380 Self Defence Ammo

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samuelcmm

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So I have been looking into 380 defence ammo a lot the last few days and I seem to have narrowed down the best looking ones to:

Barnes tac-XP 80gr
Ruger Arx 74gr
Hornady XTP 90gr
Lehigh xtreme penetrator 90gr

all of these seemed to perform extremely well but I'm wondering if anyone has done any test with them. The only problem with any of them that I can see is that the Lehigh seem to overpenetrate sometimes or all the time if bought/loaded from underwood ammo
 
I long ago settled on the Corbon DPX that was the Barnes tac-XP 80gr . Corbon now makes their own .Still same copper bullet . Just now Corbon says doesn't tarnish like Barnes does.
 
Any of today's modern .380 ammunition will work just fine in today's modern .380 hand guns. No need to overthink the whole thing.
 
Any of today's modern .380 ammunition will work just fine in today's modern .380 hand guns. No need to overthink the whole thing.

All of it may behave as intended in a semi-auto, but not all of it behaves as intended through human clothing and in the human body.
 
Thank you all and expecially for those other threads to read. And if anyone is interested buffalo bore makes one with the barnes tac XP that is faster than cor bons

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The tests done by http://shootingthebull.net/blog/final-results-of-the-380-acp-ammo-quest/ seem to me to be very clear on what works in the short barrels of the micro 380 pistols and yet many continue to tout rounds that fail!
Yes, ShootingTheBull is "very clear on what works in the short barrels of the micro 380 pistols" – by their criteria. They demand 10" to 18" penetration – probably a reasonable requirement for LEOs that may need barrier penetration. But for likely civilian SD scenarios, I believe that 8" penetration, with good, and reliable, expansion is quite adequate. My choice is Federal HST. The .380 rounds with deeper penetration achieve that feat by limiting expansion.
 
I've played around with .380 ammo more than any other caliber. Reason being that my Sig 238 is one of my favorites, but is picky about anything but round nose bullets. I also have a Glock 42 that I routinely carry.

I've settled on Winchester PDX. I believe it's a 95 grain bullet and I've chrono'd it at 940 fps, which is impressive considering the shorter barrel lengths versus what I'm sure they tested it with.

My hand loads tend to max out around 850 fps, so the Winchester, at least to me, is worth the money.
 
So I have been looking into 380 defence ammo a lot the last few days and I seem to have narrowed down the best looking ones to:

Barnes tac-XP 80gr
Ruger Arx 74gr
Hornady XTP 90gr
Lehigh xtreme penetrator 90gr

all of these seemed to perform extremely well but I'm wondering if anyone has done any test with them. The only problem with any of them that I can see is that the Lehigh seem to overpenetrate sometimes or all the time if bought/loaded from underwood ammo
Hmmm, the "best looking" ammo?

How does one judge which ammo is best looking. Price and performance are far better metrics than looks.

Myself, I use Remington Golden Saber. It is decently priced and it has performed well in gelatin tests.
 
When i said looking I should have said ballistic gel test and pentatration test I was reading and looking at on you tube

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I always liked the Hornady XTP bullets. Now that I've seen the testing I'm assured of my decision. Good link.
 
I've played around with .380 ammo more than any other caliber. Reason being that my Sig 238 is one of my favorites, but is picky about anything but round nose bullets. I also have a Glock 42 that I routinely carry.

I've settled on Winchester PDX. I believe it's a 95 grain bullet and I've chrono'd it at 940 fps, which is impressive considering the shorter barrel lengths versus what I'm sure they tested it with.

My hand loads tend to max out around 850 fps, so the Winchester, at least to me, is worth the money.
I don't really care how fast a bullet is in 380, just care how it performs.
 
Yes, ShootingTheBull is "very clear on what works in the short barrels of the micro 380 pistols" – by their criteria. They demand 10" to 18" penetration – probably a reasonable requirement for LEOs that may need barrier penetration. But for likely civilian SD scenarios, I believe that 8" penetration, with good, and reliable, expansion is quite adequate. My choice is Federal HST. The .380 rounds with deeper penetration achieve that feat by limiting expansion.
In some situations 8" is not going to reach vitals when arms and shoulders are in the way.
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These threads always generate posts where people list the round they think is best but with very little explanation for the reason why.

I think to go about selecting a self-defense cartridge, you have to at least form a belief about what causes incapacitation.

After you form a belief about what causes incapacitation, you have to make a decision about what situations you want to be prepared for, how much of the bell curve you want to cover with your firearm and ammunition. On one end of the spectrum is a frontal shot on the skinny guy wearing a T-shirt.

The skinny guy is 11" from front to back - not much muscle, a frontal shot with a 95gr projectile that penetrates 8" to 9" is going to reach vital tissue.

On the other end of the bell curve is having to take a cross shot on a barrel-chested, muscle-bound thug wearing a jean jacket over a shirt, and a T-shirt underneath that. Can those same rounds go through a jean jacket, a shirt, a T-shirt, a bicep, another layer of T-shirt, another layer of shirt, another layer of jean jacket, another layer of jean jacket, another layer of shirt, another layer of T-shirt and still reach vital organs?

Probably not.

Maybe you own a messenger service in Minneapolis and you drive around all winter and your primary concern is a car jacking. And you determine you need to be able to shoot through your drivers side window and stop a car jacker. Well then you want a bullet that can go through glass, heavy clothing and still reach vital tissue. Find the cartridge that does that.

Maybe you own a house on the beach in Florida and you sit on the beach all day but you want to be able to deal with muggers or thugs from the bad neighborhood down the way... so you're probably not going to be shooting through drywall, car doors or heavy clothing... just shooting into an assailant who is wearing a T-shirt or even bare chested, so find a bullet that reaches vital tissue under those circumstances.

In these "Best Self Defense Ammo" threads people are arguing past each other and advocating different rounds because they're not starting from the same understanding of what constitutes a good self defense round to begin with.
 
I've played around with .380 ammo more than any other caliber. Reason being that my Sig 238 is one of my favorites, but is picky about anything but round nose bullets. I also have a Glock 42 that I routinely carry.

I've settled on Winchester PDX. I believe it's a 95 grain bullet and I've chrono'd it at 940 fps, which is impressive considering the shorter barrel lengths versus what I'm sure they tested it with.

My hand loads tend to max out around 850 fps, so the Winchester, at least to me, is worth the money.
I have to say that my SIG P238 eats all ammo that I've tried. One early-on FTF with Federal Hydra-Shok, but that's it.
 
So I have been looking into 380 defence ammo a lot the last few days and I seem to have narrowed down the best looking ones to:

Barnes tac-XP 80gr
Ruger Arx 74gr
Hornady XTP 90gr
Lehigh xtreme penetrator 90gr

all of these seemed to perform extremely well but I'm wondering if anyone has done any test with them. The only problem with any of them that I can see is that the Lehigh seem to overpenetrate sometimes or all the time if bought/loaded from underwood ammo
I respectfully offer that Ruger ARX cartridges in 380 cal have a 56 grain bullet, not 74 grain.

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My range master uses Corbon, over 1000fps out the muzzle.....I have no other experience than that.....
 
IMHO there is not enough velocity to get great penetration or expansion from any .380 self defense ammo. I am not trashing the caliber. I own a couple and carry them from time to time. I just think people really over analyze this. It is a small bullet traveling less than 1000FPS. If it is constructed to expand too much, it is not going to penetrate much at all and, if it does penetrate well, it isn't going to expand much. That is just physics.

Without any real life data to prove that one is more effective than the other in actual self defense scenarios, it is really just speculation anyway.

I settled on Hornady XTPs. Why? After reading pages and pages of arguments and speculation over what was the best... It was the first box I saw at my LGS.
 
It definitely has a narrow performance window.

Before ShootingTheBull410 did his tests, many people thought the .380 cartridge was incapable of 12" to 18" of penetration through 4x denim.

Before ShootingTheBull410 started testing almost every 380 cartridge out there, all of the testing that I could find at the time had the .380 hollow points stopping at 10" penetration and the FMJ, even truncated flat nosed rounds zipping out the back of 19" blocks.
 
truncated flat nosed rounds zipping out the back of 19" blocks.
I would use the word "exiting" out the back of 19" blocks. The word "zipping" implies they have a lot of energy left upon exiting the block and I would suggest they are very nearly spent. This is for the same reason .380 jhp rounds usually either penetrate or expand but seldom both: the .380 just doesn't have that much power to begin with. Overpenetration with .380 fmj is an overblown concern, IMO. Misses are much more likely and dangerous with either jhp or fmj.
Just mho.
 
Of the ones you listed I'd go with the XTP. I haven't done much testing with the .380 XTP but I did some tinkering with the 9X18 Makarov XTP a few years ago (early 2000's). Mainly shooting into water jugs, checking for expansion and how many jugs it would penetrate. The XTP was the best out of anything I tested (including gold dot, which I don't think is available in that caliber anymore).

The.380 XTP should be basically the same, just 5 grains lighter and a tad bit more skinny.

All that said, my current .380 carry round is the 90gr Federal Hydra-Shok (this choice was largely influenced by ShootingTheBull410 youtube videos).

You might also want to check this out:

http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests/#380ACP
 
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