I certainly don't want to start an argument here, but for all you guys still beating up your hands, ears and guns with +P ammo, take heed. I do wound ballistic workshops for a living for a major ammo company and have shot a lot of gelatin. In talking to the engineers they will tell you that the only reason +P ammo exist is to try and get terminal performance out of poorly designed bullets by increasing velocity. Bullet design and construction has come a long way since +P was a "good" idea and that extra velocity is no longer necessary for good bullet performance. In fact the only reason most factories are still making it is because some folks (and PDs) think they need it and +P will probably go away in the not too distant future. Standard pressure ammo available today, generally performs better than +P stuff did in the past. Penetration and expansion in standard pressure ammo today usually exceeds FBI performance criteria for terminal performance. The higher velocity of +P does give more energy but we have known for a long time now, that energy is not the mechanism that makes a bullet effective in handgun calibers. Randy Garrett of Garrett Ammo developed the standards for handgun bear loads many years ago with his heavy-for-caliber hard cast handgun and .45-70 ammo. One of Randy's .44 mag bear loads is a 320 grain bullet at right around 1000 fps and he has many customers that have taken or defended themselves against big bears with that load, which will shoot completely through any bear alive. I ask him during a phone conversation why he still built some of his heavy bullets loads at a much higher velocity. He told me it was simply a case of demand by folks that didn't know any better. Marketing. Randy has written some interesting papers on terminal performance on big and dangerous game animals and many of those are posted on his website. They are good reads if anyone is interested. That's just my two cents worth but based on 12 years of "killing" a lot of gelatin with just about every hand gun caliber, bullet weight from every manufacturer out there.
