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.
If one is to use ballistics gel as a metric of performance, it comes with all the protocols and standards that come with it. 11 inches is a total failure by IWBA standards, not "close enough". It is a fail/pass standard, and if one does a proper scientific test, and three out of five test rounds were in the 11 inch range of penetration, it would be considered a 60% failure rate. When hollow points cannot make it to mark, they are deemed failures on a round by round basis.
12 inches is bare minimum. Rounds that barely make it to 12 inches barely passed. 11.75 inches is a fail. There are good reasons for this, and without this understanding, the gel tests are useless for interpretation.
If we continue to move goal posts, we continue to defeat ourselves and our understanding of the subject.
380 has a long running problem with hollow points in gel tests because of this. Rounds that penetrate satisfactorily do not expand, and rounds that do expand do not penetrate. Bullet makers have spent a lot of time trying to do something magical, but physics says that a light bullet with little energy and poor sectional density simply lacks enough potential to do both.
I would like to see the tests that state the kind of performance for the 102 grain hollow point you mention, as the results of tests I came across in a quick search seem to be the norm, failure to expand, or failure to penetrate.
The whole reason why 9mm Luger and 38 Special +p are considered bare minimums by many is because of this. 38 Special low pressure, and 380, simply don't have the moxy to have expanding bullets that perform properly. They fall below the potential to do what needs to be done. Accepting that we carry a "mouse gun" or low power cartridge means we have to accept those limitations.
Ball has the advantage of best feed, but also the most consistent performance in low power rounds. Since proper penetration is more important than expansion, it is the logical choice.
