Winchester 85-grain Silvertips. Low recoil, low flash, high velocity HP's. But try to find them. I bought 3 boxes/50 2 weeks ago. Now my source is out of them, and they were the only place I found. All they have now is 95 GR. JHP BONDED S380PDB for $21/20
I'll second the Gold Dots. Very consistent bullet size.
The Hornady ones I had tried had some feeding issues with certain boxes because the bullets were not seated quite as deep, and with those ultra compact semi-autos the bullet size is really important.
Even though I've had but a few bobbles in my LCP or Kahr P380 using HP ammo I feel the same way. When I'm limited to pocket carrying a small auto I want it to work. Period. I know stoking the mouse gun with ball is a trade off, but carrying small autos necessitates confidence in reliability. I roll the dice occassionally.
I always carried Federal Hydra-Shoks, but have recently seen the light with FMJ so that's what has been loaded all Winter. One of these days I'll run a round nose fmj vs. flat nose fmj test and pick a favorite FMJ ammo.
I don't think most 380s open very much to begin with so i doubt penetration suffers much, that said my choice is GD hollowpoint ammo. I'll take a little less penetration and a little bigger hole instead of a ice pick hole a little deeper. I think maybe a flat nose fmj would be a good combination of both.
I don't think most 380s open very much to begin with so i doubt penetration suffers much, that said my choice is GD hollowpoint ammo. I'll take a little less penetration and a little bigger hole instead of a ice pick hole a little deeper. I think maybe a flat nose fmj would be a good combination of both.
You might be surprised by the expansion of some of the 380s. I know I was when I started testing them. Due to mass and velocity, the largest expanding rounds suffered from lesser penetration.
BTW, I'm on the Karhtalk board and first saw your data there. I want to say again that I very much appreciate your time and effort in sharing your work with us.
You might be surprised by the expansion of some of the 380s. I know I was when I started testing them. Due to mass and velocity, the largest expanding rounds suffered from lesser penetration.
You might be surprised by the expansion of some of the 380s. I know I was when I started testing them. Due to mass and velocity, the largest expanding rounds suffered from lesser penetration.
Expansion for the sake of expansion is worthless. Penetration first, expansion if necessary to dump excess energy second. I have done enough of my own testing on .380 to realize I'd rather have 10" of ball penetration as opposed to an expanding round that actually expands on contact with, and bounces off of ribs.
Expansion for the sake of expansion is worthless. Penetration first, expansion if necessary to dump excess energy second. I have done enough of my own testing on .380 to realize I'd rather have 10" of ball penetration as opposed to an expanding round that actually expands on contact with, and bounces off of ribs.
his info was not meant to state a preference but to show what various bullets do in jello. i think he does good work and keeps any personal bias one way or another supressed enough to makes his work objective.
in my LWS32 i carry win sthp, not for expansion but because of ammo length....in fact in my own back yard testing through hard plastic jugs of water the .32acp hollow points dont expand from a LWS32....so the function like FMJ but work in the gun because they are shorter than FMJ.
I went round and round with ammo when I owned a .380ACP and I finally became convinced that anything below 9mm/.38Spl needs to ensure penetration above all else, especially during 7-8 months of the year when an attacker likely wears layers of clothing.
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