Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Terrific comparison of self defense loads

This is awesome stuff. A comparison of over 100 of the most popular self defense ammo in 380, 9mm, 40 and 45.

http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests/

You can click on each load to get detailed info. Lots of eye openers in this and lots to talk about. There are a lot of loads that are very popular and have been for a while that just don't stack up (hydrashocks, I'm looking at you.)

Very cool web site, thanks.

Gotta check that out later when I get off. Thanks.

Gotta love those HST's & Gold Dots.............

MM

I bought out a local store of all their speer gold dots last year when they were discontinuing carrying it. Great price and looks like it worked in this eval.

Interesting in that they chose the shortest barrel possible in each caliber...that gives it about the "worst case scenario" as it gets...

Would have liked to seen the Glock 33/.357 SIG in there also...

Bob

Ditto, +100!

If it expands when fired from a 2" barrel, you know it will from a 4" barrel.

Yep, and Remington's ammo comes out very consistent as well.

I am still very interested in the Barnes offerings, would like to see them pushed hard for good expansion though. Played with a 80 gr 9mm load at 1300fps last week and it was a neat concept. Muzzle rise was almost nothing coming from a SW Shield, much softer shooting than the 124 HST I was running in it. We did not do any gel shooting but it was an impressive load.

Kevin, I think you really need to take another, closer look at the Rem ammo results...........not all good, quite a bit of very spotty performance with regards to uniform expansion.

Nowhere nearly as consistent as the HST & Gold dots.

MM

Thanks for the link.

Yes, interesting.

PPU (Privi-Partisan) met/exceeded FBI requirements in 9mm & .45. Might be nice option for those on a budget. Would have been great to see results in .380 and .40 also for that mfg.

Was hoping to see some short barreled revolver info.

They did a good job with layout also, was nice to see ammo listed alphabetically by mfg instead of all over the place by bullet weight or name.

Geno

My real takeaway from this: Why would anybody (non LE carrying for self defense) choose anything but HST?

They are the most consistent best performing bullets out there. Penetration is great and expansion is almost always spectacular. Even the gold dots had several stinker loads.

The other one that I really like is the Winchester Ranger T, but it doesn't look like they've included them so far.

Did you see the HST .380 write up in the latest NRA mag.? Not too favorable for the HST in .380...

Sorry, I mean to add "Golden Saber" to my post; I meant to comment specifically on the Golden Saber line...my bad.

In what way?

In .380 out of the super compact pistols, you can generally have sufficient penetration, or expansion; but rarely if ever both.

Yeah, I like the Ranger T also, & was disappointed it was not included too.

MM

Surprised the 9mm 147 gr Hydra-shok expanded so poorly.

Mike

Wouldn't that be due more to the necessary slower speed compared to the lighter bullet?

would have been interesting to see the Super and the 10mm in there, though I know they are more limited in popularity. There's more than a few Supers in service.

Also interesting to see that a couple of the .380's did fairly well.