which ammo would you buy?

SWglockmagnum

Moderator
yeah this isn't the typical "what ammo is the best" question...

lets say you had 2 pistols. an LCP380 and a taurus PT809 9mm tactical pistol with light and laser.

you carry the lcp380 and the taurus sits next to your bed at night.

you are COMPLETELY out of ammo- BUT YOU HAVE MONEY FOR ONE BOX OF GOLD-DOT AMMO.

would you buy 1 box of .380 ammo for your concealed handgun, or would you buy 1 box of 9mm ammo for the gun by your night stand?

i'd appreciate it if you answer BEFORE you read anyone else's comments so as not to sway your own opinion!



go for it.. lol

thx
 
Would you carry the 9mm if it's the one you chose to get ammo for? If so, then buy the 9mm ammo. If not, buy the .380 ammo - that way, you'll have ammo for when you're out and about, and you can keep the .380 on the nightstand when you're home.
 
Buy it for your carry and keep it on the nightstand. With kids in the house the wife is all about me keeping the rest in the safe. So it goes from the pocket to the nightstand.
 
For me, its the .380. Reason being you could carry it and then put it on your nightstand at night. You couldn't carry that 9mm with all your tactical trash hanging off of it very easily.

EDIT: LOL, So far it's as one sided as I figured it would be.
 
I don't really understand the dilemma. You can buy either the 9mm or .380 and then use that same gun for both carry and bedside.
 
lol thx.... pretty much the same conclusion i came up with, i guess the only considerations i had were the following.

the 380 carries 6+1 in weapon and 6 in the second clip.

the 9mm, i can take all of the extra crap off of, but it's still a large cumbersome gun to conceal and still be able to bend, sit, stand, etc without it poking me places i don't want it to poke me.. (granted some people conceal 6" 1911's, but i've yet to master said art) but... it carries 17+1 and 17 in the second clip..

a box of this ammo is 25 rds so i'd have one full clip and one with 7 rds in it.

so for that reason both have advantages and disadvantages to carry or for protection.

as for the light and laser, (for the person who respectfully called it crap) it definitely helps to add additional intimidation if needed, vs something small like the 380 that you really cant distinguish from a 22 on low light, and lets face it.... a larger guy would laugh at a 22 and would see it as less of a threat as a larger gun that may very well be a desert eagle for all he knows, or at least a glock. 9 or 40 / which of course creates a huge intimidation factor (if the person is in any sort of coherent state of mind in which he would notice the weapon) which may lead to him submitting vs the unthinkable (for most people) alternative. at least that's what i tell myself.

the part from men in black where will smith discovers the "noisy cricket" comes to mind.

actually, i had a friend who had his house broken into. His neighbor's across the street had a son who was in prison when they moved into that house. a year or two later, he was released after serving 10 years in the pen for breaking an entering, RAPING the 16 year old girl who lived there and also attempted murder of the girl's father via gunshot. not necessarily in that order. one night, my friend, his (very attractive blonde) wife and his 7 year old daughter were asleep. he heard a crash downstairs from his door being kicked in and his alarm chime and his bedroom panel started blinking. He had his system set to be silent, though his door chime goes off when it is opened... He went for his tactical Hi-point 9mm carbine and peaked his head down the stairwell to check it out.

he saw the guy standing in his kitchen with a chrome 1911 in his right hand and a paper sack with a tall boy in his left. He put the laser on the guy's forehead, screamed at him to put the gun down and get on the floor.. the guy was p!ss drunk, but put the gun on the floor and pushed it to him across the tile floor and got on his stomach.. of course since his alarm went off, he got a call from the cops, which his wife answered and notified them of the situation - and that both parties were armed.

all the guy said was " AH **** DAWG, WE COOL? WE COOL?"

"NO mother********** we're NOT cool... lay your *** down, the cops will be here in a few minutes......... DONT ****** MOVE!!!.....

sure enough, the cops showed up to see him pointing his carbine at the middle of the dude's back. told him to drop his weapon, he dropped the mag, unchambered the round secured his weapon and set it down and stepped away from it...

took the guy back to prison to serve another 15 years. of course he's due to get out in considerably less with good behavior. Thy're looking to move before he does.

moral of that story is, this dude, over some kind of dispute they had, broke into a man's home, shot him then raped his 16 year old daughter -repeatedly- then left. she called the cops after he left. Only reason it wasn't manslaughter was because the victim lived to tell the story. They tracked him down, put him in prison, then no time at all after he gets out of prison tried the exact same thing on an unsuspecting neighbor because he thought the guy's wife was hot! and mentioned it to him no less than 3 or 4 times in the week or so prior.

tell me this.....

if my friend pulled out an LCP.380, do you think this dude would have dropped his 1911? yeah right.... he'd have gotten shot, or at least shot at... and a gun battle would have taken place in his living room, stray bullets flying all over the place.

The laser is what did it before the fact the intruder realized that the home owner was carrying a tack driving "mini assault rifle" with an extended clip, night vision and a hair trigger...

so for the 1 person who said "tactical crap" just keep this story in mind...

intimidation is HUGE in detouring a blazing gun battle............

Then again, so is proper training...

so that's why i keep the tactical crap on my 9mm.. i'm not one of those "i play halo and want my guns to look just like the game" type of person. I see it for the fact that swat, and military use it for various reasons, so, it's worth it for me to do so as well in case of similar situations... like a low light invasion which is what most of them are.

but as far as the original post........

i'll probably go with .380 ammo because it is the one i carry, i can't carry that big 9mm on my person. it's winter everywhere else in the world, so if i were anywhere else, i could stuff it in my coat, but. it's been t-shirt weather here lately..

and, i used to keep the .380 on my night stand, and despite everything i just said, i do tend to prefer it to be there over the 9mm simply because of the size of it..

other than that, i don't have any kids around, no guests, no pets to jump up there and knock it off, and anyone i do have over, i know well and they don't go into my bedroom / and they all know how to handle a weapon properly, as we go shooting fairly often. When i do leave for an extended amount of time, their either both with me, or locked up and very well hidden.

just thought i'd throw that in there.

i guess my only REAL issue with all of it is that this ammo will never be used. i can't use it at the range, so whatever i get i'm stuck with for life. and it's more likely that i'll end up with MORE 9mm's but not more .380's, so i take that into consideration as well. i may end up selling that .380 eventually...


just thoughts i guess.
 
I tried and tried, but I couldn't answer the question.

I just don't let myself run out of ammo (for anything).

..But I'd probably put the utilitarian firearm ahead of the bed-side-only firearm. I guess that means it would be .380 ammo.
 
Interesting story. I still say get the box of .380. And if your range won't let you practice with your carry ammo you need a new range. Also, just curious, if you can't shoot defense ammo it the range, how did you run out of it? Not trying to imply anything, just asking.
 
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flopsweat brings up a very interesting question.. good catch! actually, i spent the rounds at my dad's land showing my niece and nephew how to shoot a pistol at the request of my sister and her husband. They had their 22 rifle and 410 with them and were plinking around, and she asked if i'd let them shoot mine, so i taught them how to properly use, aim, secure and handle a pistol. it was a fun day actually. my little .380 was a perfect size for them, and i shot the 9mm - which actually has less recoil but the grip was a little large for them to handle what i would consider -safely-. they did well!

but, with that, the land is several hours away, so it's not someplace i go very often just to unload rounds,

and for those who mentioned it, yeah... i really do need to find a new range, these guys are a little bit anal about just about everything. I suppose they kind of have to be though, it gets incredibly crowded out there, sometimes to the point of having to wait for a bench to open up, even in the middle of the day on a weekend.

Here's the funny part, and i don't fully understand the logic behind it.

You cannot use hollow points for the pistol range, but you cannot use FMJ at the rifle range.

the rifle range makes sense because the bullet doesn't really crunch when you hit a 3/8" thick piece of particle board, and if you miss, can go on for up to a mile depending upon the gun, whereas a hollow point rifle round will smash and slow down substantially (according to them anyway, i wouldn't know precisely, or if it's true scientifically)

but a hollow point pistol round may slow too much and ricochet - or, maybe it just tears up their target backboard too much to riddle it with expanding bullets....

i don't really know for sure.

their psycho though.

during a cease fire, they tell you - secure your weapons, if you need a target from your bench get it NOW and step behind the line, DO NOT go back to your bench for any reason.

once they have personally checked every single weapon drill sgt style, they say "go to your target now, do not go back to your bench, DO NOT cross the yellow line..

so you go back to the target and re-hang, and go back behind the line...

inevitably SOME idiot will put something on their bench

I SAID DONT GO BACK TO YOUR BENCH.. GET BACK BEHIND THAT LINE RIGHT NOW! and they'll start yelling at them for it.....

then they check over the range several times to make sure no one's on it and commence firing.

yea........ it's all for safety, and i totally get that. but they are a little extreme about it.

"we've never had an accident"

i can think of a lot of ranges that have never had an accident, and are nowhere near as strict.

i mean these guys are to the point where, even if you have your guns unloaded, cased, and are walking out the door with them, if they call a cease fire, you have to set your weapons, weapons cases, ammo bags, etc down on the ground and wait until the cease fire is over before you can resume... even if you're 2 feet from the door.

failure to do so can get you kicked off the range.

if you conceal, you need to remove the weapon from your hiding place and put them on the ground....

failure to do so will get you kicked off the range. --if they know....

if you show up while they're in a cease fire, you can run out there and put your targets up, but you cannot take your weapon out to the range, it has to stay in the office where they "watch it for you" otherwise you're waiting another 30 minutes for the next cease fire before you can hang targets.

granted, most people at the range are honest people and won't steal your stuff but everyone in the office is in their 70's or 80's and as nice as they are (sometimes), i really don't trust their observational skills to keep my guns safe while i'm out hanging targets.

there are tons of ranges here, the only reason i go to this one is because its closer to my mom and step father's house, and he and i go shooting on occasion. but it is a good hour away from me and overcrowded usually.

oh yeah.... the other thing is you have to wait at least 1 second between shots. no quick shooting, no shooting from the hip, no drills, no nothing. so it makes it hard to practice stuff like that.

the only way i can do that is at home with a (verified to be) unloaded weapon at home. lol which brings me to a final thought.

Is anyone else this anal about gun safety?

any time i get my gun, i of course check to see if it's loaded or not, pop the clip out, unchamber, make sure it's totally unloaded.... tell whomever i'm talking about it - about it, check to make sure it's unloaded again, then again, then hand it to them... tell them to make sure it's unloaded... take it back from them, check to make sure it's unloaded, talk for a while, make sure it's unloaded, anytime a weapon is anywhere near me, i check it at least a dozen times almost compulsively. almost as if a bullet may manifest in the weapon for some reason magically.

i have never understood how people can shoot themselves or others in a "gun cleaning accident"

i have never tried to clean a loaded weapon...... ever. lol

everyone knows that your work bench should be 100% free of ammo to prevent any sort of accident.. you unload it, put the ammo AWAY lock it up... especially if the gun is going to be sitting on your bench for a bit while it's in pieces or whatever. remove all possibility of it ever becoming loaded lol.

i guess it happens though... or people blame it on gun cleaning, and bleeding hearts use it as an excuse to ban guns.
 
I'd change careers, because if all I can afford is one box of ammo something is wrong:)

I'd buy for my CC weapon. If I can't practically carry the 9 under most circumstances, then I'd buy for the .380. If I can carry the 9, I'd buy for the 9.
 
SW, seriously, these guys are like the Soup Nazi* but with guns. This is all of the worst range rules rolled into one, then wrapped in idiocy and sauteed in melodrama. There has to be a better place somewhere near you. Check here: http://wheretoshoot.org/

*Godwin's Law does not apply - this is a Seinfield reference.
 
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