Pow'r ball ammo
- Thread starter jreXD9
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S_Constitutionist
New member
If your gun wont reliably feed modern JHPs, Pow'rball is a great option. I would much prefer to use Gold Dots, but Pow'rball > FMJ if JHPs choke your gun.
PowRBall is not only about feeding. It's also about the hollowpoint cavity not filling with material like cloth, that hinders expansion. You can think of it in a sense as pre-filling the hollow point cavity with a malleable substance that , on impact will consistently put pressure on the side walls of the round and expand the walls outward.
I've never done any testing on the .45 PoweR'Ball, but I have tested (chronograph & penetration) 9mm, .357 mag and .38 spc +P.
Every PoweR'Ball round I've tried posted impressive velocity / kinetic energy numbers (light weight bullets tend to do that), but performed terribly in the terminal ballistics dept. Jacket separation, fragmentation and poor penetration seemed to be a common trait.
Cor Bon JHP and DPX are a much better choices in my opinion.
Every PoweR'Ball round I've tried posted impressive velocity / kinetic energy numbers (light weight bullets tend to do that), but performed terribly in the terminal ballistics dept. Jacket separation, fragmentation and poor penetration seemed to be a common trait.
Cor Bon JHP and DPX are a much better choices in my opinion.
Kreyzhorse
New member
I've used it in my Springfield 1911 and it feeds fine. It should work well as a SD round too.
I know little to nothing about terminal ballistics, as you’ll be able to tell when you finish reading this. With that said…..
Wouldn’t fragmentation for a self defense round be a good thing? I read a coroners report a few years back on a drug dealer that took three rounds in center of mass from a M4 loaded with Nosler Ballistic Tip .223. The shooter was law enforcement, not sure if it was even in the USA. The report was gruesome to say the least, because it went into such detail. They found parts of the bullet jacket that originally started in the chest area, that traveled upwards and stopped in the cranium. Others that moved downward and exited the groin and buttocks area. Nothing large passed threw, three entrance holes, a few tiny exits. The word “hamburger” was even used in the report. That’s some serious damage.
I may be comparing apples to oranges here with a rifle round and a pistol round. Is that my problem?
Well...the Pow'R'Balls do work, they do expand, they tend to punch deep enough (barely) and the feed reliability is awesome. They tend to spit fast in short barrels. The 9mm version is a Godsend to those with small marginal-feed-reliability guns.
If your piece WILL feed better ammo, there's better choices. But the Pow'R'Ball isn't a bad choice and if there's feed issues, it's maybe your best plan.
If your piece WILL feed better ammo, there's better choices. But the Pow'R'Ball isn't a bad choice and if there's feed issues, it's maybe your best plan.
orionengnr
New member
Awful light for caliber, especially a 165 gr .45 acp.
If your .45 will not feed anything else, I guess it is an option. But I'd rather have a .45 that will feed some appropriate ammo...
If your .45 will not feed anything else, I guess it is an option. But I'd rather have a .45 that will feed some appropriate ammo...
Aguila Blanca
Staff
Good luck. I tried Pow'r Ball in a Dan Wesson 1911. It wouldn't feed ... at all. The rubber tip hit the feed ramp, grabbed hold, and brought the gun to a screeching halt. And the feed ramp on the Dan Wesson was pretty much a mirror polish.
Corbon PowRball....
I do not own or shoot any PowRball ammunition but I'd read a few + posts in forums and saw the brand sells very well.
I'd use PowRball for spare pistol magazines in some calibers. Either that or Federal's EFMJ(expanding FMJ rounds).
ClydeFrog
www.ShopCorbon.com
I do not own or shoot any PowRball ammunition but I'd read a few + posts in forums and saw the brand sells very well.
I'd use PowRball for spare pistol magazines in some calibers. Either that or Federal's EFMJ(expanding FMJ rounds).
ClydeFrog
www.ShopCorbon.com
Fragmentation per se is not a bad thing.
If the fragments end up 12" to 14" deep then hooray.
But usually rounds that fragment end up with insufficient penetration (depending on who who you ask about what constitutes sufficient penetration)
Hey.. maybe we can get the whole Marshal Evans/Ed Sanow vs Dr. Martin Fackler thing going. But if we just want to generally agree with Fackler that rounds that penetrate to 14" in calibrated ballistic gelatin also do well in incapacitating human aggresors, then a lot of rounds that fragment sometimes don't do well in that regard.
If the fragments end up 12" to 14" deep then hooray.
But usually rounds that fragment end up with insufficient penetration (depending on who who you ask about what constitutes sufficient penetration)
Hey.. maybe we can get the whole Marshal Evans/Ed Sanow vs Dr. Martin Fackler thing going. But if we just want to generally agree with Fackler that rounds that penetrate to 14" in calibrated ballistic gelatin also do well in incapacitating human aggresors, then a lot of rounds that fragment sometimes don't do well in that regard.
Gary L. Griffiths
New member
I'm not a believer in .45 cal 165-gr "flying flapjacks." Cor-Bon DPXs in 185-gr is as light as I'm willing to go in .45 if I need less muzzle flip, but my preferred carry round is the Federal 230-gr Tactical Bonded or HST.
OP, my suggestion to you is that you avoid paying too much attention to the fps & kinetic energy numbers that any specific ammo can generate. Light weight bullets are great at posting high kinetic energy numbers, but those impressive numbers rarely translate into good terminal ballistic performance. Heavy bullets, which usually post mediocre fps & KE numbers, will generally have better terminal performance.
It took a lot of chronograph & penetration testing of my own before I finally accepted that reality.
As a data junkie, I chronograph just about every kind of ammo I can get my hands on, but I know better than to use that data as a means of determining how a round actually performs after impact.And by the way, I said earlier that I had not tested any .45 acp PowR'Ball ? I was partially right. I have not done any penetration/expansion testing it, but as I was looking through some of of my old data, I did notice that I have done some chronograph testing on that round (PowR'Ball 165gr .45 +P). The gun used was a Para Carry 45 with a 3" barrel.
fps - 1060
kinetic energy - 412 ft/lbs
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Billy Shears
New member
I shot a bunch of it out of a 1911 a while back. Shot through one gallon jugs filled with water and then into a box filled with soaked newsprint.
The Pow'rBall fed great and had great expansion, almost to the point of disintegration really, but it consistently showed pretty lousy penetration. Worse than anything else I shot, measurably worse even than some .380 loads I shot out of my little LCP.
I'm pretty OCD about this sort of thing so I actually counted the pages.
165 grain Pow'rBall penetrated on average 395 pages of wet newsprint.
230 grain Golden Sabers penetrated on average 615 pages with full expansion.
230 grain Buffalo Bore penetrated nearly 900 pages on average.
230 grain Federal HST was somewhere between the Remington and Buffalo Bore, but I don't have the exact number on me right now.
Now, I realize my little hillbilly backyard ballistics test is hardly up to FBI standards, but the difference in penetration between this load and the proven standbys like Remington Golden Sabers and Federal HST was pronounced. Enough so that I haven't carried any of the Pow'rBall since then.
The Pow'rBall fed great and had great expansion, almost to the point of disintegration really, but it consistently showed pretty lousy penetration. Worse than anything else I shot, measurably worse even than some .380 loads I shot out of my little LCP.
I'm pretty OCD about this sort of thing so I actually counted the pages.
165 grain Pow'rBall penetrated on average 395 pages of wet newsprint.
230 grain Golden Sabers penetrated on average 615 pages with full expansion.
230 grain Buffalo Bore penetrated nearly 900 pages on average.
230 grain Federal HST was somewhere between the Remington and Buffalo Bore, but I don't have the exact number on me right now.
Now, I realize my little hillbilly backyard ballistics test is hardly up to FBI standards, but the difference in penetration between this load and the proven standbys like Remington Golden Sabers and Federal HST was pronounced. Enough so that I haven't carried any of the Pow'rBall since then.
