What Makes a Good Home Defense Rifle?
When I sat down to start writing the 305 Training and Consulting Home Defense Lesson Plan it occurred to me that I should probably talk about what makes a good home defense weapon. More and more people are getting into firearms for personal defense. It seems natural for such people to start with a pistol. Often, new shooters have never been exposed to rifles or shotguns. They did not join the military, nor did they grow up hunting.
Handguns are not the optimal combat weapons. We carry them because in our society openly carrying a rifle is frowned upon. Concealing a pistol is much easier and generally acceptable. (Some places more than others.)
There are three reasons a rifle trumps a handgun when it comes to fighting:
1. Ballistic Advantage
The Speer Gold Dot 124 grain 9mm round utilized by my former agency is traveling at 1250 feet per second (FPS). A generic 55 grain .223 full metal jacket fired out of a 16” rifle barrel is traveling around 3,000 FPS. That is a huge difference. Pistol caliber rounds just cannot compete with that kind of performance. Now, if we move up to defensively engineered rounds in .223/5.56, we get rifle level terminal performance in a round that will not pass through a body. That is a win all the way around.
2. Controllability
The second reason a rifle is better than a handgun is that a shouldered rifle provides four points of contact to the human body. This greatly increases the controllability of the weapon and enables the shooter to take advantage of the weapon’s accuracy potential. Two hands on a handgun just cannot compete with getting four points of contact on a rifle.
3. Ease of Use of Accessories
A rifle beats a handgun for home defense because the accessories are easy to use. I think most readers know that a weapon needs some sort of sighting system. Well, maybe not screenwriters, but I digress. The standard for some time now has become a red dot sight (RDS). The rifle pictured above has an Aimpoint M3 mounted. That sight is an older model but still works well for its intended role. While low powered variable optics have taken over a lot of the rifle optic market, I prefer a good RDS for this mission.
In addition, this rifle has a 5.11 V-TAC sling mounted to it. Slings like the V-TAV, Vickers, or Lead Faucet are invaluable for their adjustability and the simple ability to carry the rifle. Slings are to a rifle what a holster is to a pistol. With a sling, I can tighten the rifle to my chest if I need my hands or swim through the sling to put the rifle on my back so I can carry something or someone in front. Lastly, if I am holding a point of domination or hard point, I can tighten the sling to help hold the rifle steady in a good shooting position even if it is unconventional.
The final force multiplier for the rifle is the ease of mounting truly powerful lights. A home defense weapon needs to have a light mounted to it. Period. There is no excuse for ever shooting at anything you have not identified. You may or may not need the durability of hardened weapon lights like Surefire, Modlight, and Cloud Defensive make, but those are not likely to break on a home defense rifle. Nor are they as likely as some brands to start a fire. The weapon light attached to this rifle is okay, but the attachment method leaves something to be desired. I usually tighten it when I pick up the rifle.
Those three “accessories” are what I consider necessary for a home defense rifle. In addition, .223/5.56 is a light recoiling round which means faster and more accurate follow up shots versus nearly any pistol. For a bump in the night gun, a similarly equipped and reliable carbine is hard to beat.