I'm planning to start carrying my 457S once the weather gets a bit cooler.

So, my question is just what the thread title says. I'm leaning to JHP as I have a box of HST 230gr.

Just looking for thoughts, not a 9mm versus 45ACP debate.

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Can open, worms everywhere.

I have long used only ball ammo in my CC and HD guns.

The world's cemeteries (military and civilian) are loaded with proof of FMJ's effectiveness.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Beck when I was an investigator I knew a thoracic surgeon from South Africa who between conflict zones in SA and a surgical residency in NYC had operated on about 1500 gunshot wound victims shot in the chest.

He felt unequivocally that the 230 gr FMJ was the most lethal round one of his patients could be shot with or that patient was shot with just one round.

But before anyone gets too excited we need to unpack that statement.

First there is a survivor bias working here. He only worked on patients that survived long enough to reach his operating room. If they died on scene, in the ambulance or in the ER before being prepped for surgery, he didn’t see them.

He probably saw fewer people shot with hollow points as they were less likely to survive long enough to meet him.

Second, in African conflict zones he was far more likely to encounter people shot with FMJ, and shot for shot the .45 caliber 230 gr FMJ was more lethal than a 9mm 147 gr FMJ. It just made a bigger hole.

Third, not everyone gets shot just once and he also felt that the more times a person was shot, the more wound tracks there were to potentially hit vital organs or blood vessels and the more likely it was that they’d die before he could fix all the damage. Specifically, he felt the lowly .22 LR was quite lethal when a patient was shot several times with one.

In general both more wound track and larger wound tracks mean more blood loss and more potential to bleed out before sufficient medical resources are available.

Put that all together and despite his observation about single shot victims of a 230 gr FMJ, .45 caliber hollow points and 9mm hollow points bullet for bullet are probably more lethal, and multiple rounds are always potentially more lethal than single rounds.

——


Most importantly for this discussion is to recognize that lethality isn’t the same as incapacitation.

For example, a good shooter can rapidly dump a 10 round magazine of .22 LR into an assailant and get 10 hits center of mass. The odds are very high that the assailant will die - minutes, hours or even days later.

But seconds are what count and the odds of incapacitation are very low with .22 LR, even with multiple hits. It doesn’t do the shooter any good if the assailant is able to kill or seriously injure the shooter before the assailant runs off to die somewhere.

Larger bullets, hollow point bullets, and more wound tracks all increase the potential for incapacitation via rapid blood pressure loss or a central nervous system hit.

There’s also the issue of over penetration. Everyone worries about getting adequate penetration to reach vital organs, but they need to be just as worried about excessive penetration where a bullet may pass all the way through an assailant and strike someone else. A well designed hollow point goes a long way toward ensuring a bullet striking an assailant stays in the assailant.

If you shoot an innocent bystander, whether by accident or by over penetration, you are very likely to be charged, and will almost certainly be sued.

——

There are several good hollow point loads on the market. If your handgun shoots one with 100% reliability, use it.

——-

As for 9mm versus .45 ACP, it’s a draw in my opinion.

On the one hand, the.45 ACP is larger and a well designed .45 ACP hollow point will make a bigger hole than a well designed 9mm hollow point.

On the other hand, I can score three A zone hits with 9mm in he same period of time it takes me to score just two A zone hits with 45 ACP.

If you crunch the numbers for wound volume, given equal penetration two rounds of .45 ACP expanded hollow points and three rounds of 9mm expanded hollow points produce essentially identical results.

It is a balancing act. There is a lot of personal opinion, both informed and uninformed, and some actual factual information and much anecdotal information around. Plus bullets and powder are getting MUCH BETTER. In addition overpenetration is a REAL issue in police and private citizen SD shootings. Seldom will a .45 ACP FMJ overpenetrate in a factory load. A hollow-point has lees ricochet potential. FMJ will give better penetration. HP will, at least in theory, give a bigger wound channel and therefore more likelihood of incapacitation with fewer hits.

I highly recommend you go with what you feel most comfortable for your own reasons with AS LONG AS YOUR WEAPON FUNCTIONS RELIABLY WITH IT.

(I carry HP in my .45acp on the rare occasion I carry one for SD use.)

The argument that the .45ACP is already .452 so doesn't need to expand to get more effective is a false argument. The expansion is great from a tissue shock perspective. But it's also there to prevent over penetration.

The FMJ is pretty much guaranteed to over penetrate. You're responsible for what happens with every bullet that you fired until that thing stops flying.

The Federal HST however is an outstanding bullet design that will open up and not over penetrate. Check HERE for Lucky Gunner's testing of this round.

It's obviously your choice. But I would never carry an FMJ in any caliber for the over penetration issues.

Over the past 20+ years, I've seen the results of the Federal 230gr HST ammunition at autopsy....several times. IMHO, these are the best carry rounds for the .45acp caliber. (and many other smaller calibers)

With the advancements in modern ammunition in the past two decades, there is absolutely no reason not to carry the newly designed hollow points from Federal (HST), Speer (Gold Dot), Winchester (Ranger T-Series), and Remington (Golden Saber).

If your carry gun won't feed them reliably, you need a new carry firearm.

Purchase and use what you can shoot accurately and consistently in your carry gun, and only use what is reliable 100% of the time.

Remember, you have to shoot it to know....and confidence builds restraint.

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Ret. LE, FA Instr, S&W Armorer

In my personal opinion, you want controlled expansion to make sure all of the energy of the round is dumped into the body, and the expansion helps with the size of the permanent wound cavity, all of which contribute to better stopping power with less risk of over penetration.

My preference is the wide meplat Winchester RED45 FMJFP, 230 grain.

I've seen holes in warm bodies made with both .45 and 9mm FMJ. Could not tell the difference between the 2.
I worked one shooting where the shooter was using .45 FMJ and hit the guy 5 times out of 8 rds. The fatal round hit the guy as he was falling back. Entered in the right upper thigh, hit the hip bone and deflected a bit, traveled upwards diagonally thru the torso and came to rest just under the skin next to the collar bone. The other 4 rounds were thru and thru torso hits.

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183rd FBINA

A 230gr FMJ will do fine, but the thing I noticed on the rare occasions where I buy factory loaded ammo is the JHP loads tend to be tuned more for self defense, being on the hotter side, while FMJ is more for practice on targets where some of the options seem kind of under powered.

Personally I load 230gr XTP's to a fairly light load which matches up with the 230gr FMJ that I load for practice. I could go with a higher charge, but it's comfortable to shoot, accurate, and has enough stopping power.

Of course I've also switched from an Officers ACP to micro-9's after decades with the 45, but as the OP said, that's a completely different debate

I only carry self defense ammo in all calibers.

I figure that if I’m unlucky enough to have to use my gun in self defense, my luck with FMJ would probably be the same. All bad.

Just personal preference. Not that I’m superstitious or anything.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

I carry my 45 acp handloads for everything: practice. SD, competition and wandering around our mountains: 200gr H&G 68 at about 1,000 fps.

I’ve killed some critters with it up to 250 pounds. Works just fine. I’ve never thought that an expanding bullet would do any better (assuming they actually expand: they often don’t in the field).

The .45 HST is our current approved .45 load. It cycles reliably in my Gov’t Model and Lightweight Commander, and in the M&P 45’s some of my co-workers carry. We’ve never had to shoot anyone with it, but our Sheriffs Dept did, and it worked as intended. Even at close range it expanded and stayed in the bad guy.

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Wheel guns are real guns.

It’s hard to go wrong with the HST.

I fired these into 10% ballistic gel from my 4” Kimber CDP.

Note, the second and fourth bullets are reversed, they should be from left to right: 9mm 124 gr XTP, .45 ACP gr 230 gr XTP, .45 ACP 230 gr Remington Golden Saber, and Federal 230 gr HST.



The HSTs demonstrated the least penetration at around 14”. That compares to about 18” for the Hornady XTP and about 16” for the Golden Saber rounds. But it is still adequate penetration well over the 12” mark and the expansion is impressive.

It shows the progression from the older school XTP, designed to give reliable 1.5x expansion mushrooming to around .60-.65” with very good penetration, to the slightly later Golden Saber designed to expand with petals to around .75”, and the more modern HST designed for even greater expansion around .85”.

I’m comfortable carrying any of them.

The XTPs penetrate farther, without over penetrating. They are also significantly larger than their 9mm counterpart - and are larger in expanded diameter than nearly all of the most modern 9mm hollow points.

The HSTs expand to an impressive .85” with good penetration.

The Golden Sabers split the difference with a bit less expansion but better penetration.

I reviewed some gel testing videos with .45 ACP FMJs. All the videos I saw showed penetration at roughly 30 inches. That's too much danger of a wounded innocent bystander to suit me.

The Federal HST HP ammo is my first choice for carry and that is what I use in my 9mm EDC. I have seen some 45 acp pistols that were normally extremely reliable with ball ammo have problems digesting HP ammo. If that is the case and you want to carry a 45acp, I would switch to ball ammo (FMJ) for reliability. While the HST might show better ballistics and more trauma, it will be a big zero if the gun doesn't function.

My suggestion would be to procure a bunch of different brands and styles for a carry load and test them for reliability - not a cheap day out at the Range now days. Again, if reliability with HP's is less than perfect, I'd go with the FMJ. While it will not expand, it will get the job done if you do yours.

I got to the range with the 457S (technically 1/2S as the slide is carbon alloy). But, I digress.

50 rounds of FMJ for practice, followed by two magazines of HST 230gr JHP to function check the actual carry magazines and make sure the ammo cycles reliably. Ideally I'd do more, but HST is in short supply right now and I want to make sure I have 15 rounds for carry.

Everything worked perfectly and my aim was adequate for self defense. As in at about 30 feet everything was on the target through a reduced size B-27 target. Nothing outside the seven ring.

As a bonus I ran a box of 22WMR through my 351C. Not my preferred SD gun, but I have carried it in some social situations. I have some 45gr HST in 22WMR that I bought at some point.

Not as accurate as the 457S, but adequate if it's my only option.

Thanks to all for the comments, ideas, and suggestions.

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Can open, worms everywhere.

I don't remember where the cite is from but 2/3 of the causalities in World War 1 and 2 were caused by Artillery not small arms

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Retired Career Security Guard

Nowhere in my post did I mention or infer "artillery" as the discussion was about handgun ammo.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I like Silvertips and Golddots but have never shot anyone to make a 100% determination what’s best.
Guess I could bow to the experts.

I really like Gold Dots for all my SD use.

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Sure you did

An argument in favor of FMJ, especially 9MM is that it penetrates thicker clothing better.

JHP all the way. Especially if over penetration is a concern. Ideally you want the bullet to expand and drop the bad guy while staying inside the bad guy. A FMJ might go through the bad guy and others behind them as well.

There's a reason the old round nose lead 38 Spl load was called the widowmaker. Also the original 38 Colt load, again a round nose load, was proven to be ineffective in stopping a determined attacker.

Larger caliber FMJ/round nose loads, talking 45 Colt or ACP, are just marginally more effective.

Remember round nose loads, especially auto loads, were developed to ensure 100% reliable feeding and operation, with stopping power a distant second consideration.

The point I was trying to make was that those graveyards contain much more commentary on the effectiveness of artillery then they do on the effectiveness of small arms rounds of ANY kind

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Retired Career Security Guard

I carry hollow points for self defense based on my street experience when I was forced into a self defense shooting during my career. In all cases that was with the issued .38 revolver so there could be a difference w/calibers as well as auto loaders vs revolvers.

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

Rusty, may I point out the fact that nobody is concerned about over penetration on the battlefield?

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

Most battlefield experience is not directly relevant. Pistols are tertiary weapons at best; aircraft and artillery are primary; rifles used by infantry secondary, and pistol use relatively uncommon. In addition, as pointed out above, collateral damage from over-penetration is not a major consideration if one at all. (In reality missing is a bigger problem.)

Lethality in and of itself is not an important consideration. Whether the attacker dies from the wounds received is a side issue of little if any relevance. What we need is incapacitation. If you look at the research that resulted from the FBI's 1986 shooting and has continued on, there are high quality loads that meet the standards of performance that now exist. As a general rule, they are all high performance hollow points. RN ammo is better than strong language, and no one with a brain wants to get shot with anything, but you can do better. A lot better. Find Doc Roberts' testing and recommendations, get a bunch of the ammo you can and make sure it works in your platform and with your skills, and drive on.

Placement is the first issue. Adequate penetration is second. Performance upon impact is next. A hit with a .38 WC/SWC is a lot better than a miss with a hot .357. Investments in sufficient anatomical knowledge to make sure you are shooting the right places, and in mindset and training, are more important than anything else, but the cost of better ammo is darned cheap compared to losing your life. If you are spending discretionary money on silly stuff like golf, a boat, etc. - stop that. Invest in physical and mental fitness, target hardening, and other important things such as quality guns and ammo.

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NHI, 10-8.

I came into the FBI five years after the 4/11/86 shooting, and met several of the participants.

One of the many take-aways (most never made public) was that penetration was supremely important.

If Jerry Dove’s much-maligned 115 grain Silvertip had been an FMJ round it would have punched through Platt’s arm and chest and made a hole in his heart.

We didn’t go to FMJs, but we did go to deep-penetrating 147 grain 9mm loads.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

The really sad part of that is my dept told the FBI the Silvertip was definitely not the round for LE.
We issued the same 115 gr Silvertip in 1980. Not long after our initial issue 2 of our Troops got in a shootout with an outlaw motorcycle member. He took 11 hits COM with the Silvertip from a distance of a little farther than the length of a squad car. Wearing heavy leather none of those penetrated deep enough to reach vitals. The biker died but it wasn't directly from the Silvertips. After he emptied his 5 shot .38 and hit by 11 rds he jumped on his bike and fell over dead. Years of poor eating and not taking care of himself and no doubt from the stress of the shooting he died of a heart attack. Fortunately neither of our Troops were hurt.
Prior to the FBI going to the 9mm they had their ComputerMan model with RII which said rapid expansion, limited penetration was what was needed by LE. They said the 115 gr Silvertip was the top choice for LE.
When the FBI went to the 9mm our main range guys and a couple of others who were involved in the biker investigation took the investigation and results to Quantico and met with the FTU. We had been using the 9mm for over 15 years prior to the FBI and we'd had a lot more shootings than they had. Our guys showed them our investigation that the Silvertip and rapid expansion, limited penetration was not what worked. The FTU wouldn't listen. They had their ComputerMan and their computer said a round like the Silvertip was what LE needed. Our people were told our results weren't typical and the FBI had their scientific research to back up their choice.
Computers - garbage in, garbage out. Program them to get the results you want.
Then 1986 happened. The FBI learned exactly what we had in 1980 and what our people had told them a few years prior. Unfortunately the FBI wasn't as lucky as we were in 1980.
Why didn't they listen to our experience? Too often it happens when those with lack of real experience depend on too many books, what they think is science, and no doubt a touch of ego.

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183rd FBINA

The most important job of any bullet is penetration. Anything extra above that is gravy.

ADDED: Here is what I carry now - I carried an earlier version of the 40 S&W 180 FMJ FP on SRT missions, again because the most important function of a handgun bullet (my handgun was a secondary weapon to an AR-15A3) in dynamic entry is penetration. Remington-UMC SKU L40SW3A.
.


I carry these in my 45 ACP sidearms:



Body armor is commonly available to anyone now (only once in my policing career did we have to deal in a critical incident with a perpetrator who wore soft body armor); a number of recent murderers have very publicly worn it during their crimes. I want my carry ammo to be capable of penetrating heavy bone of shoulders, hips, or head from any angle. Note both the 40 and 45 have wide meplats. They're also not hard to find.

I have never seen any evidence that any of the common self-defense calibers have a problem getting through clothing.

Today's ammo, probably not. The old stuff that ispcapt described, yup.

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NHI, 10-8.

I have two .45's at home for SD use, and occasional target use. One RIA .45 Government, and one Ruger American .45. A couple of years ago, I researched various "ball-like" SD rounds, and bought a case of Speer G2 230gr JHP for the home SD round. They feed perfectly in both. My amature expansion tests on water jugs showed me that 230gr ball (any brand) penetrated four milk jugs at distances up to 45 feet. The G2 did not, expanding out to .65"-.7" in the third jug. It did penetrate the fourth up close (15 feet), but did not exit. I trust it in my home SD choices.

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Heavily armed old man.

Give the hardcast a change too, especially when people wear heavier clothing.

45 ACP +P OUTDOORSMAN

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Jorge

I carry my E-series SW1911Sc preferably loaded with Winchester Ranger T 230 grain JHP. It functions well and has a reputation for good terminal performance. And if it DOESN'T open up, it still won't be any worse than hardball, and that ain't bad. The only problem with it is availability.

IMHO the major manufacturers have all pretty much gotten it right with their "premium" JHP defensive ammo, and I would have no problem using anything from the big boys that functioned well in my pistol. I would be VERY surprised if a forensic pathologist could identify the brand of ammo used from examining a wound track without examining the bullet or bullet fragments. Arguing about whether Winchester/Remington/Speer/Federal/Hornady ammo is "best" is a little like the old argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

I have less confidence in some of the "boutique" smaller manufacturers, so I don't use their ammo except maybe for practice.

Interesting thread. My question is in a 1911 do you want 230gr. HST in std. or +P?

I carry Winchester Ranger T 230gr in every carry .45 I own.

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Is that a gun No a lifesaver

Well this went off-track nearly instantly!

Over on Lucky Gunner, Federal HST 230 grain appears to deliver the goods in their gelatin test, with adequate penetration, and excellent expansion. You'd be hard pressed to find another brand that does better in terms of meeting the gel test standards. The .45 auto is very impressive with expanding bullets in comparative gelatin testing.
Having said that, there is an unerring truth about relatively low powered handgun bullets that goes like this:
A hit with an expanding bullet to a non-vital spot is no more effective than a hit with a FMJ bullet.
A hit with a FMJ bullet to a vital spot is no less effective than a hit with an expanding bullet.

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/sel...c-tests/#45ACP

I use the HST +P JHP in my Series E for carry. As I recall, S&W says the +P is OK in the gun.

The OP's comment about "survivor bias" is interesting. I know an ER nurse in Detroit who's had quite a lot of experience with treatment of shootees. She has noted that calibers seem to be getting larger over the years - used to be lots of people were shot with .25's and .32's, now she sees more 9mm's and .40's. But she doesn't see many shotgun wounds. One might conclude, therefore, that not many shotguns are used in these situations. Not so. She tells me that the shotgun shootees just go straight to the morgue, they almost never see them in the ER. No doubt more handguns are used than shotguns but the point is you can't determine how many shotguns are used by what turns up in the ER. Same way with bullets. Might be the people shot with the very best bullets just never show up in the ER. Maybe we should be looking at numbers from the morgues too.

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Everybody could shoot

Last year or so an Alaskan guide and his party encountered a grizzly bear in the bush and the guide shot and killed it with a 9mm semi-auto stoked with ball ammo best I recall. Just goes to illustrate in that instance the power of penetration with ball ammo where people in the background are not an overriding concern.

Standard

My Department issued HST +P for several years and had to switch to standard pressure when the number of damaged and malfunctioning guns became unignorable.

Plastic guns, Glocks, were largely unaffected by hot loads but the smaller 1911s and 4516s had huge issues with them.

It was a pendulum swing and a bit of an extreme one at that.

SigP220.45’s account of the 9mm silver tip failure due to under penetration served to show why the older scientific model of a hollow point with lots of expansion and quickly dumping all its energy in a 6-8” wound channel just didn’t work consistently *in the real world*.

However, the FBI then swung way too far in the wrong direction and had different failures due to deep penetrating 147 gr hollow points that often failed to expand and didn’t produce a stop either. Small wound channels have less volume and don’t reduce blood pressure as rapidly as larger wound channels.

That’s ultimately what led to the current FBI ballistic gel test requirements where the FBI expects a load to consistently achieve both a minimum 150% expansion and penetration between 12” and 18” in both bare and heavy clothing covered 10% ballistic gel when fired from their issued handguns.

The piece that people forget is that the FBI derived those test standards and requirements based on the the performance in gel testing of certain loads that performed consistently well (but not perfect) in actual real world shoots.

The idea was to find what did work consistently well in a large number of shoots, then base gel test performance standards on how those loads performed in gel tests. It’s the field data that provides the validity, gel test data is just the reliable method of gauging performance.

Once established, gel test standards allowed new loads to be tested in an objective, reliable (repeatable) manner.

But again, the *validity* of those test standards was based on field performance and field performance data is still used to continually validate those standards.

——

Lots of folks still say than penetration is the most important factor. And yet the FBI has never advocated for an FMJ or ball round in modern times, nor does any major police department issue them.

IIRC the MI highway patrol was the first agency to move to 9mm and they used FMJ. They immediately had numerous failure to stop issues with it and agencies in general just stopped going down that FMJ path.

In addition, an armed citizen who fully owns the criminal and civil liability attached to each bullet fired, over penetration should be a concern.

That’s the point made in my post regarding a thoracic surgeon who felt the 45 ACP 230 gr FMJ was the deadliest handgun round. Large caliber with fewer hits and wound channels,
and non expanding bullets resulting in more people shot with it surviving long enough to reach his OR, and then a higher percentage of them dying on the table.

In that case, seeing fewer people shot with 9mm hollow points and having fewer of them die in the OR doesn’t necessarily mean 9mm hollow points are less deadly, and has little bearing on whether they are more or les effective at producing a stop.

You always need to look at the big picture - including what’s missing in the data and or the flaws in how data is collected.

Blasting bullets into Jello, filming temporary wound cavities with high speed cameras, the Justice Department touted the RII and "hydrostatic crock" throughout the Seventies. Winchester's engineers built them the bullet that did what they said they wanted. Miami proved them wrong.

Someone who has spent many a fall looking at leaves "change color" likely has a better understanding of what bullets do to flesh and bone and how living things react to being shot. Most can also attest as to how seemingly identical hits can result in wildly different reactions.

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