max503
Member
If someone was coming at you and you had one bullet what would you choose?
If someone was coming at you and you had one bullet what would you choose?
Actually, modern JHPs such as Hornady's XTP bullet design are known to be reliable performers in .380 ACP, they expand reliably and typically penetrate 12" in FBI Calibrated Ballistics Gel.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the .380 ACP got a bad reputation due to the fact that domestic ammo was downloaded for decades out of concern for all the straight blowback operated Saturday Night Specials/Ring of Fire guns made of cheap pot metal.
Meanwhile, in Europe the .380 ACP remained in use by various Law Enforcement agencies well into the 1980s because it wasn't downloaded.
Thankfully, with all of the high quality short recoil operated .380 Pocket Pistols on the market today, ammo is no longer downloaded here in the States and now offers performance on par with Standard Pressure .38 Special loads, which is completely adequate for self-defense.
Ironically, a somewhat lesser known fact is that when John Moses Browning designed the .380 ACP cartridge he did so by scaling down his .45 ACP cartridge design.
If someone was coming at you and you had one bullet what would you choose?
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One of them went over 18". (I don't know of any auto-glass testing of .380s.)
You have what I consider a funny definition of reliable performance.
I am aware of several shootings involving the 44 magnum (lots of them up north) in which the recipient of the slug kept in the fight; ditto two occasions with 12 gauge slugs. My point is that if neither of those rounds was a sure thing in a fight, betting the farm on the 9mm, the 40, the 10 or the 45 may be kind of sketchy unless you know how to apply the force where it counts. BTW, NOTHING easily man portable is a for sure (100%) stopper. ...
The .357 magnum round is far and away the finest self defense handgun round ever developed.
Every other round is defective, compared to the mighty .357 magnum.
Let the flaming begin. lol
The Extremas were simply the first XTP loading listed on that page.*Congratulations, you cherry-picked one specific instance in which an XTP failed to reliably expand through 4 layers of heavy denim from a line of testing in which every other XTP load functioned flawlessly in bare gel and overall performed decently through denim.
Meanwhile, the bare gel results were perfect, but you didn't show those results because it didn't support your argument.
In some respects, I think all of us admirers of the 1911 .45 ACP are rubes. Why? Well, we're always waxing poetically (or stridently) about its power. Powerful? Really? Heck, its more or less just a semi-auto platform for the .45 Schofield! Which was quite a step down from the .45 Colt (20 grains less bullet - from 250 to 230, and 12 grains less powder - from 40 grains to 28). Hardly a barn burner. But if you look at the ballistics of original 45 ACP GI loads, they're dang close to that Schofield loading. Was it better than 9mm ball? Heck yes. I have taken deer and other game with the 45 ACP, but in those outings I relied on a load pushing the H&G #68 200 grain SWC at 1,000 fps. It worked quite well. In a round about way, I'm alive today because of a 1911 .45; it was used in WWI by my grandfather, who was hit by a Maxim as he threw a grenade into its gun pit. He used his .45 (he was a Lewis gunner, so carried a 1911 routinely) to incentivize a couple of German prisoners to make a stretcher from their great coats and a couple of long Mauser rifles, and to then haul him to a first aid station.
I bet 45acp sells well in New Jersey!!
If someone was coming at you and you had one bullet what would you choose?