Interesting thread, let me raise a few points.
While the overwhelming majority of defensive gun uses don't involve actually shooting someone, the fact is that you may have to. Don't lose sight of the fact that if you're in that tiny minority, you're fighting for your life and the continued welfare of your family. Your question should be "How would my family survive if I'm dead?"
First priority is your ability to effectively use the firearm in question. Can you quickly hit vital areas and maintain a 1 accurate shot per second cadence of fire? Size of the firearm can definitely matter here.
Second priority is adequate penetration. Can the selected caliber get the job done? A distinguished member here reviewed several hundred homicide cases and found .380 expanding bullets generally don't reach vital areas. Also, while those cases resulted in death, did they STOP? We don't know.
I worked for decades under Federal regulations. Defensive handgun ammunition was required to produce no less than 200 ft/lbs of muzzle energy. Per manufacturers paper, standard pressure .38 Spl does this in a 4 inch barrel, .380 doesn't. Real world results will be lower and shorter barrels will be even worse. There are several 9mm v .380 threads here that cover this in greater detail.
There's also a couple of threads here about the BG .380. With all due respect for S&W, who are trying to fill a market "need", I think the products in this class are what Jeff Cooper was referring to as "things you tote when you don't want to carry a gun." It's not my choice or situation, but I'd go with the 9 and upsize if necessary.
.380 takes a big hit in velocity in shorter barrels (.32 ACP even more so).
And yet while people acknowledge the difference between a 2” .38 and a 4” .38 they seem to lump all .380s together regardless of whether it’s a 2.75” Kimber Micro, a 3.5” PPK/S or a 3.9” Beretta 80X or Walther PP.
It makes a big difference in velocity and consequently in hollow point expansion and penetration.
200 ft pounds is achieved with a 90 gr bullet at 1000 fps and that velocity is easily achieved in a 3.5” or longer barrel. Consequently the right .380 with the right load will meet your self described 200 ft pound threshold.
Hollow point designs have also changed. Back in the day when I took my first law enforcement job, 9mm hollow points were not considered to be worth a plug nickel. You don’t hear that very much today as 9mm hollow point design has made huge strides.
.380 ACP hollow point design has not been static either.
The Hornady 90 gr XTP is now an “old design” but at velocities of 1000-1050 fps it will meet the FBIs expansion and penetration minimums.
The 90 gr Sig V-Crown is designed for lower velocities and at around 900 fps will also expand very nicely and deliver 15” penetration.
Now…there are some newer designs that will expand but under penetrate they are worth avoiding, but you can’t make very dated and blanket statements like you’ve made and still claim to be accurate in what you’ve said.
I’ve spent a lot of money and time on ballistic gel testing for a number of loads and speak from measurable, repeatable, data driven experience.
The bottom line is a well chosen .380 ACP pistol and hollow point combination will meet the expansion and penetration criteria that the FBI associates with loads that have proven effective in real world shoots. You can’t claim to believe in the FBI standard and then say “yah but that doesn’t apply to .380 ACP. Same with your 200 ft pound threshold.
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Greg Ellifritz looked at over 2000 real world shoots and found the .380 ACP (and even more surprisingly the .32 ACP and .32 Long) did a better job at one stop shots than the larger calibers.
Now pause a minute before you go into full melt down mode and start banging on the key board.
Ellifritz also made it clear that he looked at both armed citizen and police shootings and that the conditions are different in each.
He also noted that while the .380 ACP is a commonly carried cartridge for armed citizen shoots, it’s rarely used in officer involved shoots, while the 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP are more common police cartridges.
The .357 magnum data also supports the armed citizen versus police theory as it’s now almost never carried as a duty weapon but is a common armed citizen cartridge choice.
Cartridge choice matters as Ellifritz points out differences in the police versus armed citizen shoots.
First police are much more likely to fire multiple rounds as an automatic response as officers are often trained to fire 2-3 rounds and then assess. In shoots involving multiple officers more rounds per officer tend to be fired on average. In other words, there were not as many shoots where just one hit was scored on the suspect with commonly used police cartridges
Single hits are more likely in armed citizen shoots where the armed citizen is (rightly or wrongly) more concerned about being accused of using excessive force with multiple shots and multiple hits.
It’s also arguable that armed citizen who train on a regular basis are more likely to score center of mass hits than officers who only shoot once or twice a year to qualify.
Finally, armed citizens have more incentive to not miss and skip bullets around the neighborhood as they don’t enjoy protections that police officers have such as qualified immunity, and their department’s lawyers and liability coverage, nor the tolerance of the courts in mistake of fact shoots. All three factors combine to make single shots and single hits more likely with cartridges commonly used by armed citizens and not police, like the .32 ACP and .380 ACP.
Second, when an armed assailant is facing a police officer they are Often much more determined as they recognize the police won’t stop until they are killed, incapacitated or captured. In contrast most assailants realize retreat is an option of first resort when faced with an armed citizen who is much less likely to pursue them and attempt to detain them. That makes a “one shot stop” more likely as we are not talking about just incapacitation but rather also forcing the assailant to flee, which is just as much a win for an armed citizen.
Consequently on the one hand it shows that the .32 ACP and .380 ACP are in reality probably not as effective at achieving one shot stops when all other factors are equal.
However, it also reflects the reality that all other factors are not equal when comparing LEO involved shoots with armed citizen shoots as they are distinctly different uses of lethal force.
None the less, when looking at the totality of the data and differences in the shoots it’s obvious that the .380 ACP is clearly very effective for armed citizen self defense.
Questioning the Effectiveness of the .380 Auto Cartridge | Buckeye Firearms Association
https://www.policinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/1.-OIS_incident_exec_summary_8.28.19.pdf
