I run Buffalo Bore's 95Gr +P JHP in my Colt Pocketlite. It ramps up the .380's pathetic +/- 800 FPS to +/- 1100 FPS. It has NO PROBLEM meeting the FBI's 12" to 18" spec for Gel penetration with great expansion. I would NOT recommend it for Tupper Ware pistols though. Colt says it's OK in the Pocketlite as long as it's not a steady diet.
I once nearly destroyed a Browning 10/70 and Browning 1955 .380 pistols by firing just one box, you read that right, just 1 box of high powered loads through both pistols. I ended up warping the frames big time. I had to stone the rails to even get the slides to slide back.
I might add I tested a 1973 Walther PPK/s with the same hot ammo and it suffered no damage at all but after seeing the two Brongings almost destroyed I never again fired hot loads out of any blowback .380 pistol (there are some .380's that are lockbreach).
I personally do not worry about bullet expansion unless there is a danger of "too much" penetration which would end up not only hitting your target but going through your target and hitting an innocent bystander.
Lets face facts people have been shot "stone dead" when they were hit in the heart with a .177 pellet gun and if you hit someone in the heart with an fmj bullet or an expanding bullet you cannot kill a person "deader" you can only kill them dead.
I have never been a big fan of the .380 when you can get the same pistol in a .32 acp as the German Army found out in the early 1900's the .32 acp would penetrate a Military Helmet while the .380 bounced off. The .32 acp recoils far less enabling the average Joe to shoot it far more accurately than the vicious recoil of a blowback .380 pistol (there are some locked breech .380 pistols) .
So much for the ignorant rantings of gun writers who have bad mouthed the .32 acp for the last 100 plus years. As a matter of fact Agnes Herbert one of the great woman hunters and shooters said back in the year 1900 that the gun writers of her era were morons who knew little about real world hunting and shooting. My how little things have changed in the last 125 years as gun writers are as big a bull crapers today as they as the were in 1900. They simply repeat the same old myths over and over.
I think too that way too many people do not realize that getting a bullet to expand or shooting a larger caliber does not turn the round into a death ray machine either. The difference between the diameter of say a .380 or 9mm compared to say a .44 or 45 caliber is a scant 1/10th of an inch or less. Rather its accurate shooting, bullet penetration and bullet placement that are paramount.
Not so long ago when the .25 acp and .32 acp dominated the "carry" market it was noted that more people were killed by these calibers than the bigger pistol or more powerful pistol calibers. You might say the victims who died from these two smaller calibers died because they "did not" read all the gun magazines that would have told them they would not be harmed if shot by a .25 acp or .32 acp.
And also remember no matter what the caliber of exotic expanding ammo you use that still even today this ammo has a way more of a chance of causing a jam than using a bullet with a more rounded nose. When I attended my concealed carry class you would not believe how many guns "jammed" up when their owners tried qualifying with them while using expanding ammo. And I might add some even needed help to clear the jams. Not good in a real gun fight.
When using a .32 or .380 auto pistol I would have no qualms at all using a round nosed bullet that was a fmj or even hard cast lead. I have shot enough hard cast lead to know they can be very reliable and give far less jams than an exotic flying ashtray expanding bullet.
Use what works for you in your handgun as long as its reliable and has sufficient penetration and you can shoot the ammo well without flinching.
Avoid all the advertising hype. Not so long ago Winchesters advertisements for their "Black Talon" ammo was "too successful" creating a firestorm in the news media even though it was no more destructive than other well known and well made ammo. When Winchester quit making it because of the firestorm of bad publicity (none of it deserved) people panicked and went nuts and were paying over $150 a box and that was decades ago. I simply yawned and loaded up my usual hard cast bullet loads and never looked back.
Decades ago I shot a 185lb Whitetail deer with a hard cast 121 grain bullet out of a browning High Power. The deer took two wobbly steps and fell down deader than a doornail. I sent Jeff Cooper a picture of the deer and my Browning High Power (because I knew he hated the 9x19). He never responded to my letter but did respond to me when I asked him later in time a question about building a 1911 pistol.
