Top Four Reasons Why Your Hunting Rifle isn’t a Good Home Defensive Weapon

Rifles are great firearms, they are accurate, easy to shoot, and powerful. That said, your hunting rifle is not the best home defense weapon, and home defense weapontoday we are going to count down some reasons why that is. Now don’t get me wrong, I like rifles and I own several of them, but they are not what I am going to reach for when I hear somebody breaking into my home, and here is why:

#1 over penetration:

The vast majority of rifles, especially those used for hunting, fire a powerful round that is going to go right through a person without slowing at the ranges involved in a typical home defense action. Most hunting rounds also have little difficulty passing through the walls of a typical apartment or home, and since in most cases you can’t see through walls, you could be firing off blind shots. This means that you are in real danger of harming innocent bystanders, perhaps including those you are intending to protect.

#2 scopes don’t work in the dark:

Although some people still hunt with open sights, most hunting rifles these days are designed for use with an optical scope, ahunting riflend many do not even come with open sights attached. Scopes work wonderfully at sighting in on deer across a field or clearing, but they don’t work as well at the ranges you’re likely to be confronting an intruder at, and they don’t work at all in the dark. This can be a concern because you might not have time to flip lights on during a home invasion.

#3 rifles are big:

Rifles are classified as long arms for a reason; they are long, and take two hands to use. This can make it difficult to take some of the actions that you might need to take during a home defense, such as calling the police or opening a door, while still keeping your weapon in a firing position. They can also give away your position when you come up to a corner or doorway.

#4 hunting rifles don’t load quickly:

Unless you hunt with an ‘assault rifle’ with an external magazine, they can be a bear to load in the heat of the moment. Your standard bolt action hunting rifle will hold four or five rounds in an internal magazine, which means that you have to shove the rounds in by hand, and in a hurry it is easy to miss-align while doing so. You can get around that by loading one round into the breech at a time, which only gives you one shot before deer hunting secretsreloading is required, or by leaving your rifle loaded, which makes it a potential danger to friends and family; remember you are responsible for whatever happens with your weapon.

These are the top four reasons why you might not want to rely upon your hunting rifle as a weapon of home defense. Although they are great weapons they are limited in home defense situations in a variety of ways. If you plan on using a firearm for home defense it is a much better idea to get a shotgun or a handgun for the job, and leave the rifle for hunting.

Photo Credit: kennethkonica via Compfight cc

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