What's your favorite flavor of ammo?

**bacon ops** · 04-03-2009, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by Syme

Uhhhh... you know that good hollow points will still give you much better performance, right? .45 ACP has enough bullet diameter that it can create a decent wound channel even with ball ammo, but for a self-defense weapon, you want the best performance possible, not just "decent" performance.

.45 needs to be going stinkin' fast to reliably expand, though(read: +p)

**Syme** · 04-03-2009, 06:01 PM

Originally Posted by bacon ops

.45 needs to be going stinkin' fast to reliably expand, though(read: +p)

Totally depends on bullet design and manufacturer. You can't just make a blanket statement that X caliber needs Y velocity to expand reliably; it will vary from round to round. That said, yes, most (but not all) reputable .45 ACP defensive hollow points have a fairly high minimum velocity for reliable expansion.

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GSS is an ultra-low-penetration frangible round, totally inappropriate for self-defense use. It does not have the penetration needed to reliably incapacitate a person. Even the Air Marshals don't use them anymore; they realized that there's no point having a round that wouldn't penetrate an aircraft fuselage if it also wouldn't stop the skyjacker. A .45-70 loading wouldn't be much different, either.