the fellow's name was Lee Jurras, and his company was Super Vel. Not sure just when he started, but his ammo was showing up on the market in the early 70s, and was essentially the first factory produced loaded ammo using jacketed hollow point bullets.
and, generally speaking, it worked!.
this lead to a market demand for JHP ammo, which, eventually even Rem and Win began to offer JHP bullets in handgun loads. Prior to that, factory loaded handgun ammo came in essentially two flavors. Revolver rounds were loaded with lead bullets and semi auto pistol rounds were loaded with FMJ bullets, only...
handloaders could get and use jacketed soft points or JHP bullets, but until Super Vel "paved the way" none of the big ammo makers offered them in most handgun cartridges. There were a few exceptions, but "service class" cartridges were almost the last ones to get JHP loadings, with pocket gun loads being about the very last.
when all the usual options are lead or FMJ the .45 acp was a well respected round. In fact, back in those days, the .38 Special was regarded as a better "stopper" than the 9mm Luger, because the lead .38 slug might expand a bit while the fmj 9mm would not.
Today, many people focus on the size of the guns, round capacity and cost of the ammo as their primary concerns. Be thankful for the diversity offered today, at one time, choices were much, much more limited.
one note about the .45 costing more than the 9mm, aside from the discount due to volume, the .45 is always going to cost more than smaller rounds, simply because there is more material used in each round. The standard bullet weight of 230gr is double the 9mm 115gr, so yes its going to cost more...no one seems to mention that anymore....
and, generally speaking, it worked!.
this lead to a market demand for JHP ammo, which, eventually even Rem and Win began to offer JHP bullets in handgun loads. Prior to that, factory loaded handgun ammo came in essentially two flavors. Revolver rounds were loaded with lead bullets and semi auto pistol rounds were loaded with FMJ bullets, only...
handloaders could get and use jacketed soft points or JHP bullets, but until Super Vel "paved the way" none of the big ammo makers offered them in most handgun cartridges. There were a few exceptions, but "service class" cartridges were almost the last ones to get JHP loadings, with pocket gun loads being about the very last.
when all the usual options are lead or FMJ the .45 acp was a well respected round. In fact, back in those days, the .38 Special was regarded as a better "stopper" than the 9mm Luger, because the lead .38 slug might expand a bit while the fmj 9mm would not.
Today, many people focus on the size of the guns, round capacity and cost of the ammo as their primary concerns. Be thankful for the diversity offered today, at one time, choices were much, much more limited.
one note about the .45 costing more than the 9mm, aside from the discount due to volume, the .45 is always going to cost more than smaller rounds, simply because there is more material used in each round. The standard bullet weight of 230gr is double the 9mm 115gr, so yes its going to cost more...no one seems to mention that anymore....
