Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns .380 ACP Bubba-style Torture Test

Today is a great day to be alive. The sun was shining, the temperature was in the 40s, and the wind didn’t appear to be above 15 mph, so I went out on the prairie to blast some inanimate objects with mighty .380 ACP ammo. People scoff at the round, and most people don’t test it against anything but gel and cloth covered gel. If you want to learn more about the capabilities of the cartridge, you have to do it yourself.

The test gun was a Sig P365-380 with a 3.1 inch barrel. The test target array consisted of a piece of pine 2X6, followed by 2 pieces of 22 gauge steel sheet metal taped together, and a backstop of water jugs. I shot a 100 grain Buffalo Bore Outdoorsman hard cast flat point standard pressure, followed by a Lehigh 90 grain Xtreme Penetrator standard pressure, followed by a 99 grain Federal Hydra-Shok Deep, followed by a 90 grain Federal Hydra-Shok Low Recoil. Try to figure out in advance what happened.

First up, For Bristoe (and me), is the Buffalo Bore hard cast.


I keep my wife’s S&W Shield EZ loaded with this round because she likes the gun and carries it on hikes around the cabin. The load chrono’d at 954 out of the Sig and at 1004 out of the EZ.

Second up is the Lehigh Xtreme Penetrator.


I was carrying this load in my Glock 42 because it was barrier blind and did not overpenetrate when I shot it through some ribs backed by gel, in contrast to the Buffalo Bore against the same media.
I am going to have to test some of these in the EZ now!

Next is the Hydra-Shock Deep.


Given its name, I was a little surprised at this, not that I should have been given marketing hype.

Finally, there is the Hydra-Shock Low Recoil


The Low Recoil round really is a low recoil round. It is pleasant to shoot, especially out of a S&W Shield EZ. It also runs 974 fps out of the EZ, which is higher than what I got out of a Glock 42. (Have not chronographed it out of the Sig.) I was more impressed with this result than with the Deep given what it did to the water jug.

Here is an array of the fired bullets. From left to right are the Buffalo Bore, XP, HS Deep and HS Low Recoil.





Between the Buffalo Bore and the XP, guess which one cut the cleanest hole through the steel.





Lehigh isn’t offering loaded ammo since Wilson Combat acquired Lehigh. I bought some Underwood Xtreme Penetrators in standard pressure. It is faster than the Lehigh factory ammo out of the Sig, at an average of 1048 fps MV, but the ES (5 shots) was 75, much higher than the 16 ES (5 shots) of the Lehigh factory round. I intended to shoot one today, but I didn’t have enough water jugs because of the surprises that I got from shooting the first 2 rounds.