Dude freaking A. That stuff is snappy as hell. I only have one box left of a case I bought a few months ago...
Decently accurate though.
I never saw the benefits of training on a gun with more recoil personally...I suspect nobody else does either...Otherwise all the top shooters would be training with G43s, G27s or Shields in .40
Shoot what you like to shoot. Shooting is supposed to be an enjoyable past time, not torture. If you want a 1911 in 45 ACP, it's possible to develop a soft shooting load and to tune the pistol to run reliably with it. A good softball load is a 185 gr bullet at about 900 fps. It's also easier on the pistol
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Man...I was a little excited until I clicked that link.
Speer does make a Lawman 115gr +P, but this is not it. I have only seen it under the Lawman CleanFire brand. It is more expensive, but what has held me back from trying it is the lead-free primer thing and the potential risk to Glock's already fragile breechface..... I was hoping you knew about a non-CleanFire version
http://www.targetsportsusa.com/speer...1-p-59011.aspx
I shoot only Lawman 115gr in practice, with the goal of matching the 124gr +P Gold Dot as closely as possible mainly in recoil but also in drop. The last time I shot them side by side I found that there is definitely a noticeable difference, but that they were close enough out of a G17 that I didn't find switching between them jarring in any way nor effecting my shooting. I count that as a success, given that Lawman is affordable and good ammo otherwise.
I have shot other people's pansy 9mm factory training loads and have been shocked how easy recoiling it is and definitely found it to be beneficial to ability. Other people have also shot my gun and ammo and bitched about how snappy it is.
So all in all, I'd say that there is definitely a benefit to using Lawman 115gr to keep a check on your recoil control abilities, particularly if you need to mimic a harsher recoiling duty/carry round on the cheap, but I do not think Lawman 115gr is .40 territory nor affords anyone any other macho claims. The power factor is only 138, and the 124gr +P definitely has a chunkier feel to it. Weight and velocity (not to mention burn time, blah, blah) are independent axes it seems.
FWIW, when Lawman 115gr is not available, I have gone for Sellior & Bellot 115gr which felt much the same. I haven't tried the heavier Lawman yet. I've been saving a few rounds of various ammos and one day I'll have to get around to a big side-by-side test....
ETA: I guess I should say that a few years ago I shot Lawman 115gr and Gold Dot 124gr +P side by side through a G19 in a class, maybe even with mixed mags, and didn't notice the difference at all. I also shot someone's P226 in .40 that day with whatever training ammo and found it to be very easy recoiling, i.e. I didn't notice anything significantly different from the 9mm. So, yea, if you're comparing different calibers across different gun sizes, maybe it's possible to play this game more successfully. But, if the goal is to reap training benefits, I can't imagine that the benefits of more realistic or harsher recoil could ever make up for the drawbacks of training with a gun that is physically different from your carry/duty gun....
Last edited by GRV; 01-04-2017 at 10:19 AM.
Right before I enlisted I sold off everything, and bought a G23 and a .22 kit for it. Logic being that I can dedicate to one platform, and get a 9mm barrel for it for most of my shooting, second to .22lr. Standard .40 for carry, since that's how the gun came, and also use .40 to "proof" my grip. The .357 compatibility with a barrel was also a bonus for me, but that's a different discussion.
I got some benefit out of shooting several hundred rounds of .40 through it after working with .22lr. However, the problems exasperated themselves in my grip and wound up doing the opposite of what I was wanting to do. I wound up gripping so damn hard without realizing it that I would get failures to feed (as in, round didn't climb the magazine to get to the feed lips). I also noticed that the pistol still moved around a LOT in my hands after firing, based off target groups (multiple strings, same target pattern, 1st target had TIGHT groups, the rest - no). Winds up the .40 glock just confirmed, hardcore what the 34/19/17 hinted at - they just don't work well for my hands.
I decided after that to just dedicate to 9mm instead of having a 4-calibers-in-1 pistol. I haven't looked back since dedicating to one caliber (and in my case metal frames due to the mag crushing mentioned before). These days I took some advice to heart I found on this forum - practice is warp speed, matches go subconscious. I took this to dryfire as well, and it's a serious workout to go more than 15 minutes of straight dryfire.
Last edited by jeep45238; 01-04-2017 at 10:35 PM.
I have a bunch of Lawman 115, that has little stickers on it, saying it is loaded to +P pressure.
In any event, perceived recoil is partly pure power factor and partly concussion. All things equal, 115 will have more concussion in 9mm than 147. Lawman 147 feels much softer shooting to me than Lawman 115.
If you think Lawman only feels about like 124+P Gold Dot, and that isn't snappier than what you normally shoot, I am not sure what to say.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.