What Is A Good Hollow Point Ammo?

[BLP1981]

I have a Ruger P95 9mm and a Colt 1991A1 45. What is a good hollow point round to use for these? Should I use +P?

Thanks for your help!


Brett

[gunderwood]

These days every name brand HP does well as long as you shoot it out of a similar length barrel as the designers intended.

E.g. Here are my favorite 9mm HP: http://www.speer-ammo.com/ballistics/de ... adNo=23617
The ideal barrel length for that is 4", but generally you can go up or down 1/2" and it will still work well.

For 9mm, I prefer the 124gr +P, then 115gr +P, then 124gr for 4" or more and 115gr for 3.5" or less.

For .45ACP, I prefer 230gr or 230gr +P. Unless you have a short barrel (less than 4-4.5") the +P doesn't seem to do much more than standard pressure loads. If you have shorter barrels +P for sure. If your barrel is less than 4", take a look at Corbon's .45 ammo for short barrels. They are the only manufacturer to my knowledge who makes HPs for compact .45s. Someone will chime in and correctly note that even .45 ball has a good track record so this doesn't matter that much. I.e. a .45 bullet that fails to expand because the velocity is low isn't that bad. If I couldn't shoot HPs, .45 is the only way to go. I would note that .45 balls track records is not nearly as good as 9mm HP, so I think it does matter to make sure your bullet expands. Just choose a bullet that was tested (implies designed for) at your barrel length. 9mm is more picky about bullet selection than .45 as long as you stick with the 230gr IMHO.

You have to choose between a standard HP and a bonded HP. Bonded have a stronger jacket to core bond and tend to penetrate other objects well and still expand. E.g. car doors, windscreens, etc. The trade off is that because they are stronger, bonded bullets tend to expand less. In 9mm it can be as much as 0.1"; 0.55-0.65" for bonded expansion and 0.6-0.7" for non bonded. The great thing about bonded ammo is that it will still expand in your target after passing through an object, at least better than non-bonded which can shed the jacket. Because of this police almost exclusively use bonded bullets, but there are notable exceptions.

As far as companies/models go:

Speer GD: My favorite bullet for self defense. VA state police carry it in .357SIG. The most popular police bullet in any caliber. Less expansion than other designs, but it is reliable.

Ranger T: Second favorite bullet for now. Not bonded, but the design hails from the black talons. Winchester also makes bonded bullets which work well.

Golden Sabers: Excellent bullet just like the Ranger Ts. I'm just not a fan of loaded Remington ammo. It isn't bad, but I think the Winchester stuff is better. Bullets are about the same though.

HST: Generally the best expansion of the bullets available today. Really is 2x caliber and sometimes a little more. HST is my third favorite load. The bonded HST (tacticals) expand less and seem to be on par with the Gold Dots. HSTs are pretty new. Don't buy the old Hydra Shocks as they tend to clog the HP up when passing through heavy clothing and not expand. When the Hydra Shocks work they work well, but they have trouble with heavy clothing more often than other designs; no bullet is fail proof, even the best will fail to expand sometimes. The HSTs seem to have addressed this problem.

Critical Defense: Hornady's new entry into this category. They use a plastic tip in the HP to prevent clogging and it works. CD bullets seem to be the least likely to fail when penetrating heavy clothing. Unfortunately, some of the caliber designs work, but aren't as good as your other options. E.g. 380 CD expands, but doesn't seem to ever penetrate deep enough. This product needs more development IMHO, but it is promising and some calibers work well.

Gimmicks/safety slugs/RCBS/etc.: I don't like any of this ammo. Hand picked gel tests make them look really good, but they have a very poor track record in the real world IMO.

[WRW]

Guess I should move to town and buy a newspaper. I honestly didn't know that Colt made a 1991A1. How do you like it?

[Quigley]

My Glocks prefer Speer Gold Dots. There are many good ones but they are my favorite.

[CCFan]

+1 for Speer Gold Dots

Also - I'm kinda partial to a lot of the loadings from Double Tap ammo... check 'em out if you haven't: http://www.doubletapammo.com

[gunderwood]

+1 for Speer Gold Dots

Also - I'm kinda partial to a lot of the loadings from Double Tap ammo... check 'em out if you haven't: http://www.doubletapammo.com

Double Tap is suppose to load good ammo, but I think some of their loads are too hot for the bullets. E.g. .357SIG uses the same bullet diameter as 9mm, but the extra 200fps it adds required a new bullet design to avoid fragmentation. If you notice the HP on the .357s is really shallow. Jackets are suppose to be thicker too.

Manufacturers spend a lot of time designing bullets to perform optimally out of particular barrel lengths/velocities. Pushing the bullet to fast or to slow is not a good thing. It doesn't mean the round won't work sometimes, but it will fail more often.

[CCFan]

+1 for Speer Gold Dots

Also - I'm kinda partial to a lot of the loadings from Double Tap ammo... check 'em out if you haven't: http://www.doubletapammo.com

Double Tap is suppose to load good ammo, but I think some of their loads are too hot for the bullets. E.g. .357SIG uses the same bullet diameter as 9mm, but the extra 200fps it adds required a new bullet design to avoid fragmentation. If you notice the HP on the .357s is really shallow. Jackets are suppose to be thicker too.

Manufacturers spend a lot of time designing bullets to perform optimally out of particular barrel lengths/velocities. Pushing the bullet to fast or to slow is not a good thing. It doesn't mean the round won't work sometimes, but it will fail more often.

I wouldn't know about their .357 Sig ammo, but their 10mm works fine in my Delta Elite. I'd tell anyone to test ammo regardless of what it is - if you have a Glock and want to use Speer Gold Dots - I'd still recommend that you test those loads in your firearm...

I am curious though, how do you determine which bullet is acceptable for .357 Sig? I just did a quick glance at Graf & Sons, Midway USA, Wideners - and only Wideners had .357 Sig specifically listed.... I can't find anything that gives specifics about the bullet, do you have some bookmarks you can share? It looks like a great round, I think several folks here gave them high marks...

[gunderwood]

+1 for Speer Gold Dots

Also - I'm kinda partial to a lot of the loadings from Double Tap ammo... check 'em out if you haven't: http://www.doubletapammo.com

Double Tap is suppose to load good ammo, but I think some of their loads are too hot for the bullets. E.g. .357SIG uses the same bullet diameter as 9mm, but the extra 200fps it adds required a new bullet design to avoid fragmentation. If you notice the HP on the .357s is really shallow. Jackets are suppose to be thicker too.

Manufacturers spend a lot of time designing bullets to perform optimally out of particular barrel lengths/velocities. Pushing the bullet to fast or to slow is not a good thing. It doesn't mean the round won't work sometimes, but it will fail more often.

I wouldn't know about their .357 Sig ammo, but their 10mm works fine in my Delta Elite. I'd tell anyone to test ammo regardless of what it is - if you have a Glock and want to use Speer Gold Dots - I'd still recommend that you test those loads in your firearm...

I am curious though, how do you determine which bullet is acceptable for .357 Sig? I just did a quick glance at Graf & Sons, Midway USA, Wideners - and only Wideners had .357 Sig specifically listed.... I can't find anything that gives specifics about the bullet, do you have some bookmarks you can share? It looks like a great round, I think several folks here gave them high marks...

I wasn't saying the DT ammo wouldn't work, but that the in some loads (not limited to .357SIG) they push the bullet faster than what the bullets designers intended. This can cause failures. Without having the design specs though we are just guessing. You would have to test a lot of rounds to get any statistical significance, which the problem with most gel testing. They test a handful of rounds at best, but if you evaluate the confidence intervals they would need many more rounds to conclude anything with a reasonable level of certainty.

My point with the .357SIG/9mm comments was that bullet manufacturers had to redesign their products because of the extra velocity of .357SIG (approx. 200fps) was causing to much stress on standard 9mm HPs. I.e. they needed a tougher bullet.

.357SIG bullets are .355" (just like 9mm), but are 125gr. Designs that aren't HP are usually a truncated cone design due to COL issues with a round nose like tradition FMJ 9mm.

[CCFan]

I understand what you're saying - what I'm saying is that I can't find much documentation differentiating the .355 bullets.... I'd like to read more and learn more, but it ain't out there for the reading that I can find...

My example:
http://www.hornady.com/store/357-Sig-124-gr-XTP/ <-- .357 Sig...

http://www.hornady.com/store/9mm-Luger-124-gr-XTP/ <-- 9mm...

Both 124 grains, .165 BC, and .141 Sectional Density...You can't tell me the 9mm bullet is different from the .357 Sig bullet. So are they using the "wrong" bullet according to some documentation about what .357 Sig bullets *should* be? That's what I'd like to read... If you have sources to share - I'd like to read up on 'em...

[gunderwood]

I understand what you're saying - what I'm saying is that I can't find much documentation differentiating the .355 bullets.... I'd like to read more and learn more, but it ain't out there for the reading that I can find...

My example:
http://www.hornady.com/store/357-Sig-124-gr-XTP/ <-- .357 Sig...

http://www.hornady.com/store/9mm-Luger-124-gr-XTP/ <-- 9mm...

Both 124 grains, .165 BC, and .141 Sectional Density...You can't tell me the 9mm bullet is different from the .357 Sig bullet. So are they using the "wrong" bullet according to some documentation about what .357 Sig bullets *should* be? That's what I'd like to read... If you have sources to share - I'd like to read up on 'em...

Hornady's CD bullets are vastly different than all the other HPs on the market. They use that plug to initiate expansion. The whole concept of the plug is to reduce the probability that a HP won't expand due to clogging.

You can find info on the net if you look for it, but it really isn't talked about that much any more because it is a bad idea to use handloads for self defense. If you are loading for practice it doesn't matter as long as you don't use the traditional 9mm FMJ round nose. Here is one such example: http://glocktalk.com/forums/showthread. ... st15260313

So, at a glance, some manufacturers simply came out with a .355 diameter version of their .357 magnum bullets. Others redesigned their .357 magnum bullets to fullfill certain criteria. In no case, did they base their .357 Sig rounds on a 9mm design. The .357 Sig round simply has too much velocity and the degree of fragmentation needs to be a design consideration.

Hence the 125gr vice 124gr as that was a standard .357mag load.

[gunderwood]

I took some pictures and measurements. Both of these are recent manufactured Speer GD.

On the left is the 125gr .357SIG and on the right is the 124gr +P 9mm. The picture quality isn't that great, but notice how much deeper the 9mm HP is; very deep HPs have been used to make slower rounds expand. the HP depths are:

.357SIG: 0.10"
9mm: 0.14"

These are only approximate because it is very hard to correctly measure the cup depth. I used a toothpick and calibers to take these measurements.



The .357SIG needs a shorter/less radius bullet for crimping. It also needs a bullet that can withstand the extra velocity. Depending how much fragmentation you desire it may be possible to build one round that can do bot .357SIG and 9mm well. Most companies I have seen redesigned the bullet and made them 125gr. There are exceptions though.

Here is another image that may show it better.

[CCFan]

Hmm... seems like I could have found more info about various loads as the Hornady appears to be a fluke, since they are one company that uses both... ha!

It's a pretty obvious difference when looking at the photos... Just seems like it would be easier to find ammo in the .355 caliber labeled as ".357 Sig" but most reloading places don't have it labeled as such...


Well it will be a while before I venture into the .357 Sig arena, if I ever do... but thanks for the info!

[Diomed]

I'm partial to the Gold Dot as loaded by Buffalo Bore. Excellent in my .38 Special guns (i.e. my usual carry piece), and I have a 1911 that eats them like candy. Shame they're so expensive, but they've been great for me in everything I've tried except .380.

[zephyp]

You can find info on the net if you look for it, but it really isn't talked about that much any more because it is a bad idea to use handloads for self defense.

+1

Prosecutor: Ladies and gentlmen, Mr. Gunderwood was not satisfied to use regular ole store bought ammunition. No. No he was not. Mr. Gunderwood [points harshly at gunderwood] spent hours of Internet research to find the most lethal combination of components. He spent more hours discussing how to assemble these components in the most lethal fashion with his buddies on VGOF [holds up transcript of VGOF posts and shakes it for effect]. Mr. Gunderwood was indeed obsessed with producing the most lethal possible catridge to do one thing and one thing only...stop thugs from taking his cake.

[BLP1981]

Guess I should move to town and buy a newspaper. I honestly didn't know that Colt made a 1991A1. How do you like it?

I've only had it for a few weeks and it's the only 1911 style gun I've owned so I don't have anything to compare it to. But I really like the way it shoots and it seems to be pretty accurate.

Thanks for all the help everyone!!!

[gunderwood]

Hmm... seems like I could have found more info about various loads as the Hornady appears to be a fluke, since they are one company that uses both... ha!

It's a pretty obvious difference when looking at the photos... Just seems like it would be easier to find ammo in the .355 caliber labeled as ".357 Sig" but most reloading places don't have it labeled as such...


Well it will be a while before I venture into the .357 Sig arena, if I ever do... but thanks for the info!

It is terminal ballistics only that there may be a problem.

For target shooting it doesn't matter as long as the bullet crimps well. All of the truncated cones seem to work well.

[BluemontGlock]

"stop thugs from taking his cake..." - hystericaly classic DK!

in relation it the thread, does Hornaday still make TAP ammo, or has that ammo line evolved into the Critical Defense ammo line???

As i do not know but have feed alot through both my .40 and .45 , it does not have the plastic insert, but we were shooting 4 x 4 's and taking BIG chunks out on the back side with them...i know i know, wood is harder than skin and will make the bullet expand far more consistantly, but FUN FACTOR 10 MR SULU!

_____________________________________________________________
DEFENSE COUNSEL, please proceed with opening arguments...

(blowing nose into red checkerd hanky and staring with bloodshot eyes over chipping silvered wired frames, precariously balanced on a gin blossom of a nose, tails of his awkwardly wrinkled white sear suxer suit flailing out behind him as he spins to meet the gaze of the prosecutor, then backing off his hardened face, the wisended southern lawyer starts by working the room...) "Your HHHH-hhonor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury (smiles pasty and patronizingly at the jury box) are we RAAALLLLY here for all THIS intrigue just because the fine upstanding citizen that Mr Gunderwood-son-sin-jin-sen is, happened to get a bit over zelous with his hobby??? NO WHERE in the HOLY DOCUMENT that the Constitution is, does it say "Thou shall not (shaking fist furiously at the sky light) DEFEND ones cake with a ++P++P+ 350 grain, discarding titainum sabot incideary razor lined salt infused teflon coated hyper shock bonded gold triangle stamped nickel plated round that has "HERES ONE FOR YOUR OLD MAN " lazer etched on the side???..NO SUHS and MA'MAMs...it DOES NOT!..and the word "Lethal" that the prosecution throws around with sheer impunity...LETHAL...HA! what isn't leathal? show ME , ladies and gentlemen, SHOW ME, what is not Leathal??!!!?? LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I SUBMIT TO YOU..life is leathal!"...turns, quite satisfied with himself, winks at Gunderwood, and then to the pretty little court stenographer with a pony tail in a scrunchie, who, to her credit resisites the urge to verp and make a "GROSS" face at the portly, greasey, wisen, old litigator, which he noted on more than one occasion, that the word rhymed with "Alligator"...and he liked that,...alot...and he then, grinning, with practiced southern style, took measured steps back to the defendants bench while quietly humming "America the Beautiful"...and just happened to get the walking farts as he was passing by the isleway sitting prosecutor, who, by habit, turned his head toward the unexpexted noise with his mouth open...it was going to be a long trial for some....

[CCFan]

...stop thugs from taking his cake.

Then put down the .357 Sig and pick up a 10mm....

In all seriousness, I wasn't inquiring about reloading for defensive purposes (I do carry DoubleTap in most of my carry pieces) but just the lack of information out there regarding loading for .357 Sig and the lack of specificity of .355 bullets....

[communicator7]

I use Federal 135 grain hydrashock in my Glock 26. I prefer the Federal brand. I feel as long as you don't use cheap quality ammo (and you know who you are!) you should be fine.

[wally626]

Trying out some Speer Gold Dot tomorrow in my Glock 22. Just to check for recoil and feeding. Probably won't be able to tell the difference but on paper it is a bit hotter than my other ammo.