135GR or 165GR ???

[armedpolak]

For home defense, I keep loaded Beretta 90-TWO F .40S&W, 165GR JHP HydraShok Federal ammo. Safety on. Holstered. Both me and GF know where the gun is. Out of sight in living room.

I carry H&K P2000 with 135GR JHP, also .40S&W, basically the same ammo, except 135GR.

I checked the Federal website for the different parameters: energy, speed, wind drift, etc.

That's all nice! But I would like to know the practical difference between the two. Stopping power. Over penetration. Anything.

Please flame away

 

[The-Fly]

in a given caliber, lighter weight bullets penetrate less. I wouldnt worry about over penetration. If anything, I'd worry about under penetration with the 135gr rounds.

 

[mdao]

JE223 has done ballistics testing on the 135 gr Hydrashok.

135 gr .40 S&W Hydrashok

It tends to fragment and gets less penetration than the 90 gr .380 ACP Hydrashok...

The only light loads I'd trust would be ones using the Barnes XPB bullets.

 

[MachIVshooter]

It is my opinion (based on reading and first hand testing) that medium to heavy for caliber bullets perform best. For .40 S&W, I would persoanlly stick to 155-180 grain. My wife's HD gun is a S&W 4006 stoked with 155 gr. Hornady XTP's loaded to 1244 FPS avg. Mine is a S&W 1006 with 180 gr. Gold Sabres at 1406 FPS avg.

I have played with lighter bullets. The energy on paper is awesome and the damage in clay is devastating; I've worked up 9x19mm loads with 90 gr. JHP's that developed 544 ft/lbs. But the hyper velocity featherweights invariably fail to get adequate penetration. Those 9mm loads (both with XTP's and Gold Dot's) resulted in <7" of penetration and the bullets came apart. Such loads might be effective on a smaller person with low body fat, but I certainly wouldn't want to engage a violent 6'3", 290 lb. home invader with them.

 

[cookekdjr]

What he said ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[mete]

Any 40 load except the Federal 'reduced recoil' loads work well according to tests and street use.Pick what functions well in your gun !

 

[Flopsy]

Coincidence, I just compared the velocity and energy charts on federal's website today. Check them out, they're excellent. The 135gr have the greatest velocity and energy and I think the 165gr was lowest. 155gr was second highest and the 180gr was 3rd.

135
155
180
165

But in light of what others have said about the light 135, I'd probably go with the 165 if it's between the two.

 

[SDGlock23]

Instead of focusing on energy, focus on penetration. Lighter bullets generally don't penetrate as well as heavy ones, you can't go wrong with 180's.

135gr bullets are a poor choice, they can have good energy, but penetration is usually shallow. Heavier penetrates better and you need penetration, not lack thereof...even if it has less energy.

 

[Michael Courtney]

If 10-12" of penetration is sufficient for your risk assessments and applications, the 135 grain JHP will work well. Yes, the bullet fragments. However, tissue damage is massive and much more impressive than slower, heavier loads.

Michael Courtney

 

[Jim March]

First thing...why limit yourself to Federal?

Generally, I'll take a Speer Gold Dot any day of the week. I've seen specific cases of Federal wimping out on the powder charge, significantly. Not always, but...enough so that that combined with the Hydrashock getting long in the tooth, Federal just ain't my fave at all.

Second, for any JHP to expand, it needs a certain amount of speed. As your barrel length drops, heavier bullets might not retain enough speed to expand. So as a rule of thumb, you drop your bullet weight to compensate. There ARE exceptions but more so in revolvers than autos. In revolvers you can run bigger JHP cavities and/or oddball nose shapes impractical in autos, allowing bigger rounds to expand at lower speeds. Autos are less forgiving.

If your barrel length is "standard size for the caliber", go big (within reason). In 40S&W I would look at the 155 Speer Gold Dot first...good compromize between "heavy enough" and "fast enough".

 

[cookekdjr]

I call .40 the "pin the tail on the donkey" round b/c any common commercial load between 155gr-180gr will work well. Those lighter bullets just don't work as well. Don't know all they "why's", I just know what results they produce.
-David

 

[Mike_in_OC]

Meet in the middle with the 165gr, it has good velocity and some good mass behind it..

 

[Oregongundude]

I use the federal 155 grain hyda shoks in my .40 S&W

Balistically federal 155 grain hydra shoks have a 97& one shot stop rating if that means anything. I usually use federal 155 grain Hyda shoks, or corbon 165 JHP's for my .40 S&W, both rounds expand excellent in my testing in the back yard firing into three large phone books taped together. Each round averages about 10 inches of peneratation in the phone books, which i would think would be a little harder to penerate than human flesh. I would expect about 12 inches penetration or so in human tissue.

 

[jad0110]

In revolvers you can run bigger JHP cavities and/or oddball nose shapes impractical in autos, allowing bigger rounds to expand at lower speeds. Autos are less forgiving.

Very true. I was just looking at the JHP cavity on my .38 Special Speer GD 135 Grn +p and it's shape is FAR more aggressive than any 9mm or 40 S&W cartridge I've seen lately. I'd think that a bullet shape like those would have a pretty tough time moving up the feeding ramp in an auto without misfeeding.

One of these days I'd like to pick up some 9mm Speer GDs to replace my JHP Winchester white box stuff I have now, as I've heard plenty of good info about the GDs.

 

[Zundfolge]

Most of the stuff I've read says the 155gr-165gr Winchester Rangers or Gold Dots perform the best.

The 135gr I've shot in my Steyr seems less accurate. I've found the best results to be the 155-165gr stuff.


While its not really a problem anymore, the kB! issue with .40 was mostly with 180gr (since there's less room left in the case, very slight bullet setback can cause pressures to really spike).

 

[RustyShackelford]

135gr V 165gr .40S&W loads

I had a Beretta 96D for about 2 yrs. I used both 135gr and 165gr JHP loads for home protection/CC.

The 135gr JHP rounds are faster and have more KE but the 165gr JHP loads went deeper and spread further when shot into barriers like clothes/plywood/auto glass etc.

I would use the 135gr JHPs in the spring-summer months but would carry the 165gr JHP in fall/winter.

Both loads work well so it's not a big choice.

 

[riverdog]

I went with 147gr Speer Gold Dots for my G19. 100% reliable so far. When I shot .40SW I stayed with the 180 gr rounds. Looking at the available ammo now, I'd start with the 155/165 gr rounds.