My biggest peeve is the big 4 manufacturers are to timid with ammo velocity. Not even loading to match the advertised velocity or stepping up and trying to get "closer" to the boutiques with their proven safe and effective loadings. Honorable mention going to Corbon JHP ammo.
Corbon is to be commended for being one of if not the first company to warm up handgun ammo. Underwood, BB and Double Tap to name a few have taken ammo performance to another level as well as offering new ammo designs. The big four not so much.
Agree with the wimpy loadings, especially Hornady's offerings. Hornady makes great bullets, and loads great rifle ammo, but their defensive pistol offerings are wimpy wimpy wimpy. I wish they would market their CD bullets for reloading. Those Critical Duty bullets would likely be great performers when pushed to the upper end of their design window.
Indeed feeble Hornady handgun ammo is a pet-peeve all by itself. Anemic loads, high prices, few if any new bullet designs and the continued lack of any new lines of enhanced performance ammo has turned me away from the big companies. When I buy SD ammo now I'm on the Underwood site.
Speaking of Federal HST, I have a few boxes of early 357 Sig 125gr HST that have a factory velocity of 1425 fps, yes much as the 10mm its power has been diminished by the big companies. On the bright side it's my understanding that Sig Sauer ammo is offering some pretty warm loads in 10mm.
Sig Sauer Ammo offers 180gr FMJ and HP 10mm both with a velocity of 1250 fps. The hot 357 Sig 125 gr HSTs I have are pre 2012, after 2012 the velocity dropped to its current 1360 fps.
Thanks for the clarification on the 357 sig loads. The Sig 10mm ammo is loaded to a decent velocity but I want Federal to load the HST bullet to that same velocity. I consider the HST bullet to be state of the art and I want to see federal design an HST 10mm projectile specifically for 10mm velocities.
The reason Federal reduced the velocity of the HST load was probably because the bullet preformed better at lower velocities in their testing. They need to come out with a Plus+P load using a different bullet just as they would have to do with the 10mm.
They couldn't use the same bullet in the 10mm that they do now in the 40 S&W HST loads.
I'd also like to see Federal sell the HST bullets as separate components for reloading.
My carry ammo these days is Federal HST, the last 50 round boxes I bought from Bone Frog Gun Club were like $18. Shipment was prompt and I think I got an email informing me the UPS guy stopped to check his tire pressures, I mean like perfect CS.
I reload everything I don't carry in a normal service caliber. Life couldnt be better right now, at least as far as ammo is concerned.
For as long as I have been shooting and probably long before that there have been two types of velocity numbers. The type you get out of real guns with ammo that stays within the SAAMI specifications with a minimum sized chamber. And the type of numbers you print on the box. This isn't as bad as when I first started shooting, probably because chronographs are no longer the expensive and exotic devices they once were. Go on YouTube and search for videos of people actually testing that old, hot ammo. When I did that for the original Norma 10mm ammo the test results showed about 150 to 200 fps slower than advertised. That is probably true for a lot of old factory ammo in other calibers too. The ammo didn't get slower, chronographs got cheaper.
When you load ammo for a semiauto right up to the pressure limit or a little beyond reliability can become an issue. I want no part of any ammo that requires swapping springs or other changes before it is completely reliable. I will always prefer a load that generates 1150 fps and is 100% reliable over one that drives the same bullet to 1250 fps but is only 99% reliable.
I avoid WWB because it is loaded so lightly it barely dribbles out of some guns. But other than that most practice ammo from the big makers works very well. As does their self defense ammo. For self defense ammo I use either some Hornady Critical Duty 135 grain +P or Speer 124 grain Gold Dot +P, both in 9mm. Looking at the test results at https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests/#9mm the Hornady ammo chronographed at 1118 fps and generated 374 ft-lbs of energy. The Speer load was 1141 fps and 358 ft-lbs. Both were tested using a gun with a 3.5 inch barrel. What do you guys expect? If that is not good enough you need to start looking at guns chambered in .357 Sig.
Rather than push a cartridge to its limit why not just buy a gun that chambers a more powerful round? Unless you are carrying a 10mm in the city and S&W 500 in the woods there is always a more powerful cartridge.
I am totally with you there, Dave. It's always been my opinion that total gun/ammo reliability is Numero Uno for anyone who chooses to carry a self-defense firearm.
Although I've never owned a revolver it's no mystery why that gun design continues to enjoy a hardcore following.
Sig Sauer Ammo offers 180gr FMJ and HP 10mm both with a velocity of 1250 fps. The hot 357 Sig 125 gr HSTs I have are pre 2012, after 2012 the velocity dropped to its current 1360 fps.
If your box has the lot # printed on the back of the box, not on the inside of the box flap chances are good that you have the hot loadings. Also ignore the printed velocity on the box of 1360 fps as this does not reflect the actual velocity.
To answer the OP's question: My pet peeve is that if Big Ammo can guarantee SAAMI standards for +P ammunition why the hell is there no guaranteed standard for +P+ ammo?
Big Ammo, with all their ballistics experts, cannot calculate an additional 10% of powder charge above the +P?
My pet peeve is certain awesome rounds aren't available for reloading. I would love to hand load some 62 grain federal trophy bonded tipped ammo for my AR. Are you listening, federal?
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