I do not have the personal, real-life experience base from which my good friend Erich writes, but he and I correspond often on the subject. I have done a fair amount of water testing for penetration of various self-defense loads, including several .380s. My personal backup .380s presently all carry Remington 102gr. Golden Saber. My testing shows that that particular load expands well most of the time, and penetrates well, but not great. My second choice would be any of the reliable ball loads. I've tested Pow'rBall, Gold Dot, Hydra-Shok and Silvertip .380s from my P3ATs, a PPK and my Colt Mustangs. All of those feed well in all my pistols, and all expand, with the Pow'rBall expanding the best, to the biggest diameter. However, all of these bullets have what I consider to be inadequate penetration. Pow'rBall hardly penetrates at all, but expands like crazy.

Just last weekend, I decided to again test the Remington GS load from a P3AT, and to test a round of Double Tap .380 ball, both from my newest P3AT. The GS expanded beautifully, with full penetration of two 1/2 gallon milk jugs full of water, the jacket getting shed in a third, 1-gallon jug, and the core barely penetrating into the next gallon jug. I'd have liked to see the jacket stay with the core, and both to have gotten into that next jug easily. That would be consistent with known "stoppers," like .357/125gr. SJHP and my beloved 125gr. Silvertip 9x23.

When I shot a round of the Double Tap ball, it zipped right through two half-gallon jugs, two gallon jugs, and kept on truckin' cross country. I would say that there is some danger of overpenetration with this round. The greatest concern for me came from the fact that the case from the round of DT ball failed to completely extract, evidently due to its staying obturated too hard and too long, such that the extractor slipped off the rim. Not good. Just because your little blaster feeds one kind of ball doesn't mean it will feed all ball. In fairness, the chamber was a little dirty, but not really dirty enough to have induced the malf.