Defense ammo for short-barreled 45

[corneileous]

If you don't want to be concerned about expansion from a short barrel use Inceptor ammo.

Not to criticize those but how are those not a gimmick round like the G2 rippers and the Liberty Defense frangible rounds supposedly are?


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[Cheapshooter]

Federal HST seems to be a good candadate.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q28V7xQoZjc

 

[Cheapshooter]

most 1911's are designed to fire the 230 gr. hard ball for reliable feeding . That's what I use , 230 grain FMJ.

And FMJ ammo is designed to pass through the target with little damage unless you are lucky enough to hit the spine, or major organs.
Most modern JHP bullets are designed for the same reliability as FMJ with much better on target performance, and much less chance of complete pass through with enough energy to inflict wounds on unintended targets!

 

[corneileous]

any conventional .45 acp will do what you are asking. with the lighter rounds you start losing intermediate barrier penetration. with the lighter rounds (in any handgun caliber) you have less sectional density and less mass to aid in deep penetration. if shooting through car doors, windshields, wood doors, hollow mental doors, mailboxes ect are a reasonable expectation for you then I would advise against a light for caliber round. if somebody breaking into your home or attacking you on the street where you fire relatively close then I don't see why the 165gr. would be a bad choice given your concerns.

Yeah that is something to consider since the majority of my time spent carrying is spent when I’m over the road in the cab of a truck so I can see how heavier rounds would benefit me in the event if I had to shoot through the door to keep somebody from trying to gain access to inside my truck but when you start discussing bullet weight versus how fast it’s traveling, then you get into the debate of well, which is better, harder-hitting or faster flight to ensure maximum penetration and expansion?

Maybe it would be better to just stay with the 230 grain in hopes that it would cover all situations whereas the lighter grain bullet would only be beneficial for certain situations.


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[corneileous]

Federal HST seems to be a good candadate.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q28V7xQoZjc

That’s one of the videos I watched that had me convinced towards the 45 version of the XDE and why I didn’t question myself when I opted for that instead of the 9mil. I figured both versions are light on ammo carrying capacity as it is so why wouldn’t the 45 that packs a lot more punch and creates an almost quarter-sized wound channel not be better? Not knocking the 9mm at all, I’m just saying if it’s only 2 rounds more in an already light ammo capacity handgun, why wouldn’t the 45 not be the better choice? Well, other than not being able to handle the recoil of a large caliber from such a relatively small pistol affecting your bullet grouping.


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[Rockrivr1]

If you contemplate needing to shoot through the cab door you may want to have a spare mag with FMJ rounds. Shooting JHPs through your cab door will have them expanding as they pass through the door and losing a lot of its velocity before it even reaches your intended target.

 

[corneileous]

And FMJ ammo is designed to pass through the target with little damage unless you are lucky enough to hit the spine, or major organs.
Most modern JHP bullets are designed for the same reliability as FMJ with much better on target performance, and much less chance of complete pass through with enough energy to inflict wounds on unintended targets!

Exactly. FMJ’s aren’t a good choice for self defense. In conjunction to what you said, you’re also responsible for wherever that bullet goes and the unintended target it hits as is passes right through the intended one. Hollow points make a much more larger, more violent wound channel that does more damage in hopes of stopping the intended receiver.


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[Aguila Blanca]

Yeah that is something to consider since the majority of my time spent carrying is spent when I’m over the road in the cab of a truck so I can see how heavier rounds would benefit me in the event if I had to shoot through the door to keep somebody from trying to gain access to inside my truck but when you start discussing bullet weight versus how fast it’s traveling, then you get into the debate of well, which is better, harder-hitting or faster flight to ensure maximum penetration and expansion?

What are your truck's doors made of? A 185-grain bullet isn't exactly "light" - it's heavier than anything in 9mm, and heavier than pretty much anything in .40 S&W. Do you really think that a 185-grain .45 projectile wouldn't go through a truck door at pointblank range -- but that a slower-moving 230-grain bullet of the same shape and construction would?

Get yourself a couple of boxes of one of the name brand "short barrel" (or "compact") self defense rounds, shoot one box to satisfy yourself that they feed through your pistol, and carry in safety.

Remember, back in the Prohibition era the 1911 in .38 Super was favored over the 1911 in .45 ACP for the very reason that the .38 Super was better at penetrating automobile sheet metal and glass.

 

[corneileous]

If you contemplate needing to shoot through the cab door you may want to have a spare mag with FMJ rounds. Shooting JHPs through your cab door will have them expanding as they pass through the door and losing a lot of its velocity before it even reaches your intended target.

That would sound like it would make better sense but according to a retired cop friend of mine that I’ve known for years and years, back when he was on his department, they did their own ballistics test and they settled on using the Speer gold dots as their preferred handgun ammunition because those were the best performing ones that held their shape when they were shot through a car door and then expanded once they hit the target.

I think there’s FBI ballistics test that shows the federal HST‘s doing the same thing but as I said as far as their own test that my buddy made along with his fellow officers, the speer gold dots were the ones that had the best barrier protection.


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[corneileous]

What are your truck's doors made of? A 185-grain bullet isn't exactly "light" - it's heavier than anything in 9mm, and heavier than pretty much anything in .40 S&W. Do you really think that a 185-grain .45 projectile wouldn't go through a truck door at pointblank range -- but that a slower-moving 230-grain bullet of the same shape and construction would?

Get yourself a couple of boxes of one of the name brand "short barrel" (or "compact") self defense rounds, shoot one box to satisfy yourself that they feed through your pistol, and carry in safety.

Remember, back in the Prohibition era the 1911 in .38 Super was favored over the 1911 in .45 ACP for the very reason that the .38 Super was better at penetrating automobile sheet metal and glass.

It’s just a 21-year-old Peterbilt 379 but I guarantee you, the doors probably aren’t near as tough as say, a modern day car or pickup truck door on anything manufactured within the last 10, 15 years.

And you’re right, a 185 grain bullet is anything but light but, I was more or less talking about 165 grain. Other than those Remington‘s that was shared, I don’t know of anything else hollow point that’s 185 grain in 45 ACP.

But no, I really wouldn’t think that even a 165 grain hollowpoint would have a hard time passing through this truck door, or even through the much thicker door on my fairly brand new ram pick up. I guess that’s just differing opinions over lightweight bullets compared to the heavyweight ones.


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[44caliberkid]

I have carried a Commander 45 for concealed/ civilian carry probably more than any other handgun. For years (70's and 80's) I used my own handloads with the old Speer 200 gr. JHP (The Flying Ashtray). Then switched to Hornady 185 gr. XTPs, for lower recoil, except I load them north of 1000 fps, so probably wasn't lessening recoil much. Since probably 2015 I've used Remington Golden Sabers 230 gr. I also use 124 gr. Golden Sabers in 9mm.

 

[MisterCrabby]

I edc the xde 45. Gold dots all the way !

 

[jman841]

Test it for yourself. Easiest way to do this is to line up a few milk jugs filled with water and test fire the JHP of choice through your pistol.

Water is the perfect medium for hollow point expansion. If they don't expand in water jugs, the most certainly won't expand in a human or less than perfect target.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

But no, I really wouldn’t think that even a 165 grain hollowpoint would have a hard time passing through this truck door, or even through the much thicker door on my fairly brand new ram pick up. I guess that’s just differing opinions over lightweight bullets compared to the heavyweight ones.

You're dealing with the trade-off between mass and velocity. Keep in mind that energy is what expands a hollow-point. Energy increases linearly as the mass increases, but exponentially as the velocity increases.

The reason +P is wasted in short barrel pistols is that you need barrel length to allow them to get up to full velocity. These new "short barrel" self-defense rounds only started coming onto the market maybe two or three years ago (or so), in response to the growing sales of small, concealable pistols with short barrels. These new rounds are specially designed for optimum performance out of short barrels. The specifics will vary from one manufacturer to another but, in general, the characteristics are different bullets, designed to expand at lower velocity, and (probably) faster powders, to allow the bullets to achieve more velocity before exiting the short barrel.

You can do the math to compare actual muzzle energy, but the Sportsmans Guide web site publishes the velocity and energy for all the ammo they sell. So, for example, look at Remington. In .45 ACP, the regular 230-grain Ultimate Defense has a muzzle velocity of 875 fps and a muzzle energy of 391 ft-lbs. The 185-grain has a muzzle velocity of 1015 fps and energy of 423 ft-lbs.

But those are both out of a "standard" barrel, which for .45 ACP typically means a 5" 1911 barrel. The "Compact" 230-grain has a muzzle velocity of 725 fps, and energy of 268 ft-lbs.

Several years ago, before the advent of this short barrel ammunition, I did some informal comparisons to see how much velocity I was losing by carrying a 1911 Commander (4-1/4" barrel) or Defender (3" barrel) compared to a full-size. Depending on the specific ammunition (I tried several different types), the loss in velocity ranged from 9.45% to 12.85% going from a 5" barrel to a 3" barrel. The highest loss was for the round with the highest velocity out of the 5" barrel, and the least amount of loss was for the round with the lowest velocity out of the 5" barrel.

The formula is E = 1/2 M x V^2 [V squared]

For those Remington rounds, then let's say we reduce the muzzle velocity of the standard 230-grain by 10% for your short barrel. The new velocity would be 788 fps. The resultant muzzle energy would be 317 ft-lbs.

"But," you might say," that's more than the velocity of the short barrel ammo of the same weight." Yes, it is -- but the short barrel ammo has a bullet that's designed to expand reliably at lower velocities. We don't know how reliably the standard 230-grain bullet will expand at 317 feet per second. The muzzle energy will be reduced by 18.9% -- that could be significant.

Looking at the 185-grain standard load, if we reduce the muzzle velocity by 12% we get 893 fps. The resulting muzzle energy is 328 ft-lbs., a drop of 22.5%. It's still more muzzle energy than the short barrel, 230-grain load ... but is it enough to reliably expand the bullet? I don't know. If we want to assume (always dangerous!) that the standard 230-grain and 185-grain bullets are similar in construction, the reduced muzzle energy of the 185-grain bullet is about 16 percent less than the muzzle energy of the standard 230-grain load. Is that enough drop to cause the expansion to become unreliable? I can't answer that.

For what it's worth, in my Officers ACP (3-1/2" barrel) I carry the standard Remington 230-grain. But ... I had it before they came out with the short barrel stuff. When it's time to resupply, I will probably go with the 185-grain ... primarily because I alternate between the 3-1/2" barrel Officers and a 4-1/4" Commander, and I think the standard ammo is better suited for the Commander-size pistol.

For a 3" barrel like a Colt Defender, I would probably go with the short-barrel ammunition. For me, the odds are that I'm a lot less likely to be shooting through a car door than I am to be shooting through nothing other than an asailant's clothing.

 

[corneileous]

I edc the xde 45. Gold dots all the way !

How come you chose the Speer’s? I have nothing against those, I just settled on the HST’s for reasons really unknown other than that they are a highly recommended round.

And well, since Speer makes 230 HP’s for shorty 45’s, are you using those or just regular 45’s?

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[corneileous]

Test it for yourself. Easiest way to do this is to line up a few milk jugs filled with water and test fire the JHP of choice through your pistol.

Water is the perfect medium for hollow point expansion. If they don't expand in water jugs, the most certainly won't expand in a human or less than perfect target.

I’ll have to start saving milk jugs....lol.


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[Aguila Blanca]

Speer Gold Dots are also highly recommended.

 

[TruthTellers]

Not to criticize those but how are those not a gimmick round like the G2 rippers and the Liberty Defense frangible rounds supposedly are?

The G2 RIP is a total gimmick, I see no benefit to a fragmenting bullet, the Liberty stuff is purpose built to never penetrate more than 10 inches.

Inceptor, given it's not relying on a hollow point is just a more repeatable performing bullet that consistently gets 12+ inches with 9mm and larger. Nothing gimmicky about that.

 

[corneileous]

The G2 RIP is a total gimmick, I see no benefit to a fragmenting bullet, the Liberty stuff is purpose built to never penetrate more than 10 inches.

Inceptor, given it's not relying on a hollow point is just a more repeatable performing bullet that consistently gets 12+ inches with 9mm and larger. Nothing gimmicky about that.

Hmm. There’s differing opinions towards the G2 and the Liberty stuff so what makes who leery of anything like that that isn’t a tried and true,
FBI-tested hollow-point to only being leery about certain ones? Out of all those, just the 60 gr 40 S&W Liberty’s is all I’ve tried and wasn’t pleased with them primarily because they were just too light and so far have been the only rounds to make my full-size Beretta Storm ever stove-pipe.

I did try these as well at one point but I figured since they were pretty much they same type of projectile as the Liberty’s, just made from a different material that they were probably only a matter of time away from causing a feed or eject issue so I quit using them.

But why are you so seemingly sold by these? I’m just curious.


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[Hal]

What do you guys think?

Here's what I think.

98% of all fishing lures are meant to catch fishermen - not fish.

230 grain .45acp is what's worked for over 100 years.
I like Federal 230 grain Hydra Shok because - at 25 feet, from my Kimber Target, a magazine (7 shots) goes into a hole about 3/4" in diameter. (just a smidge under the size of a nickel). That's if I take my time.
If I rush things - I lose that - - hole - - aspect & it becomes a group.
I detest groups.

Opps forgot to mention - I also use those in my short barreled S&W Shield that's one of my carry guns.