a gun that requires a tax stamp as my go-to for home defense. 16" AR carbine in .223/5.56, built or bought for reliability, with a light and a red dot with a long battery life (probably an Aimpoint).

Ammo would be something like Hornady TAP or Critical Defense, or Federal 62 gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claw (which is what the FBI uses.)

---

Read this again.

Also, don't forget to vote.

BenderRodriguez said:

---

theJonatron said:

---

10mm has about 1/3 of the velocity and less than half the energy, so yes...

---

A screen shot from the ammo faq link I posted above….

---

8:01 shows 5.56 going through multiple layers of dry wall.

In grand thumb we trust

At the end of the day, it comes down to velocity and bullet construction. 10mm will always be slower than .223/5.56 unless shooting a crazy fragmentable 60 grain round (most are 180 grain)

Choose what you wish, but I suggest caution with rifle rounds due to over penetration of whatever is getting hit with the round. There is a reason why there are different armors are necessary for 5.56.

Level iia Kevlar can stop 10mm. It cannot stop 5.56

The 223 was the only one stopped by the 3rd piece of drywall. It was fragmenting after the second. Not sure what the argument is? All the pistol rounds traveled through all 4. Add insulation to the mix you will get it stopping sooner.

I do not have Kevlar in my wall. I have drywall. Kevlar is defeated by speed. All the bullets that traveled through drywall were heavy.

theJonatron said:

---

At the end of the day, it comes down to velocity and bullet construction. 10mm will always be slower than .223/5.56 unless shooting a crazy fragmentable 60 grain round (most are 180 grain)

Choose what you wish, but I suggest caution with rifle rounds due to over penetration of whatever is getting hit with the round.

---

Yes, it absolutely does. And yes, of course 5.56 goes through drywall. No one said it didn't. So does 10mm. And 00 Buck. And even lowly 9mm.

If you had read the section I posted, it specifically mentions the WHY behind the counter intuitive logic that pistol calibers penetrate more than 5.56 in things like ballistic gel (and bodies) AFTER first passing through drywall. Retained momentum and the ability of the bullet to perform as designed after hitting intermediate barriers is what makes the difference between 5.56 and most everything else.

Another quote from a ballistics expert Dr Gary Roberts that I quoted in our last home defense thread....

Quote:

---

Given the widespread availability of this information for over a decade, I am shockingly surprised to read about the "overpenetration" with "high powered assault rifles". In this day and age anyone who is spouting this BS needs to be horsewhipped… Several respected organizations have done structural wall testing, including the FBI, CHP, and IWBA. In our IWBA and CHP testing, replicas of standard construction interior walls were fabricated using two pieces of 1/2 thick dry wall cut in 12 x 24 segments and mounted four inches apart using 2 x 4 fir studs and 1.5 dry wall screws. Five rounds of each load were first fired into bare gelatin to serve as controls. Then 5 shots of each load were shot through interior wall segments into gelatin blocks placed a set distance behind the intermediate barriers various distances have been tested, typically ranging from 1 to 10 feet.

Generally, common service caliber JHP bullets failed to expand and had very deep, excessive penetration after passing through the interior wall, due to plugging of the hollow point. With the hollow point plugged, the bullets performed nearly identically to FMJ pistol bullets. The terminal performance of the 12 ga. 00 buckshot and slugs was not altered by passing through interior wall replicas, with penetration and deformation nearly identical with their performance in bare gelatin. Likewise, .308 rounds were not usually effected by the presence of an interior wall intermediate barrier.

With one exception, the majority of the 5.56 mm/.223 loads, including M855 62 gr "green-tip" FMJ, which were fired through interior walls demonstrated either minimal changes in terminal performance compared with bare gelatin or reduced penetration. The major exception were 55 gr M193 style FMJ projectiles which exhibited minimal fragmentation and deformation after first passing through interior wall replicas and hence penetrated deeper than in bare gel.

Since all of the 5.56 mm/.223 bullets fired through the interior wall had significantly less penetration than 9 mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and 12 ga. shotgun projectiles which were fired through an interior wall, stray 5.56 mm/.223 bullets seem to offer a reduced risk of injuring innocent bystanders and an inherent reduced risk of civil litigation in situations where bullets miss their intended target and enter or exit structures. As such, 5.56mm/.223 caliber weapons may be safer to use in CQB situations and crowded urban environments than service caliber handguns or 12 ga. weapons.

Obviously, it is important to keep in mind that purpose built barrier blind 5.56 mm/.223 projectiles, such as the 55 & 62 gr Federal Tactical JSP's and the Nosler 60 gr Partition, will offer deeper penetration than fragmenting designs and may exit.

---

It all penetrates drywall. Everything. Be aware of your target and what is beyond your target. But you're not mitigating your penetration risks by opting for 10mm over 5.56. The opposite, in fact.

I'm running a two day defensive pistol course 12-13 OCT for anyone that's considering a class. Hope this isn't advertising, but it seems people are always looking for places to train and I want folks to have as many options as possible. Hate to say it, but most people greatly overestimate their marksmanship skills (especially with a handgun) and, unfortunately, they do not practice or train in a way that improves those skills. These threads appear so frequently and after things get past the "best" firearm for the task, they always end up back in the training realm. Bender, as always, is spot on that you won't "rise to the occasion". We fall back on our training. If you aren't training and training properly, what are you going to fall back on? Marksmanship is a perishable skill. Many of us on here have lots invested in the tools, but don't invest the appropriate resources in training to use them.

What Bender (has) said.

He did "forget" to mention the other important training you should be looking at...

Basic trauma medicine / hemorrhage control. If you're close to the ambulance, "Stop the Bleed" should suffice. It's short and is a fast 90% solution.