GreenDragon
New member
I wanted to see how much input I can get on this one. Sorry if I'm kinda long-winded here.
It seems to be fairly well agreed on that the bullet weights in the major calibers can be divided into light, medium and heavy categories as follows:
9mm- 115 (lt), 125 (med), and 147 (heavy)
.40- 155, 165, and 180
.45 185, 200, and 230
I realize there are others as well but these are the main ones.
Now, The lighter bullets (basically) get max expansion and the least penetration. The heavy bulletsget a lot of penetration but generally expand less. The middleweights are generally in between. The light bullets are generally used or CCW, the middle for general police duty, and the heavy for more specialized police work (I'm REALLY generalizing here, please don't flame me..)
What I am wondering is why it seems that 80-90% of people recommend the 230 gr JHP for the .45 for almost all applications. It seems to me that for personal defense a 185 gr +p would be the way to go, especially with a slowe moving caliber and especially one that has such an incredible velocity loss from 3-3.5" barrels.
Somebody please explain this to me.
thanks
It seems to be fairly well agreed on that the bullet weights in the major calibers can be divided into light, medium and heavy categories as follows:
9mm- 115 (lt), 125 (med), and 147 (heavy)
.40- 155, 165, and 180
.45 185, 200, and 230
I realize there are others as well but these are the main ones.
Now, The lighter bullets (basically) get max expansion and the least penetration. The heavy bulletsget a lot of penetration but generally expand less. The middleweights are generally in between. The light bullets are generally used or CCW, the middle for general police duty, and the heavy for more specialized police work (I'm REALLY generalizing here, please don't flame me..)
What I am wondering is why it seems that 80-90% of people recommend the 230 gr JHP for the .45 for almost all applications. It seems to me that for personal defense a 185 gr +p would be the way to go, especially with a slowe moving caliber and especially one that has such an incredible velocity loss from 3-3.5" barrels.
Somebody please explain this to me.
thanks