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.

My choice is the Hornady Critical Defense.

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6/23/2022

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

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

First two rounds Gold Dot followed by XTP.

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

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S&W BG380, S&W 915 9mm

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.

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John

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.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

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.

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.

I have a Micro 9 and it gets carried when I want/need a smaller easier to conceal handgun. I also carry it in an ankle holster when flying as flight suit pockets don’t work for pocket holsters and a flight suit isn’t amenable to other forms of concealed carry.

I agree 100% with you about the need for proper bullet selection in a short barrel 9mm like the Micro 9.

And I find it ironic that you said that.

A few decades ago, there were virtually a no reliable 9mm hollow points. But 9mm hollow point technology has advanced and there are now a number of very effective 9mm hollow points, even in short barrel 9mm pistols.

The same thing has also happened with .380 ACP hollow points to a lesser extent, but you still have to give those effective hollow points credit for their ability to expand and penetrate at least 12” when the load and the barrel length are properly matched.

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.

I've leaned a lot from this thread, thanks for everyone who had contributed. I have and sometimes carry a 380 EZ. I had a different thread going about its fussiness with some JHP ammo. I had figured that since it had a longer than average barrel for a 380, it would get good velocity and therefore expansion out of the small 380 cartridge. I hadn't considered the bulet expanding before penetrating, but thats a problem.

Between being totally reliable with ball ammo, and knowing it'll penetrate consistently, I'm happy to never waste my money on expensive "SD" ammo and just carry what I shoot. It does shoot very well, and I can put rounds right where I want them really quickly, so that's worth a lot right there. I liked the quote that placement is king, penetration is queen...

Old but still reliable information.
https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/sel...llistic-tests/

Is this a factory load?

I only get close to that with my handload.

I chrono'd a box of factory Hornady 90gr FTX Critical Defense loads & they only averaged 890mv / 158me from my PPK/S.

.



.

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Waiting for the break of day

Did a lot of research on 380 ammo. I have watched ammoquest and other sites for ammo testing for a few years. The top round I found was made by
PresisionOne, a 90gr XTP hollow point that penetrated 13" and had good expansion (Shooting the Bull/Ammoquest). That is what I carry in my S&W Bodyguard.
As mentioned above, any of the ammo with XTP bullets did well.

Attached Images

IMG_1157.jpg (51.5 KB, 17 views)

I've always alternated FMJ RNFP with the old Hydra Shocks in my 380 pocket guns. I load the mags HP, FMJ, HP, FMJ, HP, etc.
I always figured if you do a double tap (or keep shooting until you empty the magazine or the assailant goes down), you are going to get the penetration with the FMJs and MAYBE at least SOME expansion of the HPs.
I was recently reading some really good reviews of the Underwood Xtreme Defender ammo that is loaded with the Lehigh monolithic copper fluted bullets. These bullets don't expand like a hollow point, but the combination of the sharp-edged flutes and high velocity supposedly causes them to create a substantially larger wound channel (compared to FMJ) because the edges create a lot of tearing of the the areas all the way around the bullet hole and the "scooped" shape of the flutes create a lot of outward hydraulic force perpendicular to the wound channel.
So basically they cut and tear and stretch the wound channel - resulting in them doing a lot more tissue damage, much like an expanded hollow point - but they don't rely on expansion to do the damage and there is no hollow point to plug up.
I haven't seen any "meat target" type tests though, but the link to the gelatin tests in the post above by 686-380 seems to suggest that there is at least some validity to what I read.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

The Hydra Shock Deep is my choice and I bought several boxes for all the young women in my life. Look into this load and order it from Bud's........

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dd884
JMHO-YMMV

If it functions through your pistol this will get you wound channel as well as penetration... tough to beat in a .380

Underwood Xtreme Defender .380 ACP +P 68 Grain Lehigh Xtreme Defense

BB57,

I haven't seen any testing that showed reliable penetration of .380 hollow point bullets yet. Since I don't carry one I admit I don't look that often but now have friends that carry a .380. The most I have seen them penetrate in 10% Gel Blocks is just over 7 inches where as the 95 grain "Hardball" penetrates well over the 12" so called minimum depth. If they have something that will do better in a HP round, please let me know - I'd like to pass that information along to my friends who are carrying 380's. Thank you.

Yes - over the past decade 9mm bullet design and performance has come a long ways! Just one of the many reasons I retired my M60-7 for a Sig P365. The Federal HST and the Speer Gold Dots seems to be the front runners and the HST 124 grain is my bullet of choice.

I'll play.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

The Federal Hydra Shock Deep 99gr .380acp gives expansion and 12+ inches in gel. Look on the net if you don't believe me. They have limited the expansion to pass the FBI protocol.

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dd884
JMHO-YMMV

.380s can be darned picky when it comes to ammo - almost like a .22.

The best .380 defensive ammo is whatever works every time in YOUR pistol.

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Or something like that . . .

Hornady CD is what I use.

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Grumpy Old Man With a Gun

No ammo can make a .380 effective.

My personal favorite is WWB. Yep, good ol' Winchester White Box. 95gr FPFMJ. A low price leader. Reliable, pretty accurate.

ANY .380 hollow point will fail the FBI test. WWB will pass it.

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I've still got it made.

choosy folks choose Jif..............and FMJs

As has been stated, one of the concerns regarding the .380 cartridge is lack of penetration. That and function reliability are the reasons I like: 380 ACP 68gr. Xtreme Defender Platinum Edition Solid Monolithic Hunting & Self Defense Ammo

Yep to FMJ. I sometimes carry my 380EZ and all I ever bother with now is regular ball FMJ. I've had good luck with the Remington UMC 95 grain in terms of shooting fairly clean and being reliable to point of impact. Stated velocity is a little better than most 380 I see advertised, though I have no way of testing.

I had been under the impression that the longer than average barrel of the 380EZ would mean reliable expansion of JHP, but then read several times of issues with 380 bullets expanding too soon out of longer barrels and not getting enough penetration.

Someone here had once said that placement is king, penetration is queen, and everything else is angels dancing on the head of a pin. I settle for placement and penetration on the 380 and don't worry about the rest. Besides, with ammo like that you can truly afford to practice with your carry ammo.

Critical Defense for shirtsleeves weather, FMJ for coat weather.

The problem with most of the ballistics testing you find online is that they use clear ballistics gel, which is not the same as the 10% calibrated gel that the FBI uses. When I found this site that does all of their testing with 10% and 20% calibrated gel, it really opened my eyes. The results for .380 JHP were worse than I would have guessed, and I'm going back to flat point FMJ, either SIG Elite or WWB.

380 ACP Ammo Selection

I like the RNFP FMJ too. The meplat punches a bigger, cleaner hole, while still getting the desired penetration of an FMJ.
I still alternate +P Hydrashocks with the RNFPs though, because I feel like it is the way to get the best of both worlds - as long as a double-tap is what you practice and plan for.

JMO, and YMMV and all that...

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I'm not sure why so many shooters swear by the FBI standards? For a citizen you will not have a need to shoot through car doors or several of the other requirements the FBI test set.

Since when does a human heart sit 12" to 18" into their chest? Most will only need 6" to 8" to reach something important.

The .380 ACP is a viable SD handgun cartridge especially since the bullet companies have done so much research and improvements over the past Decade. (No, I don't carry one. I'm a .38 Special in a J frame guy.) In a pinch even the 32 ACP will do a fairly good job when loaded with Fiocchi SJHP ammo. Hit what you aim at the rest takes care of itself. IMHO of course.

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

Using your analogy you may only need a 22lr handgun ! But I will say I could care less what the fbi test prove is the best ammo or what they carry .

Best 380 is a 9mm at least . My wifes 67 years old stands 5-2 and is small built but the only time she carrys a 380 is when a dress is needed then it was a TCP 380 for some years in a garter belt holster but now its a ruger max . Pants or shorts carry is ether a kimber ultra 9mm with a 9 round mag in it and 2-10 round back up in our rural county mags or p365xl with an 2- 15 round back mags when in the big city or on a road trip always on her body , not purse carry .

To many soft men and women today

The reality is that there is no such thing as a non lethal handgun projectile. An old issue of Gun Digest had an article devoted to that very concept. Any handgun bullet, including a plated 29 gr .22 Short bullet can penetrate 8-9"deep into an upper torso on a frontal chest shot and inflict a fatal wound with one single shot. Shot placement and penetration count, and ammo does not have to meet FBI requirements to be useful.

The .380 ACP is a viable SD handgun cartridge especially since the bullet companies have done so much marketing over the past Decade.

Fixed it.

Bullet companies (sic) have found they can sell "SD" ammo for 2X to 5X more. Making them billions of unearned dollars.

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I've still got it made.

We prefer it over testing on people.

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I've still got it made.

So then wouldn't it be just as valid to say that using your analogy (or more precisely, your logic) that you definitely need to carry at least a 44magnum?

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

Some of us prefer the meat tartget tests over jello tests.

Plenty of that kind of data out there.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

This assumes that your target is standing there directly facing you. If that's not the case, and it often isn't, then everything changes. For instance, if your assailant throws up his arm to protect himself, a normal and probably automatic action, you could waste several inches of penetration just getting through that with nary a vital organ in sight.

NONE of which are equivalent to SD shootings. Meat doesn't have a psyche. The assailant's psyche can't be molded into jello.

The fact is we can't test SD ammo. So we use gel tests as a proxy.

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I've still got it made.