Defensive ammo in a 1911?

I inherited my 1911 from my grandfather who carried it in World War II and Korea. It likes my SD loads (185 grain Hornday XTP) just fine.

Why the guy at your LGS told you that is a mystery to me, but I have learned over the years to do my own research about a product before buying it. I find even with that limited exposure to the product, I often am more aware of the gun, its capabilities and its foibles than many of the clerks behind the counter selling them.
 
Fishbed77 said:
Utter nonsense. Why do people keep perpetuating this myth? It shows a lack of understanding of basic physics.

Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If any round is powerful enough to knock a human-sized target down, it will knock down the human-sized shooter as well.
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Half the story.

Conservation of Momentum dictates recoil on both ends, assuming that the bullet speeds up from zero, and slows down to zero, at ~ the same rate.

For a 230 gr. bullet fired at 860 fps and striking a 180 lb man (with an upper body weight of 90 lbs) in the chest:

0.03286 lb(860 fps) = 90 lb(3-3/4 inches per second)

A shove.

IIRC - Energy is ~ that of getting hit in the chest by a fastball pitch.


Given that, and you replaced that shove or fastball pitch with a 7" KA-BAR knife strike to the chest?




Red
 
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The hard ball 230 grain load was known to knock a man down with one well placed hit.

Utter nonsense. Why do people keep perpetuating this myth? It shows a lack of understanding of basic physics.
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It's not always physics that determines who goes down with a single shot.
Plenty of people have been "knocked down" (out) with a peripheral hit from a .25, in what might be called an "Oh, God, I've been shot" stop.

There was an interesting article on "stopping power" a few years ago, and the guy decided to look past "one shot stops", because he saw incongruous statistics, such as .380 hardball having a higher stop percentage than .45 hardball, so he focused on incidents involving more than one shot, as he wanted to eliminate the stops that were not "ballistic" stops, and he found a much stronger correlation between bullet size and effectiveness in shootings involving more than one hit.
His conclusion was, the first hit might put someone down, or not, regardless of caliber or even hit location, but if you had to keep shooting to end it, the bigger the bullet, the better.
 
Q

What an uninformed "sales clerk". :o Most any somewhat recent 1911 can feed popular self defense ammo. And 1911s wouldn't continue to sell like hotcakes if no one could use JHPs!!

When I was younger, I felt more inclined to give credibility to extreme prejudices and sometimes outright idiocy of macho man gun store "sales clerks". However, with time and also the rise of the internets, which allows us to see countless real tests and stories that go beyond the chalk board, I give them far less credit until they earn it these days.

OP should spend some quality time here:

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests/#45ACP

Luckygunner has provided a great service to the public by conducting these tests in a controlled manner and compling the reports with such professionalism.

You'll notice that some of the +P 185s do QUITE well, such as Barnes TAC-XPD and Remington Golden Saber. Neither of these are forum darlings, but the results speak for themselves. The 185 loads tend to provide lower felt recoil (because physics) even if they produce more muzzle energy, so they are a good choice for a 1911. I favor both of these for my 1911.

The very best defense loads in 45 still tend to be 230 gr, although they also give you a heavier push, slowing follow up shots. So it is up to you to go to the range and decide what matters most to you. For my soft-shooting HK USP 45 with recoil reduction system, I use either Win Ranger 230 T-Series or Federal HST. These are the champions of the current stable. I call this class of bullet Death Stars!!! :eek:
 
Ammo

Defensive ammo??? Sounds like another marketing tool.
Is there, then, “offensive” ammo?
About reliability....yes, you do need to know if and how well a particular type of ammo will work in your gun. Yes, you need to practice as much as you have time and money to do. Beyond that, reliability is a myth.
I have said this before: a firearm is a mechanical device. All mechanical devices will fail sooner or later. There is no way to tell when this failure will occur, only that it will. Shoot 500 trouble free rounds? The is no guarantee that the gun will not ftf on the 501st. In fact, the more trouble free rounds that I put through my gun, the closer I get to the one that does not work.
Every squeeze of the trigger is an act of faith.
Pete
 
According to some .45 fans, you shouldn't actually NEED AMMO. Just show the bad guy the muzzle and he'll either faint or run away leaving a trail of dribble from his pants leg.
 
Heck guys, 230 Ball will knock a man down with a hit anywhere, even on the little finger. Don't yall watch movies?
 
Don't use a 1911 in 45 ACP. It will tear your arm off.

I was told this by:

1. A very large Minnesote moose hunter
2. An army captain about 6' 3"

Both said they fired one and it damn near tore their arms off! :eek:

Couple of weekends ago, I fired about 100 WWB 230 gr rounds from a SW 1911Sc (scandium gun). Still looking for my arm. I'm only 5'6" and 70 years old, I wanted to keep that arm for another 10 years.
 
Defensive ammo??? Sounds like another marketing tool.
Is there, then, “offensive” ammo?
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The price of some ammo offends me mightily!

But, isn't the term "defensive ammo" just a variation of "Personal Defense" "Self Defense", ammo which many of the ammo makers use?

https://www.federalpremium.com/prod...nal-defense/personal-defense-hydrashok/p32hs1

http://www.gunsandammo.com/shoot101/choosing-the-right-self-defense-ammo/

It is a term that speaks to political correctness but ammo is made for various purposes, practice and drills, self defense, hunting, bullseye/target loads, etc.

tipoc
 
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And blows up tanks too!!!
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Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
 
The hard ball 230 grain load was known to knock a man down with one well placed hit.

Utter nonsense. Why do people keep perpetuating this myth? It shows a lack of understanding of basic physics.
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Perhaps it shows a lack of understanding basic physics, but it does explain what people have seen.

Guys gets shot, gets knocked down. (and note that knocked down is not the same as falls down). It DOES happen.

But I don't think it happens, when it does happen (and it doesn't happen every time) because of what many people think. It's not the energy of the bullet that does it. I believe it is the energy of living tissue reacting to the bullet strike. Think of it as an involuntary massive muscle "twitch" that does it.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, shoot a dead animal. All you get is a twitch of the flesh where the bullet impacts. A live animal may react the same way, or it may be "knocked down", knocked off its feet, etc.
or it may react somewhere in between. Its NOT bullet energy alone that does it.
 
I think most of us know that the term "defensive" ammo is often used to distinguish hollow points and the like from full metal jacket or lead round nose rounds, both of which are often called "target" or "range" ammo. It's just short-hand.

And, yes, you can shoot "target" ammo at things other than targets, including at humans. Also, you don't have to limit your use of "range" ammo to the range. Feel free to shoot it anywhere where it's legal. :D
 
Ball rounds had an excellent rep for a thump factor back during the war.

As big as a 9mm expanded. No replacement for displacement, they all fall to hardball!! :cool:
 
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