.45 carry ammo

Penetration is so dependent on many factors…is it a frontal shot or cross-body shot? Does the bullet hit a fleshy area or does it hit bone? Is the target wearing layers of clothing? Is the target thin or large…muscular or fat?

We can overanalyze this but it doesn’t change the fact that lab tests and ballistic gelatin can only give comparisons between bullets in an identical medium in controlled conditions which rarely if ever occurs in the real world.

I think we have to be careful of marketing. For the past 30 or so years we've had whiz bang hollow point bullets come onto the market with all sorts of technology.

I think they've convinced some of us that unless we carry this new stuff, we have a pop gun in our hand.

Even older "new" stuff, like Hydra Shoks, are frowned upon today by the new crowd. "Oh my, those are old tech, HST's are much better!"

Once again I'll say: Believe me, you get hit with a 230 gr chunk of lead almost half an inch wide and going 800 + fps, you are going down....regardless of bullet shape or "technology."

smithra_66 said:

I think we have to be careful of marketing. For the past 30 or so years we've had whiz bang hollow point bullets come onto the market with all sorts of technology.

I think they've convinced some of us that unless we carry this new stuff, we have a pop gun in our hand.

Even older "new" stuff, like Hydra Shoks, are frowned upon today by the new crowd. "Oh my, those are old tech, HST's are much better!"

Once again I'll say: Believe me, you get hit with a 230 gr chunk of lead almost half an inch wide and going 800 + fps, you are going down....regardless of bullet shape or "technology."

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Well... Maybe? Depends a bit on shot placement...

Cheers!

28+ years in the FBI, those SAs that carried the various .45 pistols (as well as SWAT Operators and the mysterious HRT folks), the “duty” ammo was either Federal 230 grain Hydro-Shock and later the Remington Golden Saber rounds of the same 230 gr. weight… FWIW

I carry this stuff - 100% functional, cheap, and a large meplat.

Doug M. said:

Military use and personal defense are different. A wounded soldier takes 2 more out of the fight to care for him (if that is done). There are a lot of academic/scientific articles and books one can read about the issue. Articles from Drs. Fackler and Roberts can be found and are enlightening. "In Defense of Self and Others . . . Issues, Facts & Fallacies—The Realities of Law Enforcement's Use of Deadly Force (3rd edition)" by Patrick and Hall has a whole chapter devoted to the issue and if you have not bought and read this book, you are not adequately informed about LE use of force and how those lessons apply to private citizens.

Would I carry ball if that's all I had? Yup. Would I prefer something better? Yup. Regardless of your preferred ammo, you are likely to better served by quality. Most of my ammo is from Black Hills. Ammo is cheap compared to my well-being.

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Followed Doug M's advice and got the book. It is an excellent text with careful analysis of the available data as of 2013. The book is a little pricey but not much more than 100 rounds of good ammo. It offers some important insight on a lot of factors: how long does it take an assailant to bleed out from a major wound? how long does it take to get your finger on the trigger when you are keeping it outside the guard? is over penetration really an issue when most shots do not hit the target? It is focused on defending law enforcement officers in shooting incidents but covers a broad spectrum applicable to self defense.

A lot there, I do not agree with everything but they carefully lay out the available data. Thanks for recommending it Doug.

The last ten years of my LE career was with an issued CS45 and M4566. Duty round was the Speer 230 gr GDHP. It had a great track record in a number of incidents.
At retirement found I had quite a bit of it and the Armorer made sure I had more after a deep-clean and replacement of all springs in my 4566, gifted to me.

So, that's my usual carry in a variety of M1911's.
If I had to choose an alternate it's a handload I really like using a cast 230 gr TC (truncated cone) loaded about the same as regular Ball, ~850 fps.

If there's anything that may feed better than Ball, it's this TC design.
Also recall it was a long ago favorite of Col. Jeff Cooper back when Hornady offered it in a FMJ design.

GI Match Hardball from the late 60's with a 230 grain Hydrashock in the chamber - for my Governments or LW commanders. I abandon hardball for my short barreled Defenders which I carry most often. GI match has the best consistency and a slight edge in velocity.

mscampbell2734 said:

This is a common myth. The FBI, yes roll your eyes if you want, did a study between 2000-2010 of murdered police officers. The study included interviews with the killers, when they were still around and willing to talk.

A good percentage were wounded during the attack. Most said they never felt their wound and did not even know they had been shot until later.

Too many people believe PAIN will make someone stop. Under the influence of drugs, alcohol, mental illness or just plain huge adrenaline dump pain can NOT be counted on to stop a determined attacker.

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Where did I ever mention pain? 45 caliber holes through their lungs, heart, and head will MOST CERTAINLY make them stop.

"Pain" has nothing whatsoever to do with this.

Michaelp57 said:

You can call me paranoid if you want, but I would never use ball ammo in any caliber for self defense. I say this because of the higher probability of over penetration. For those of us in a rural area or with more space between neighbors, this wouldn't be a big issue in home defense, but say you're carrying in town and something happens. It's not always easy to know what's behind your target in a chaotic situation, so to play it safe, I always carry a dedicated self defense round. I carry the Underwood ammo extreme defender. It may sound like a gimmick, but the multi agency testing shows it to be the most effective round for self defense. It's more barrier blind than 99% of hollows and leaves a significantly larger pwc than hollows or fmj. And its typically about the same price as your standard winchester, sig, hornady, etc defense loads.

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In real world practical use they will all get the job done pretty much equally.

Ball ammo is the most reliable. That's a big plus to me. Giant hollowpoints or philips screwdriver tipped bullets may or may not function. Test them.

To me the most important things by far are 100% reliability and good marksmanship. If you put a couple or three of ANY type of ammo on your perp in his thoracic cavity, he's going down. Worrying about brand of ammo or hollowpoint vs. ball is much less important.

I shot a armadillo with 45 hardball. He rolled over and ran about 20 yards.
Went to a shooting one night where to men were shot with 45 hardball. The one hit center mass went down on the spot. The other was hit just above each nipple. He ran about 60 yards, stopped and collapsed.

30-30remchester said:

I have shot an antelope, javalina, and a wounded yet still mobile bull elk with a 45 ACP. The antelope took 8 shots to take down with 185 grain Winchester Silvertips. The 30 pound javalina took 2 Speer 200 grain hollow points and ran away. The elk took 3 200 grain hard cast swc's and still had enough to hook me and send me down the mountain head over heels. My friend, a cop in a small Colorado town accidentally shot himself through his knee cap with a ball round 45 ACP doing night training. He wasn't even sure he had shot himself so he walked back to his car and his fellow officers pulled up his pant leg to verify a bullet hole. He was walking with a walker 8 hours later.

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Come on Man! What town in CO did you grow up in? I'm a CO native. It couldn't be as remote as where I grew up and not one person used a handgun to shoot and hunt big game! Unless it was a rare few that tracked mountain lions with dogs. We realized handguns were for 2 legged predators. When I was a kid the .44 Magnum was the only big dog on the market. Nobody could afford it, and wouldn't use it anyway ! You know .06 , 7 Mag, .270, .various ..300's Anyway, I carry some old school Speer 185 gr HP loaded to +P pressures. Shoot super accurate out of my gun and would trust them to get the job done. Recoil is less than ball easier to keep on target. But pulling a strong 2nd is 230 gr Ball ammo. The only small issue with 185's is they hit a touch lower to point of aim.

I never carry ball.
Prefer 200 grain SWC handloads.
Cheaper, and cut bigger holes in tissue than ball.

Function over form

smithra_66 said:

In real world practical use they will all get the job done pretty much equally.

Ball ammo is the most reliable. That's a big plus to me. Giant hollowpoints or philips screwdriver tipped bullets may or may not function. Test them.

To me the most important things by far are 100% reliability and good marksmanship. If you put a couple or three of ANY type of ammo on your perp in his thoracic cavity, he's going down. Worrying about brand of ammo or hollowpoint vs. ball is much less important.

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I agree that you need to test your rounds in your preferred carry gun to make sure they function and see how the rounds hit compared to point of aim. I do also think that if you have a round that you know functions and has been proven(albeit through essentially laboratory testing) to perform better than other designs of the same caliber, use it. In the testing I'm referring to, the .45acp was the most reliable cartridge. Hollow points failed to expand on just 5% of rounds tested. Fmj penetrated the best through ballistic gel, but the extreme defenders left the largest pwc while also being more barrier blind(through wood, drywall, etc). The design of the extreme defender also leads to the round dumping its energy into the target efficiently enough to get the round to stop in the target more often than not. Its silly to neglect the possibility of overpenetration when picking your defensive rounds just because stats show that x amount of round miss anyway. You still want the ones that do make contact to perform like your life depends on it. Whether you miss or the round overpenetrates, you are responsible for any damaged caused by those rounds. Why not give yourself the best chance at mitigating unwanted collateral damage?

Luke Duke said:

Come on Man! What town in CO did you grow up in? I'm a CO native. It couldn't be as remote as where I grew up and not one person used a handgun to shoot and hunt big game! Unless it was a rare few that tracked mountain lions with dogs. We realized handguns were for 2 legged predators..

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Well I shot an elk with a 45..target of opportunity at about 40 feet. Out with a friend hunting antelope. High country. I had no lope license when we ran up on a herd of elk. 3 shots from the 45.just pop pop pop..DRT. He took 4 shots with a 243 ..although I don't think his elk was going anywhere after 1 shot. He was a bit excited. Couldn't get within 500 yards of an antelope. But elk at 50 ft? Heck yeah

Ball as I load it will clock out of my 1911A1 at 830 so pretty close to normal. Winchesters self defends load is about 20 seconds per foot faster out of the same barrel. believe it or not it shoots to the same point of impact as the 830 FPS loading. Never ever decided to push the 850 loading as it;s very accurate. 230 grain ball loading thats hard cast, Frabk

After my time at the range today, the range was stacking a huge amount of CCI ALUMINUM .45 ammunition, at an unbelievable price of $21.99 for 50 rounds. As I walked over to where they were putting it, I over heard a group of court bailiffs; who were there to do their re-qualifications, and it was their consensus to stay away from it, and stick with the brass rounds, with were about $10 more per box.

I have used brass ever since I retired from the military; where ALUMINUM was issued all the time. Has the quality fallen off that much, or is there a reason not to use it anymore?

MPWhite said:

After my time at the range today, the range was stacking a huge amount of CCI ALUMINUM .45 ammunition, at an unbelievable price of $21.99 for 50 rounds. As I walked over to where they were putting it, I over heard a group of court bailiffs; who were there to do their re-qualifications, and it was their consensus to stay away from it, and stick with the brass rounds, with were about $10 more per box.

I have used brass ever since I retired from the military; where ALUMINUM was issued all the time. Has the quality fallen off that much, or is there a reason not to use it anymore?

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As far a 'quality', I don't think the aluminum cased Blazer is any less quality than it's brass counterpart. There are guns that don't like to feed aluminum cases - it has a higher friction coefficient than brass, so feeding sometimes ends up being an issue.

At an area indoor range where I do my annual LEOSA quals - the new owners there have imposed a 'no aluminum/no steel case' ammo policy. I'm sure they are recovering and selling all the spent brass they can and so can see the reason for the rule.

I carry Underwood copper self defense ammunition.

Old Corp said:

At an area indoor range where I do my annual LEOSA quals - the new owners there have imposed a 'no aluminum/no steel case' ammo policy. I'm sure they are recovering and selling all the spent brass they can and so can see the reason for the rule.

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Same thing at the Indoor Range where I do my LEOSA qual, plus its plated or FMJ bullets only. No lead allowed.