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Thread: .380 defensive ammo

  1. #51
    Old school cool. XTP's are extremely accurate and normally very feed friendly. I've killed the hell out of stuff with XTP's over the years and always get deep penetration and good expansion. The 147 grain XTP is awesome on deer in my experience. A buddy of mine hunts coyotes with the 115 gr XTP in a Marlin Camp Carbine. Neat stuff.

    All the gel results I looked at with the .380 XTP showed it to be the best performer. I normally like deep penetration. Precision One does a good job loading the XTP as well as Hornady and Black Hills.

    http://www.precisiononeammunition.co...3lutu7ktd78po4

    *I normally stick with the big 4 manufacturers for defensive ammo, but I sometimes compromise with niche guns and calibers. Caveat emptor and all that.
    Last edited by Clay; 06-20-2016 at 09:41 PM.

  2. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by VolGrad View Post
    I keep going back to the LG chart and an curious of folk's thoughts on the Pow'RBall 70gr. I agree expansion might not mean as much in the .380 as penetration (and of course 100% feeding reliability). But where does velocity come in to play? How many fps is considered adequate?
    I was one of the original field testers for the Pow'rball (free ammo!) which came out in .45 acp first. It was very reliable, feed-wise, especially in G.I. style 1911's. It always expands. Penetration in .45 was around 10-12" in gel. Powr'ball's weak point is penetration, in all calibers.

    Cor-Bon's stuff has always been hit or miss for me, quality-wise. I wouldn't recommend it personally, especially considering the price. Just thought I'd throw my opinion out there.

  3. #53
    Site Supporter DocGKR's Avatar
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    Clay--good comments regarding Cor-Bon that match what we have found...
    Last edited by DocGKR; 06-20-2016 at 11:51 PM.
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  4. #54
    Site Supporter Tamara's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clay View Post
    Cor-Bon's stuff has always been hit or miss for me, quality-wise. I wouldn't recommend it personally, especially considering the price. Just thought I'd throw my opinion out there.
    A friend who had worked briefly for a competitor had done some piezo testing of Cor-Bon and told me in all seriousness (this was 15 years ago) that he'd never carry their .38 Spl +P in any revolver that wasn't rated for .357 Magnum...
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  5. #55
    Ha! The first Cor-Bon stuff I bought was their version of the FBI load. It was a .357 load in a .38 case. Hot stuff. I was thinking about that last night.

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  6. #56
    VolGrad,

    I also carry a 42 in certain circumstances where (at least I believe) I can't possibly carry something bigger.

    The Speer Lawman .380 TMJ load is excellent. From chronograph testing I have seen, the extreme spread (ES) between highest and lowest velocity is on par with the best premium defense ammo. I've been using it and carrying it in my 42. It is perhaps the most accurate .380 load I have used.

    I have also had very good results with Freedom Munitions XTP load. It is priced very reasonably and is the cheapest XTP load available commercially. It has been extremely accurate and reliable in all four of my wife's and my 42's. XTP loads sometimes don't feed well in all 42's. One of ours required a feed ramp polish for the load to become reliable in that particular pistol. Although, I have never seen any chronograph testing of this load, in my experience with several thousand of these rounds it seems very consistently loaded. I can highly recommend this load.

    Freedom Munitions FMJ load has varied over the years in how warm it has been loaded. The first lot I purchased several years ago was very hot. The second lot was about on par with Speer Lawman. The last lot was weaker than the Speer. That lot also seemed to vary a bit with some rounds being very weak. Some rounds were not warm to eject empty cases even with the most firm grip. But, they are very accurate even with their inconsistency of loading. Perhaps I received a bad batch, but I could not recommend this load as anything other than a range load.

    I would think that Black Hills XTP load or their FMJ load would be excellent as their quality control is perhaps the best.

    Whatever you choose to carry, please test it thoroughly as .380's can be finicky even these excellent 42's.
    Last edited by DAVIDF; 06-24-2016 at 07:19 AM.

  7. #57
    Member VolGrad's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DAVIDF View Post
    Whatever you choose to carry, please test it thoroughly as .380's can be finicky even these excellent 42's.
    Thanks for the info. I will be sure to test it on my next outing. I have fired a few already and don't recall any issues but another session isn't a bad idea.

  8. #58
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    Like others have mentioned, I run Hornaday Custom xtp's in .380. When I go down to .380 I go small, like LCP small. They feed well and are quite accurate in my pistol out to about 50'. Just another data point for you...
    Last edited by Drew78; 06-25-2016 at 02:29 PM.

  9. #59
    Site Supporter OlongJohnson's Avatar
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    Thread revival. I don't haunt the ammo section much, so I'm adding $0.02 a little late.

    Freedom Munitions: There are very few companies I will publicly badmouth, but they are one. I know people who've had cases of ammo with all the symptoms of being undercharged. I know people who've gotten multiple recall notices for lots that were overcharged. I've inspected boxes of .357 in their Houston store where the cases were still expanded at the mouth, and had never been crimped after seating the bullet. There are several ways that can go very, very wrong, whether in a revolver or lever gun. I brought the condition to the attention of the employees, and was told there was nothing wrong. Sorry, I have done all the steps on my loading bench and know what it looks like at each step. I even opened a box of Hornady-branded loads to make sure I wasn't wrong. I wasn't. I spend most of my days about a mile and a half from their store, and will never buy their brand ammo.

    With most of the micro-pistols having a 9mm variant, I don't see the need for the matching .380s unless recoil is a problem. But I got curious about a little ol' pizza gun awhile back and researched ammo. Ended up at the AmmoQuest videos, linked earlier in this thread. From that, plus my own further investigation, the complete list of projectiles to be relied upon in .380 is: 90gr XTP.

    If you care enough, watch the AmmoQuest wrapup, then all the individual test videos. His commentary gets repetitive, so I usually skip to the measurements. In general, all the non-XTP burrets have 9mm-sized HP cavities. The tendency is that they expand out to 9mm-ish diameters, or they catch the denim and don't expand appropriately. Stretching and bending all that metal uses up a lot of energy, and there isn't very much to begin with, so there isn't enough momentum left to drive the expanded projectile very deep.

    The XTP has a noticeably smaller HP cavity than any other .380 projectile I've inspected (I opened a box of everything in stock at the local Academy). It provides controlled expansion to slightly smaller diameters, and has enough momentum left to penetrate enough. Like any other HP, if it's going too slow, it won't expand reliably. As the speed goes way up, you start to see the cavities partially filling with denim. I hypothesize that this is also related to the HP diameter. Above a certain speed, the denim is cut, where it tends to tear and allow the HP to pass through without cutting a plug below that speed. A larger HP would be expected to begin cutting a plug at a lower speed.

    The key to interpreting the several videos is to observe the results from the XTP as they relate to the various measured speeds. Once you put all that information in one place, a reasonable objective becomes fairly clear. Physics cares about speed, not the label on the box.

    All this is just IMO. I'm not a dentist or anything.
    Last edited by OlongJohnson; 08-08-2016 at 09:11 PM.

  10. #60
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    Here's some updated 380 tests (among others):

    http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self...s/#conclusions

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