Best .380 carry ammo

This is the best, realistic evaluation of .380 defense ammo I have seen, and it matches closely to the Luckygunner.com ammo testing. The Hornady Critical defense ammo is the most effective to carry in a short barrel .380

It functions flawlessly in the Glock 42 and LCPII.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBnXnXe87f0[/ame]

My choice is the Hornady Critical Defense.

I’ve been carrying the old Federal Hydra Shock 90 grain in my LCP for years.

First two rounds Gold Dot followed by XTP.

watch shooting the bull ammoquest

Old cop said:

I’ve been carrying the old Federal Hydra Shock 90 grain in my LCP for years.

Click to expand...

watch shooting the bull /ammoquest testing of 380 ammo.He showed that the xtp bullets work the best followed by the old school hydrashocks in 90 grain ,which is what I carry

The best round is whatever you have in your pistol when you need it. The .380 is right on the edge of penetration vs. expansion. The couple of people who I know who carry a .380 regularly carry a high-speed hollow-point in the tube and hardball in the magazine. Self defense criteria is a combination of adequate penetration and shot placement. The .380 is marginal on penetration, especially with hollow-point bullets.

My opinion, for what that may be worth to you.

Speer Gold Dot is quality stuff, and it's hotter than most so it will function reliably in most guns I have tried. Also expands most of the time while still giving 11 to 12 inches of penetration.

Remington 95 gr FMJ. Slightly higher velocity than other domestic brands
in my guns and deeper penetration in pine. It also tumbles in wet
newspapers but so do most other FMJ rounds.

Also a Hornady fan . Either Critical Defense or American Gunner in my Body Guard.

I use Winchester Ranger T in my LCP.

I have been using at the range Norma ammunition for years, as of late in my .380 I have been loading up with their version of Self Defense, and did shoot a bit to try it first, and found I do like it better than anything else currently on the market.

I carry Precision One 90 gr. HP/XTP in my FEG AP9 (4"barrel). They get a top rating on Shooting the Bull.

4 1/2 year old thread but keep those opinions coming.

A few thoughts:

1) .380 ACP takes a big velocity hit short barrels, far more so than 9mm Luger (and .32 ACP is even more barrel length sensitive.

That means the performance of any specific hollow point in a 2.75” barrel will almost always be a lot different than the same load in a 3.5” or 3.9” barrel.

2) Velocity matters as most hollow points have a fairly narrow velocity range in which they will expand and achieve adequate penetration. Too slow and they will not expand. Too fast and they will expand too soon and or over expand and under penetrate.


3) It matters a lot more in the .380 ACP as it’s a marginal cartridge that struggles to both expand and penetrate.

4) Most shooters who swear by a particular load often have no idea what that load actually does in their .380 ACP pistol and way too many of them are working with some very inaccurate assumptions.

5) Some shooters place way too much faith in the FBI minimum penetration numbers.


——-


Putting some of those points together with my own ballistic test results.

Here we are getting right around 13” penetration with a PPK/S and a 3.5” barrel with a 90 gr XTP with a muzzle velocity around 1050 fps.





Expansion isn’t impressive by add hype standards but that’s what you can expect in a .380 ACP of you also want 12 minimum penetration.




Here is the same load from a 2.75” Kimber Micro. It’s penetrating about 11.5” with a muzzle velocity of 990 fps.





I had to work to get ballistic performance in a 2.75” barrel. Any slower and it won’t consistently expand. As it is, I am not going to worry about it being 1/2” short of the 12” FBI minimum.

That minimum is based on agents shooting at fleeing felons, and or from the side and or other aspect ratios other than face to face. If you as an armed citizen is shooting at someone who is fleeing and or not facing you, you will have far bigger problems than bullet performance, such as being able to justify the person you shot was an imminent threat.


This is a “hard cast” bullet. Note the excessive penetration. None the less the “hard cast” crowd and the similar FMJ crowd avoid hollow points due to fears that they will fail to reliably expand.



That’s not a valid fear as if a hollow bullet fails to expand it just a a like an FMJ.



A valid concern is that they may over expand and under penetrate. These are not .380 ACP but rather 9mm FTX bullets fired from a CZ 75 Compact PCR. Note the 10-11” penetration when fired from the 3.75” barrel of the CZ Compact. It’s not bad, but it’s at the low end of what you want. From a shorter 3.1” barrel Kimber Micro they would probably be in the 12”-13” penetration range.

——

My whole point here is that FTX bullets in pretty much every cartridge they are loaded in are a strictly short barrel load, and will consistently under penetrate down in the 7-8” range in a 4”-5” barrel.

For longer barrel .380 ACPs the 90 gr XTP is a better choice.

The Remington 102 gr Golden Saber is also not bad in a 3.5 -4” barrel as it expands well and will give you 10-11” penetration.

So….do your own testing.

Failing that, look for test results in the same handgun or barrel length you use.

And if that’s not available, at least try to get some chronograph results to see what velocity you are really getting from the load in your hand gun to help make sure you are in the sweet spot.

@BB57 Thanks for the time, effort and expense of this post!

FWIW, here is one of my, less formal efforts:

.380 Caliber - Lehigh Defense Xtreme Defense, Xtreme Penetrator & Federal HST - YouTube

380 lacks the bullet weight, sectional density, and energy to both expand and penetrate reliably.

The answer is 100% ball.

For SD I would normally recommend a HP bullet (federal HST or Speer GD) however in the case of the .380, hollow points only seem to expand slightly and their penetration is way too little. So, in the case of 380acp, I would carry American Eagle 95 grain FMJ which from what I have seen has the highest velocity (of that grain weight bullet) and will penetrate adequately. IMHO penetration is key, expansion is a bonus. That is what I have recommended to friends that carry a 380.

Personally, even though I own a .380 I would never use it for SD purposes unless given no other choice. I carry a 9mm. Yes, the micro 9's are larger and heavier, but they fire a very effective round if the correct ammo is used. Personally I like the Federal HST 124 grain JHP.

I understand exactly why people are attracted to a 380 - size and weight, but the price to be paid is a less powerful round IMHO.

"Excessive penetration" is a greatly exaggerated danger that unfortunately many folks have bought into. Few bad guys trying to rob and kill you have little old ladies standing behind them while they do so.

Hornady for me. In my wife's M&P.

Duckford said:

380 lacks the bullet weight, sectional density, and energy to both expand and penetrate reliably.

The answer is 100% ball.

Click to expand...

Why?

I hear people say this a lot, but hearing it a lot doesn’t make it correct in vernal and certainly not at the “100%” level.

The only time a hollow point gets you in to trouble in a .380 ACP is in a longer barrel length starting around 3.3” - 3.4” where *some* hollow points will be launched fast enough to expand too soon and under penetrate.


For example in a 3.4” PPK/S the 85 gr MagTech Guardian, the 90 gr Speer Gold Dot and the Winchester 95 gr Train and Defend will under penetrate.

With the Speer and MagTech loads that “under penetration” is around 11”, so it’s not much under the 12” mark. With the Winchester load it’s down around 8”and that is a potential problem.

But the far more common failure with a .380 ACP hollow point is a failure to spans, or a failure to consistently expand.

For example the Hornady factory loaded 90 gr XTP in a 3.4” barrel will be dogging it at about 900 fps. At that velocity it won’t expand much and it won’t expand at all about 40% of the time - but penetration is great either way.

It’s a much more effective load, even when it fails, than ball which fails to expand 100% of the time and will virtually always over penetrate.

Factory loaded 102 gr Remington Golden sabers are the same way in a PPK/S. They fail to expand about half the time, but penetrate about 13” when they do and penetrate 16-18” when they don’t.

Consequently, with the exception of a few loads in longer barrel .380 ACP pistols, you are better off with a “failed” hollow point than a ball round.