I was privileged to attend the Special Operations Training Association of the Upper Midwest (SOTA-Midwest) last week in Alexandria, MN. I heard some excellent speakers, spent some time with some really great switched-on Special Ops guys, and had a few wobbly-pops besides.
Monday afternoon I was privileged to attend the Federal-ATK ballistics demo put on by Johan Boden, who is Fed-ATK's ballistics technician. I've known him for about 8 years and have shot IDPA with him many times, and have attended his classes several times. His job consists of two things: 1) testing Federal-ATK ammunition (all types, civilian and LE, rifle, pistol, shotgun) and their competitors' ammunition in his gelatin lab, and 2) travelling all over North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia demo-ing Federal-ATK ammo for trade shows, LE conventions, etc. He brought about 1000 pounds of gelatin blocks to Alexandria for his demonstration class.
Johan demo'd a bunch of ammo for us, mostly Fed-ATK (Speer and Federal brands) duty ammo in 9mm, 40 S&W, and 45 ACP, both bonded and non-bonded types. He also offered to shoot his gelatin blocks with any ammo/gun combo any of us had along with, for interest's sake.
As I have stated previously, there is no real difference in performance between GOOD duty-quality 9mm, 40 S&W, and 45 ACP ammunition when you're shooting bare gelatin or gelatin covered with clothing (equivalent to shooting a human being wearing clothes, per FBI protocol). Johan's demo's confirmed this, yet again (yes, I've been to his class before!), MUCH to the surprise of many LEO's present.
We only started to see differences in performance in bullets when he shot through intermediate barriers such as laminated auto glass and sheet metal. When intermediate barriers come into play, there is little difference between the calibers again, as long as BONDED bullets are used. NON-BONDED bullets perform very poorly if they are shot through intermediate barriers.
We also shot some non-service calibers and guns, most notably the Kahr PM9 and a Ruger 380 LCP. The Kahr 9mm demo's were no different from the full-size guns with the ammo provided, with the exception that the little gun doesn't perform well with 115 gr ammo. The best ammo for the tiny 9mm's is clearly the 147 gr GDHP and similar bonded ammo, which is slow-moving anyway, and performs superbly out of the little 3" barrel.
Not so with the 380 LCP. ALL AMMO fired through this gun, including ball ammo, failed to meet FBI specs. The best 90 gr JHP ammo of all brands tried (3 different JHP's) penetrated 5" into the gelatin, and the 95 gr ball ammo only managed 8". When you consider that the first 3-4" of gelatin penetration represents the energy needed to cut through skin, this means that standard 380 ACP JHP's are only going to penetrate 1-2" in flesh, and less if they have to punch through bone such as sternum. I've seen previous demo's where animal sternums (porcine, IIRC) were embedded in the gelatin, and the 380 bullets failed to penetrate more than 1" of gel.
Johan does admit there is one commonly available 380 JHP which will come close to the FBI standard, but wouldn't name it publicly (I believe it's CorBon with the Barnes copper DPX bullet).
The cop whose Ruger 380 we used in the demo's was dismayed. He told me he plans to sell his 380 asap and buy a Kahr PM9 like mine immediately.
Again, I got no gripe against the 380 ACP for general enjoyment, plinking, etc. But at this class, once again I've seen this caliber demonstrated to be dreadfully suboptimal for defensive purposes.
