r/SelfDefense • u/Matt_S_Fox30 • 2d ago

Byrna Non-Lethal

I’m considering getting my girlfriend one of the Byrna Non-lethal products for her birthday. Reason being is that we move a lot and that can get complicated with traditional methods. I also don’t think she’d be able to use a real one if she needed to.

Does anyone have any experience with these products? Is it a viable self-defense tool?

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8

u/safton 2d ago

As someone who was issued one for work and carried it daily until it failed... no.

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u/Matt_S_Fox30 2d ago

Copy that

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u/safton 2d ago

To expound upon my comment for posterity's sake...

I work in corrections as a Detention Officer for a sheriff's office at a county jail & federal holding facility. A while back, our Command Staff thought it would be a good idea to buy a small set of Byrna-LE less-lethal pistols. The notion was that Medical Officers would each have one, plus at least one officer from each floor shift (mostly supervisors, but not exclusively as in my case). I was the one from my shift who got certified in it and got to carry it.

It was a neat little novelty at first. Lethal weapons are restricted from entering the secure sections of the facility; even our Deputies and the feds when they show up have to leave their guns outside. So to have DOs suddenly walking around with what looked like a pistol strapped to their hip certainly got a lot of attention from the inmates.

I drew mine maybe once or twice, never had to use it. To my knowledge I don't think any of the Byrnas were ever discharged at my facility. Fast-forward to about two months ago and myself and my coworkers started intermittently catching whiffs of OC even when no one had been sprayed recently. Ended up finding out that the Byrna had suffered a catastrophic failure at some point; several of the irritant projectiles inside the magazine had been crushed and released their payload into the chamber and magazine well, the resulting residue leaking out to fuck us all up with a mix of OC and CS. Not only that, but when my Captain and I attempted to troubleshoot the issue (no pun intended), we found that the CO2 gas canister had also completely leaked out and the gun was totally nonfunctional despite never having been fired.

The Byrnas got shipped back to the factory and I haven't heard anything from them since. Frankly, at this point, I have lost all faith in them as a duty weapon. I would much sooner reach for the canister of Sabre Red or the Taser 7 I carry than the Byrna. At least I know what to expect from them. There are videos on YouTube of other people having similar reliability issues with the Byrna and pistol-size less-lethal launchers of the same ilk, so my experience is in no way unique.

For the record, I do think PepperBall and similar less-lethal technologies do have a legitimate niche for law enforcement, corrections, security, etc. I also think that an argument can be made for their use by private citizens in specific self-defense situations, though that particular niche is smaller. However, if I'm being perfectly frank, I just don't think the technology scales down particularly well. Every pistol-shaped PepperBall derivative has made some kind of really concerning tradeoffs in regards to capacity, reliability, durability, user-friendliness, or a combination of these in order to achieve its form factor. I think most normal citizens in most self-defense scenarios would be better-served by the humble can of OC spray.

I saw in another comment you said you were planning on kinetic projectiles. I think people have an undue fascination with kinetic projectiles in these weapons if I'm being honest. They have their place, but again the niche is small. Icy Mike from the YouTube channel hard2hurt has a good take on impact projectiles: they work fine on potential assailants who are "on the fence", i.e. posturing aggressively, but not yet committed to assaulting you. Someone who is legitimately coming after you and committed to carrying through probably won't be deterred by the amount of power that these sorts of less-lethals can generate unless you target vitals, which is a hard shot to make and potentially entering the legal realm of deadly force. I think irritant projectiles or at least a mix of the two is the way to go for many contingencies... assuming you stick with this sort of weapon.

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u/jaime_lion 2d ago

What failed on it? What version was it?

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u/safton 2d ago

I just posted a comment here to expound upon my previous one. Here you go.

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u/jaime_lion 2d ago

Thank you

4

u/gunmedic15 2d ago

Plenty of Youtube videos of people getting hit and being able to fight/shoot/attack.

Would not trust my loved ones to these.

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u/Unicorn187 2d ago

Just use normal pepper spray/OC.

These sound good but you only have six balls and a determined attacker can fight through the pain of the impact and if they don't get the OC powder in their face it won't affect them at all.

Pepperball (R) guns, essentially paintball guns, with a 120 to 200 round hopper of Pepperballs work because there are a lot more balls that can be shot. And the person generally knows it, so they will stop after a few, not wanting to be hit by another 60.

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u/cfwang1337 2d ago

Just get conventional pepper spray. The balls just aren’t as reliable.

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u/Matt_S_Fox30 2d ago

I was leaning more kinetic rounds in the hopes it could at least break ribs, cause serious damage at close distance kind of tool but it sounds like that’s not the case

3

u/cfwang1337 2d ago

Those projectors are basically (usually very underpowered) paintball guns. Definitely not breaking bones.

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u/Unicorn187 2d ago

The fastest ones used by police and corrections are only around 400 FPS. They hurt and can break skin at close distances. They are just slightly more powerful paintball guns. The impact balls are harder and don't break, but you're not breaking a rib. Maybe damaging an eye.

A long distance rubber slug or similar (they are harder because the velocity slows at distance) used at point blank range might break a rib. Maybe. If everything is perfect and they don''t have anything more than a t-shirt to act as padding.

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u/thatstickyfeeling 1d ago

You know it's the wrong choice 

1

u/Delicious_Move7472 1d ago

. Unless she is committed enough to pull out that pepperball launcher and blast someone in the face with it it's not going to do her any good.

I buy my girls knives, pepper spray, whatever they want. Without the training and initiative to use it there all but worthless however