There is only one reason to fire at another human being. That is to stop a threat. The threat must be so great that the only means of stopping violent action is to fire. It must not matter morally or legally if the individual dies as a result of being shot. This is serious business that demands care when choosing the handgun and its ammunition for personal defense.
It may be debated which is the more important. The handgun is simply a projectile launcher in some ways, but in other ways it is important to choose a proper handgun. Ammunition selection is also important. Although some downplay caliber selection—erroneously I believe—with good shot placement calibers such as 9mm and .38 Special may be effective.
The single most important criteria of wound potential is penetration. When a small caliber performs beyond expectation it is because it penetrated well. When a big bore fails, it is usually because of poor penetration. I am very careful concerning recommendations. The following observations are valid, I believe, and the loads examined are reliable and offer good performance.
The Problem of Wound Potential
When an expanded .45 enters the arterial region, all events are canceled. Given adequate penetration, a blunt nose that causes damage to tissue and blood loss, many calibers and ammunition combinations have the potential to perform in a similar manner. The desired result is a shutdown of the threat as quickly as possible.
Historically, larger calibers are more effective than small calibers. Many of these large bore handguns also use heavier bullets. I believe, in most cases, the heavy-for-the-caliber bullet is a good choice. While lighter bullets may be driven at a higher velocity, this isn’t always desirable.
Energy favors velocity, but momentum favors weight. Bullet expansion is also desirable but never at the cost of penetration. A felon may be heavily clothed, as in heavy winter clothing. Our protein fed ex-con criminal class may be heavily muscled and they may be large heavy individuals.
Bone is hard and not easily penetrated. A round-nosed bullet may bounce off bone. Even the best-designed hollow point bullets may close up on striking bone or plug with material and fail to expand.
The single most important function of wound potential is shot placement. Next comes penetration. While heavy-for-the-caliber bullets may be slower in comparison, most achieve well over 1,000 fps. This is sufficient to instigate expansion with modern designs such as the Hornady XTP and Speer Gold Dot.
A balance of expansion and penetration is needed, with 12 inches a realistic minimum for personal defense. You must look at the total wound value. A rapidly-expanding bullet may produce a shallow, but wide, wound while a deep penetrating bullet that expands to an extent will produce a larger total wound along its path. This means greater wound damage and greater blood loss.
Caliber Choices
Calibers below .38 Special and 9mm Luger do not have sufficient power to achieve both penetration and expansion. If you bet your life on a small bore, then it isn’t an even bet at all. The 9mm and .38 Special are realistic minimum calibers for personal defense.
Test Results and Choices
.38 Special
The original .38 Special loading was a 158-grain RNL bullet at 750 fps. This is no powerhouse. The RNL bullet simply pushed flesh aside rather than cutting. There are plenty of records concerning this load. Performance leaves much to be desired earning the title widow maker in police service.
Most attempts at improving the .38 Special revolved around changing the bullet shape to produce a more complex wound. By dropping bullet weight to 110 to 125 grains, the .38 Special could obtain a velocity over 1,000 fps. This was thought necessary for bullet expansion. Sometimes these bullets underpenetrate. The use of a soft lead hollow point allows expansion at lower velocity with a full weight 158-grain lead hollow point. Bullet technology also allows good bullet expansion at less than 1,000 fps with jacketed bullets of good design.
.38 Special Load Choices
If you are using a K frame revolver or a .357 Magnum revolver for personal defense, among the best choices available is the Buffalo Bore 158-grain LSWCHP. This load offers good expansion and excellent penetration. Recoil is stout, as the load breaks 980 fps in a two-inch barrel, but the result is getting the tired old .38 Special off of its knees. In four-inch barrel revolvers, velocity may be as much as 1,050 fps. The soft lead bullet isn’t jacketed allowing good upset at modest velocity.
Gold Dot Technology
The Speer Gold Dot isn’t a lightweight personal defense load but at 135 grains, it is lighter than some. This load breaks over 900 fps in a snub nose revolver. This is impressive. Recoil is manageable, and the Gold Dot expands well in testing. This is a consistently expanding load that is among the best loads available for snub nose revolvers.
9mm Luger
I have tested more 9mm loads than other calibers because the 9mm is everyone’s cartridge and makes a giant footprint in the market. This is a powerful number with good performance—in the right loading. The 9mm has posted dismal results with non-expanding loads. Sometimes, lightweight bullets under penetrate. We train not for the average event but for the worst-case scenario. The 147-grain load provides a balance of expansion and penetration that favors penetration.
The 135-grain weight is a fairly new weight choice in 9mm with much promise. The FBI recently adopted Hornady’s 135-grain Critical Duty. This is a loading with an ideal balance of penetration and expansion that meets or exceeds all FBI Standards.
Speer Gold Dot 147-grain
Speer’s 147-grain Gold Dot is an accurate loading that has functioned well in all 9mm handguns I have tested. Expansion is greater than most 147-grain loads. The Gold Dot offers excellent barrier penetration. A good point of the Gold Dot is first class accuracy potential. This loading breaks 980 fps from the Glock 45 and 940 fps from the Mossberg MC1.
Winchester 147-grain PDX
At 940 fps, this load is controllable and accurate. Penetration is good and while expansion is modest the load demonstrates good load integrity with little unburned powder. Penetration is long and expansion is .46.
Federal 147-grain HST
Also available in a +P version with a 50 fps super charge, the HST offers greater expansion than other 147-grain loads. Penetration is good at over 1,000 fps. This load is a fast loading. For those who decry modest expansion in a 147-grain 9mm, the HST is an answer.
Federal 135-grain Hydra-Shok Deep Penetrating
This load features a balance of expansion and penetration that favors penetration. The bullet expands well and offers good penetration. Expansion is, on average, greater than the 147-grain loads while giving up little in terms of penetration.
Hornady 135-grain Critical Duty
The choice of the FBI, the 1,050 fps Hornady load is controllable, even docile, to fire. Performance is excellent across the board in all respects. At 1,060 to 1,080 fps in the test handguns, this load is controllable. Barrier penetration is predictably excellent all around. There is no more heavily tested 9mm load in history.
Fiocchi 147-grain JHP
I have often used this loading as a practice load for any 9mm that deploys the 147-grain JHP. The Fiocchi loading is high quality, accurate, and affordable. Fifty-round boxes are little more expensive than most 20 round 9mm JHP boxes. The Fiocchi load breaks about 940 fps average in a wide range of handguns. Penetration is in line with most 147-grain loads and expansion .46 on average. There are other loads including the Remington 147-grain Golden Saber and Double Tap 147-grain JHP that offer promise.
Double Tap 165-grain 9mm — King of the Heavies
Double Tap offers a heavy 9mm with a 115-grain JHP loaded over a 50-grain round nose lead bullet. This load depends on the principle of multiple hits causing more damage and shutting the body down. At modest velocity—965 fps—the 115-grain JHP expands less than fast stepping loads and the 50-grain ball trails behind. This is a load worth considering.
.357 Magnum
Much of the research in .357 Magnum personal defense loads revolved around 110- to 125-grain loads. There are issues with bullet pull and firearms wear, but these loads—especially the 125-grain loads—offer proven wound potential. Just the same, I prefer heavier bullets for most chores.
Muzzle blast and even recoil are less with the heavier bullets, in my opinion, and they offer an excellent balance of expansion and penetration. Take a hard look at these loads. While velocity was clocked from a four-inch barrel revolver, those using a six-inch barrel revolver will find ever-greater performance. As an example, the six-inch barrel Model 19 clocked over 1,300 fps with the 158-grain Winchester Ammunition loading.
Hornady Critical Duty
I was surprised Hornady offered a duty load in .357 Magnum at this stage of the game with practically all service weapons these days being self-loaders. This is a modified version of the 9mm service bullet with a tougher construction for magnum velocity. The Critical Duty relies on a polymer plug to instigate expansion. This load is as fast as most 125-grain loads at 1,405 fps. Yet, it offers a full 18 inches of penetration and good expansion. Accuracy is excellent.
Winchester Silvertip
This is among my favorite loads in any caliber. The 145-grain Silvertip is what the magnum is about, in my opinion, with 1,290 fps and excellent momentum and penetration. Considering flash, blast, recoil, accuracy, and overall performance, I prefer this load to the 125-grain JHP. It is also among the most accurate .357 Magnum loads I have tested.
Federal 180-grain JHP
This is the heaviest bullet tested in .357 Magnum. Velocity is 1,060 fps in the four-inch barrel L frame revolver and a strong 1,171 fps in the six-inch barrel Model 19. Before you write the Federal 180-grain load off as over penetrative, take a look at the chart and its expansion. If you have seen what this load does to a deer, your opinion may change.
.40 Smith and Wesson
The .40 S&W arguably needs less help than most calibers. .40 loads were designed from the beginning for penetration against barriers. The .40 was also the first cartridge designed specifically for JHP bullets. 180-grain JHP loads offer a good balance of expansion and penetration with gelatin penetration running 18-20 inches and expansion .68 to .72 inch.
The Hornady 180-grain XTP is a standout. Accuracy is good, and the load is viable for defense against felons behind cover or even for animal defense. The Winchester 180-grain PDX is comparable.
10mm
The 10mm was originally introduced with a 200-grain bullet. Today, there are loads from 135 to 200 grains. I think the 200-grain bullet is the best choice for a full power 10mm.
The Speer 200-grain Gold Dot was introduced recently, and this loading demonstrates excellent penetration at over 20 inches and good expansion. The Gold Dot breaks 1,180 fps in the SIG 10mm. I prefer this bullet weight to the 155- and 180-grain loads. The Gold Dot load gets into desirable territory not only for personal and home defense and defense against feral animals.
.45 ACP
Some years ago, I read a professional report that calculated hit probability of major police weapons including .38 and .357 revolvers and the 9mm and .45 ACP handgun. This report also stressed the superiority of the 230-grain .45. Many of the loads available today were not available then, but just the same, I feel that the 230-grain JHP offer the best choice for the .45 ACP in all barrel lengths.
Among the best choices is the Federal 230-grain HST. This load offers a good balance of expansion and penetration. The 230-grain weight is the weight originally intended for the .45 ACP and it functions well in all handguns. Hornady offers a 230-grain +P version at over 900 fps. Recoil becomes a factor with the +P load but it is a viable option in steel frame handguns.
Remington Black Belt
This loading is an improvement over an already outstanding design. The Golden Saber is the basis for the present Black Belt. The design uses the jacket, a brass covering, for expansion, which is different than most projectiles.
The Black Belt aids in gripping the barrel for accuracy. This is an accurate load with a good balance of expansion and penetration.
Hornady 220-grain Critical Duty
In this case Hornady dropped the traditional bullet weight a reasonable 10 grains to increase standard .45 ACP velocity from 850 to 1,000 fps. The result is a loading with plenty of power and penetration, good expansion, and modest recoil. This is arguably one of the best service loads available.
Take a hard look at heavy for the caliber bullets. Some are standard bullet weights others are heavier than standard, and all offer viable performance.
Average Penetration and Expansion In Water Media
Load |
Velocity |
Penetration |
Expansion |
---|---|---|---|
.38 Special |
|||
Buffalo Bore 158-grain LSWCHP | 983 fps | 16 in. | .58 |
Speer 135-grain Gold Dot | 905 fps | 13 in. | .62 |
9mm |
|||
Speer 147-grain Gold Dot | 970 fps | 20 in. | .68 |
Federal 147-grain HST | 1,006 fps | 22 in. | .68 |
Federal 135-grain DP | 1,035 fps | 22 in. | .79 |
Fiocchi 147-grain JHP | 952 fps | 24 in. | .46 |
Fiocchi 147-grain JHP | 952 fps | 24 in. | .46 |
Winchester 147-grain JHP | 940 fps | 23 in. | .54 |
Double Tap 147-grain JHP | 1,120 fps | 22 in. | .55 |
Double Tap 165-grain Equalizer | 965 fps | 23 in. | .54 |
Ball | —– | 16-18 inches average | —– |
.357 Magnum |
|||
Hornady 135-grain Critical Duty | 1,400 fps | 18 in. | .62 |
Winchester 158-grain JHP | 1,180 fps | 18 in. | .68 |
Winchester 145-grain Silvertip | 1,290 fps | 16 in. | .70 |
Federal 180-grain JHP | 1,099 fps | 19 in. | .72 |
.40 S&W |
|||
Hornady 180-grain XTP | 980 fps | 20 in. | .70 |
Remington 180-grain Golden Saber | 968 fps | 15 in. | .65 |
Winchester 180-grain PDX | 980 fps | 16 in. | .68 |
10mm |
|||
Speer 200-grain Gold Dot | 1,180 fps | 24 in. | .66 |
CCI Blazer 180-grain | 1,050 fps | 20 in. | .60 |
.45 ACP |
|||
Hornady 230-grain XTP +P | 909 fps | 16 in. | .70 |
Remington 230-grain Black Belt | 845 fps | 20 in. | .68 |
Hornady 220-grain Critical Duty | 970 fps | 14 in. | .71 |
Note: Gelatin results will usually be about 10 percent less in penetration compared to water testing.
Have you tested your personal defense ammunition? Did you test it in water? If not, how? Share your answers in the comment section.
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Steve T Lynch says
Anything bonded in 10mm
Ed Arnold says
The exceptional ballistics of the Buffalo Bore .38 Special load is probably due to the use of a lubricated lead bullet. Bore friction takes a toll on velocity in revolvers, and jacketed bullets have a lot more drag.
Steve Z. says
As a hunter I have always found that heavy for caliber bullets at modest velocities give better, more reliable penetration and provide plenty of expansion. As a mathematician I realize energy give double the value to velocity, ie. mass x velocity x velocity but momentum gives equal weighting to mass and velocity, ie. mass x velocity. I have found momentum a much better indicator of performance.
Snake Pleskin says
Same old lame arguments, it seems some people never get it. Most of the world uses 9mm,for good reason. It is well balanced in all respects. The avg person is not sending 5000 rds down range each year,period. Like it or not none of the rounds listed do squat if you can not hit the target properly. When using a pistol of any kind the factors of hit probability is more important than anything else. no hit, zero,zilch,nada results! Therefore it is necessary to carefully balance the load used with,firearm used,training or lack of ,expected type of engagement etc. The perpetrator that soaks up 4 body center hits from a reasonable round,be it 38 to 45 is few and far between. There is always an exception, but that is what they are,exceptions. If you live in such dire fear of this individual I suggest you stay home, and shop on line! Then you won’t have to deal with them ever unless they try and break into your home and then if you have any brains you won’t be using a handgun to defend yourself. The ammunition of today is purpose built and designed to perform across many factors to get the job done. A 22lr will kill you dead as dirt with two in the frontal lobe,but I don’t recommend it unless you have nerves of steel and an iron set of balls! Does it work,? Absolutely,used them in Nam to great effect and never had anyone get up and walk away. I recommend,from my own personal experience in govt. (Dod,dia,dse,spb) taking out the “trash” in various parts of the globe, that you get comfortable with what ever platform you choose, and we used many, so that you can hit with it under severe stress,every single time,without fail. If you do your job, the tools you have will do their job. We worked close, discreet and with purpose. Many people today carry a firearm who probably shouldn’t. They are not prepared for the realities of violent encounters nor are they trained to respond or have the mental aptitude and attitude that will allow them to engage and survive. Yes,all the macho arm chair commandos not with standing,please, we buried alot of them with their custom platform,high end plus p load, and self taught training!! Surprise and immediate violent action trumps a big mouth and wannabe equipment every time. The bad guy is not going to play fair,does not care what firearm you have etc. They will take and use every advantage,meaning you best bet for surviving a violent encounter is to learn how to avoid them in the first place! Self awareness and situational awareness has saved more people than a firearm ever has.
EET says
Defenses of 9mm almost always start by considering the aspect of marksmanship, which has no relation to the topic of caliber comparison. Calibers are equipment, marksmanship is shooter related. It is then followed up by claiming the worse case scenario is not common. In these two arguments, 9mm apologists inadvertently admit that the 9mm is not as effective as other larger chamberings, as their only defenses of 9mm are irrelevant to the topic of caliber comparison in the first place. No one, not even 9mm users ever claim that a 9mm is more effective than a 40S&W for example.
If we are honest, the 9mm is not the most effective option out there. We only choose it because it is the cheapest option that works pretty well most of the time. At the end of the day, cost really is the only aspect that matters for most people. If you truly believe that it isn’t about penetration, but is about capacity and low recoil to put as many rounds on target, and you insist it isn’t cost that is guiding your decision, guess what? You still wouldn’t choose a 9mm as your top option. You would choose 5.7x28mm or 22TCM which provide less than half the recoil of 9mm, and same or greater capacity in a much lighter weight package (making it excellent for conceal carry and reducing that belt digging in your hips)
9mm users choosing it because they are hoping it will be good enough, and it probably will, but maybe it won’t. As gun carrying individuals in a safe first world country like the US, we are extremely unlikely to ever need our gun in our entire lifetime, however we are not people who believe in averages. We are responsible people who prepare for the worst case scenario and not just hope the best case happens to us. Any serious shooter should grow out of the 9mm phase as soon as they can. Excuses of capping your skill level of not being good enough to shoot a stronger caliber, is no excuse. Train harder, your life or someone else’s could depend on it. If you refuse to train to the higher level, leave the gun at home, you won’t have the skills when you need them.
Something people don’t realize, a bad shooter actually cannot shoot a 9mm any faster than a 45 or even 357 magnum. It is not until people learn the proper weapon handling skills to allow NPOA to bring the sights back on target does the lower recoil advantage of the 9mm come into play. And at that point the advantage of 9mm’s lower recoil begins to have diminishing returns because when one can shoot a 9mm faster, it also means they can shoot a stronger caliber faster. Competition shooters all use 9mm because it will always be faster than a larger caliber, there is no reason to use anything else. But it should be reminded that competition shooters could not care less about terminal ballistics at a match. A different discipline than carrying for defense or duty. While it is a flawed mindset from the get go to believe one is going to have a gun for self defense without the determination to train to an expert level, if one is going to carry a gun and they cannot afford the opportunity to train regularly, they actually should be carrying the strongest caliber they can shoot, because the cold hard truth is that if they can get a shot, chances are they will only be able to get one off. People severely underestimate how fast and short a fight really is, a big reason why I think there needs to be a lot more force on force schools, rather than paper target training that one really could do on their own time at the range.
hwillams says
Excellent reply, truly well thought out.
Thanks for reading!
HW
Docduracoat says
I agree with your statement that force on force training is the best kind.
Not only is Paintball great fun, but it really teaches you what it is like to try to shoot at someone who is shooting back at you.
Running from cover to cover, and Shooting on the move is excellent practice.
As a medical Doctor Who sees plenty of gunshot wounds in the operating room,
I believe that all the common handgun calibers are equally effective (Or not effective) using modern hollow point bullets.
The exception is 380 caliber where round nose and flat nose bullets seem more effective because hollow points in that caliber expand too early causing too little penetration.
Handguns or not death rays, and if you really want to kill someone shoot them with a rifle!
EET says
Definitely there is a disparity between the power of handguns and rifles. We only choose a handgun because a rifle cannot be as compact. It is true in light of this that a handgun calibers in comparison to a rifle, all perform similarly. For the vast majority of shooters who just use what they happen to have, definitely I would not feel destined to die, even if I just had a 22LR pocket pistol. I’ll make it work.
However, what seems to be lost is that the above is a worse case situation. If we have the choice, I see absolutely no reason to not use as much power as we train ourselves to use. It is exactly because handguns are not as powerful as rifles that the importance of getting as much effectiveness to start with is important. Due to the fact that self defense engagements are close range and there is less leeway for errors in terminal ballistics as opposed to most situations a rifle would be used (if it takes even just 1 more shot to stop, is the time to take that extra shot going to mean the difference between a bad guy being able to pull a trigger or poke you with a knife? Even if the bad guy eventually stops/dies, if we get hurt in the process, we didn’t really “win”). Even a small difference between handgun calibers can turn out to be important to the outcome.
There are plenty of instances where handgun calibers have straight up failed to do their job, even when they previously have served fine. These aren’t really rare occurrences, they are fairly common because the reality is that we will not be able to consistently hit “vitals” in all situations as often as we can on the range. This tells me that in spite of raw skill, terminal ballistics are still an important consideration (just not the only) when using handguns outside of offensive uses (offensive uses being like the military where you can be more sure of the shot placement because you choose the fight conditions, one reason I believe SOF have good success with FMJ 9mm in non-permissible environments while LE in peace keeping roles historically have not had as great luck). The extremely poor historical performance of 9mm and 38 Special (basically 9mm) until heavy weight bullets and hollow points were adopted (which was not typically seen with 45ACP or 357 magnum) tells me that although one can have success with any caliber, there is a significant tendency to have greater chance of success the more effective your output is. As such, there is a significant difference (even if small) between caliber choices and loadings, and because of the high demands of a self defense situation, that small difference can be important.
Even though I believe there are differences in performance between handgun calibers and loadings, gunshot wounds are qualitatively pretty similar in spite of this. I view this as a failure of qualitative assessments in terminal ballistics. As an example, pretty much all rifle rounds appear to look similar when shot in gel, however hunters (who have very consistent shot placement due to hunter ethics) do collectively seem to notice trends in the terminal effectiveness between loading, even when the permanent cavity of the gel appears identical and the bullet cleanly penetrates through the game. As a doctor, you see first hand how much damage a gun can do as opposed to a knife or an impact weapon, but as far as comparison purposes between firearms, GSW are like finger prints, they are almost unique in their situation and rarely will you encounter two perfectly identical situations from which a comparison can be made. Additionally, naturally the patients you come across are also those who have been stabilized to some extent with a chance to live. Those who are DRT, probably won’t be seen by you, but that is often the kind of performance we are interested in. Ballistics gel gives us that repeatable frame of reference, but the issue is being able to determine how accurately that ballistics gel coincides with the conditions bullets encounter in human bodies (which adds another variable, as people are built different). Difficulty in evaluating less than lethal options in LE is an excellent example that mirrors this problem. While there have been many attempts by large departments, to date there is not a real universal standard for comparing the effectiveness of calibers in GSW. At the end of the day, we can’t really say what is end all be all requirements for self defense loading. To me, this further empathizes why we should not fall into the false sense of security that any caliber is “good enough” when there is not any evidence available anywhere that tells us that any handgun caliber is capable of consistently good performance. Our assumption that a caliber is good enough stems purely from the fact that other people carry that caliber and haven’t died in a gunfight yet, which IMO is a terrible frame of reference.
So while I don’t exactly assign a cutoff point between “what is effective for self defense” because we don’t have any repeatable data that can support any claim like that, going back to your rifle point, I just assume ALL handgun calibers are less than ideal, and consequentially because I know I am not at that confident in a handguns level of power compared to a rifle, I want as much power out of my handgun to put my as little behind the curve as possible. Even a slight advantage is important to me. I don’t view terminal ballistics as a quantitative science (for example, it won’t take X amount of shots to take down a certain type of adversary), but rather a gamble. Each shot has a certain percentage of stopping an adversary, the more effective the caliber/load is or the better the shot placement, the more percentage points of success I am adding to that single shot. The more times I can shoot is the more times I’m putting a gamble in, increasing my odds of eventually hitting the jackpot. Given this model (which we naturally cannot assign magnitudes to), a single shot by a more powerful cartridge can by chance perform less effectively than another weaker caliber, but on average, the more powerful cartridge will by probability perform better than a less powerful cartridge, and this difference will become more apparent the more we shoot/gamble. So even if I carry something like a 10mm, I’m still going to try and put as many rounds on target as if I had a 9mm, because the more I shoot the more I hedge my bets. Even though I chase power, I’m not going to pretend any caliber is a one shot show stopper. The stronger caliber I use the more I hedge my bets. The better trained I am, the weaker my aggressor is, etc. the more I improve my odds of stopping the threat faster than he can hurt me. It all comes together and it all matters, so just like we always train to be better, we should also always strive to utilize as strong of a handgun caliber as we can use, because we have zero frame of reference that would concretely tell us what is “good enough”. We should err on the side of caution.
Jason says
Great article, would like to add a comment. When using snubnose revolvers, 38 special, or 44 special, 45 Colt there is a real possibility you will not have expansion. (Even with the ammo made for short barrels), in the loads I mentioned you don’t have great velocity. So I went with hotter loads and that works better but still did not bring the consistent expansion and it is unpleasant to practice with and a real challenge with follow up shots.
My journey finally brought me to the hard cast wadcutters. Buffalo Bore, Underwood, or Reloads. I would ask viewers to personally try them. It gives the penetration you want and hits like a truck. Nothing is full proof but the consistency of hard cast wadcutters versus the gamble of having a hollow point expand- in a snub nose revolver- is worth considering. When I load my semi-autos I prefer Speer or Federal HST hollow points. Just passing along my experience.