Would someone please explain so I understand how one gets higher muzzle velocity with lower grain ammo....220 grain 45 average vel is like 898 and some 187 grain is over 1000...

asking to determine a good round for my new Shield 45.

Thanks

Lighter bullet travels faster. This may also cause different point of impact

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Each caliber has a maximum pressure that it can be loaded to, as established by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute. Factory ammo is generally (not always) loaded to that maximum pressure. The same pressure will drive a lighter bullet to higher velocities than a heavier bullet.

What factory ammo are you buying that is loaded to max pressure?

Don't really know that I am....have always carried 9mm but with the shield 45 I have no base of knowledge about the ammo...carry Sig Sauer elite performance v-crown (based on information given to be when I purchased it at the gun store)....went online and was checking speer, federal hst, and hornady and starting noticing the grain counts and the velocity rating......

So really am at a loss to the appropriate round for a 45....faster, heavier, ???? ???????

Thanks for the help

The grains listed is the weight of the projectile, not the propellant.

Lighter grain bullet can move faster than a heavier one, with an equivalent propellant charge.

Thanks.....even I can understand that........

Can you throw a baseball or a bowling ball faster?

Same premise.

Federal HST 230gr standard pressure is what you want. Heavier bullet will expand more and travel deeper in flesh (at least when comparing hst)

Buy it in 50ct boxes from SGammo or massammo, test it, and rest knowing you have one of the best if not arguably the best rounds on the market currently

I agree. Federal's HST ammo is the best hollow point round made. You would have a great round if you got any HST option for your gun OP, no matter the bullet size.

I did a test before using Federal HST, Speer GoldDot, Remington Golden Saber, and Precision Delta's hollow points in a home-brew.

I soaked about a dozen phone books in water, then stacked them up and shot into them. The HST expanded perfectly every single time, no matter the distance, without any debris clogging the cavity up. They also has excellent penetration.

The GoldDots let me down. The expansion was really hit or miss with them, and it wasn't dependent on distance. Some would get clogged with debris and not fully expand while others almost or fully expanded but still had debris caked in the center. The couple that did fully expand, were nothing like the razor sharp edges of the HST. Penetration wasn't bad with the GDs though.

The other ammo was much inferior than the top two. I still have the HST bullets I pulled out of those tests. They are so neat, I just had to keep them.

I understand the phone book test might not be the best replica of actual flesh, but if it can penetrate phonebooks without clogging and perfectly expanding every time, then I imagine it would be flawless for a SD situation.

Forgot to mention, this was the HST 124gr +P for 9mm, and so were the other brands. So I can just imagine the HST bullet in anything higher like a 45acp. I really wish they would make the HST in revolver rounds like 38spl and 357mag. Maybe even 44mag, even though THAT would be overkill, literally.

The only thing that might compare is the Winchester HPs, I forgot what they are called now, but I have never tried them. From what I have seen, they are quite similar to the HSTs, but after using the HSTs, I have no reason to try something else.

HST_1.jpg

Let's assume you have 2 cartridges loaded at the same pressure. That pressure is the force you can exert. Cartridge 1 is a baseball, Cartridge 2 is a 4 lb cannonball. Are they going to travel the same speed? Never.

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dben002 the velocity part is easy, you can push a small car faster on a flat road than you can push the same car if it has people in it.
If you want to go faster with either car, you got to push harder. That is what +P ammo does because it has more push behind the same bullet.

Best explanation here.

Each caliber usually have different loadings per weight and brands have their choice of powders so you have quite a choice that comfortable to you.

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Usually an equivalent power charge will push a heavier bullet faster than a lighter bullet, assuming similarly constructed bullets and seated. A heavier bullet is going to be larger and take up more case capacity resulting in higher pressure and more velocity. Take a look in any reloading manual and light bullets are going to require more powder to reach the same velocity as heavier bullets.

Equivalent pressure would result in the lighter bullet moving faster.

Velocity is gain by how light something is but not so light it actually loses velocity. A feather is lighter than a pebble but how far can we throw the feather.

187 grain vs. 220 grain is not that big of a difference but still big enough to make a difference.
What you have to keep in mind is a .45 A.C.P. was not design for anything greater than 25 yards, some may argue that but the steep trajectory decline is evident.

It's a battle field cartridge for up close. In that role there is simply no better round to this very day and it was design around a 230g load, slow and fat and hits like a sledge hammer.
The Army back in the day did lower it but that was for their use, at it's conception it's a 230g round.


Watch the video below and see if you can spot what is so extraordinary about the .45 A.C.P. And the beauty of it all is it's an easy to control round because the recoil pulse is different from any other round.



Don't get lured into getting over a 1000 ft per second, remember the .45 A.C.P. works it's best in lower velocity ranges.

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Note: disregard the Buffalo Bore box's that was not the ammo used.

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Mulebuk Sam and the Governor

Thanks so much.. that's the kind of info I was seeking

Your S&W Shield has fixed sights, probably regulated at the factory for "standard" ammo. In the .45ACP that is likely to be 230-grain bullets. Lighter bullets at higher velocities have a shorter barrel time, exiting the muzzle earlier in the recoil impulse, so will probably have a point of impact below the point of aim. At short ranges this probably won't be noticeable, but at extended ranges it could be a problem.

For defensive use the gold standard is reliability. If your ammo won't reliably feed, chamber, fire, extract, and eject 100% of the time it is the wrong ammo for that pistol.

The silver standard is accuracy. A plodding old 800FPS 230-grain ball round that goes into the intended point of impact beats any super-duper 1000FPS hollow point that misses the intended target.

My personal requirement for semi-auto pistols is 200 rounds fired through the pistol (using every magazine intended for carry) with no failures, and all to point of aim at 50 feet. Any ammo that won't do that is not suitable for my needs. Any pistol that won't do that needs to be fixed or disposed of.

After reviewing above subject matter would I be correct in assuming that at self defense ranges (up to 15 yards) (with the shield 45) the net result of a 185 or a 200 or a 230 grain standard load would be no difference ?

Damage caused would be basically the same?

As far as terminal ballistics are concerned the general rule is that the heavier bullets can be expected to provide greater penetration, while the lighter bullets at higher velocities tend to provide greater cavitation effect. Of course, bullet type (hollow-point, round-nose, flat-point, jacketed or not, etc) can result in great variations in effects.

As far as reliably shooting to point of aim and functional reliability in your pistol are concerned you will never know until you try each specific cartridge variation in your specific pistol. No two pistols are ever completely identical, even two of the same model from the same production run, and each will perform differently. What works well with one may not provide equal performance in another.

Again, there is simply no substitute for absolute reliability. The most modern high-tech purpose-made ammo is no good for defensive use unless it feeds, fires, extracts, and ejects perfectly in your pistol. And any shot that hits the intended target is better than any shot that misses the intended target.

Hypothetical discussions are fine, as far as they go, but there is only one way to establish what the best choices are for your needs and your pistol, and that is to test and evaluate any selection under consideration.

It's probably accurate to say that the 1911 was designed around the 230 gr FMJ round.

It's a lot less accurate to say that other more modern .45 ACP pistols, and for that matter more modern 1911 derivatives were designed under this constraint and are more reliable with heavier bullet than a lighter one.

If the total recoil impulse of a light bullet at higher velocity is similar to the recoil impulse of a heavy bullet at lower velocity, then the pistol is going to function the same, regardless of whether it is a blow back operated or delayed recoil operated system.

A bigger problem is caused by adding shock buffers and other items that reduce the slide over run time and distance.

Having too light a recoil spring will also increase slide velocity and decrease slide over run time as well, reducing reliability as well as increasing wear or battering the frame.

It's also not entirely accurate to assume that a heavier hollow point penetrates farther or than a lighter hollow point is more likely to expand.

Hollow points tend to operate with peak efficiency over a very narrow range of velocity. If a particular hollow point is launched too fast for the bullet's design it will over expand and often under penetrate, and if it is launched too slow, it will under expand and often over penetrate.

Magazine feed lips also can make a major difference in reliability based on bullet shape (in the 1911 in particular) as the length and taper of the feed lips control when and the angel at which the round leaves the magazine, and what works best for a round nose FMJ isn't the same as what works best for a truncated cone or flat pointed round nose shaped hollow point, and what works best for hollow point isn't what works best for a semi-wad cutter.

The .450acp was developed because back in the day the basic 35 caliber fmj rounds lacked two things required for effective stopping power. First was bullet diameter 2nd was velocity required to hydrostatically displace enough tissue to create a instantly lethal wound. The .45acp accomplished the task without hydro static shock through mass and diameter which caused a deep penetrating almost 1/2" hole that usually went in one side and out the other. This is great in a military combat role, but in the civilian world over penetration is a huge liability.
Today things are way different when you look at the capabilities of those same .35 cal rounds. Take a +P9mm for example. A good specialty defense 9mm round will expand to or almost to .75" in diameter penetrate a good foot into a person and usually not have enough velocity if it happens to go through and through to worry about liability. The key to good bullet performance is getting it to expend all it's energy inside the target. Today's 9mm rounds designed for self defense are actually better performers on the human body than the big old .45 due to the greater hydro static shock and better expansion on human tissue. Cheaper to shoot also.

Peak pressures are really only of concern as long as they are low enough for the gun to contain.

Really, the total force exerted on the bullet propotional to the force of the expanding gas being applied to the bullet. If one had a time/pressure equation for the burning of smokeless powder in a gun, the total force exerted on the bullet could be calculated by taking the integral from t=0 to t=the time the bullet left the barrel.

Changing the weight of the bullet doesn't appreciably change this curve, so it all comes back to Newtonian mechanics-F=MA.

It is true that loading manuals will generally list a higher powder charge for lighter bullets. This comes back to the fact that the lighter bullet is shorter and therefore results in greater case volume.

I would love, however, to see an example of two otherwise identical loads with different weight bullets loaded to the same OAL where the heavier bullet has a higher velocity.

A lot depends upon bullet design and velocity. That being said, if we were to test FMJ-RN loads in 185, 200 & 230 grains at a nominal 850fps and were to shoot it into standard ballistic gel, the wound profiles would be the same with the lighter bullets penetrating less as the lighter mass bullets slow down quicker than the heavier mass bullets.

If expanding bullets are used then there's a whole different set of variables to take into account.

Just remember that faster isn't always better. It all depends on how the bullet was designed and tested.

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Conversion of any given powder energy to bullet kinetic energy causes a lighter bullet to achieve greater muzzle velocity than a heavier bullet since kinetic energy is proportional to bullet mass and bullet muzzle velocity squared. However, for any given bullet effective diameter in soft tissue, bullet weight is substantially more important than is bullet velocity in achieving desirable penetration. For any given bullet kinetic energy and effective bullet diameter, the heavier bullet dissipates less energy in temporary cavity and thus can penetrate more than a lighter bullet can.