What's the best choice for a defensive round in 40 S&W

Best choice for 40 S&W self defense round

  • 180 grain Gold Dot

    Votes: 21 34.4%

  • 165 grain HST

    Votes: 30 49.2%

  • 155 grain Golden Saber

    Votes: 7 11.5%

  • 135 grain Federal Guard Dog

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 135 grain Hydra-Shock

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Ultra light frangible loads

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Any plated hollow point - weight doesn't matter

    Votes: 3 4.9%
  • Total voters
    61
  • Poll closed .
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whatnickname

whatnickname

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When considering ammo, a good many people tend to gravitate to what law enforcement agencies use for ammo in their issue handguns. While there are some very effective service rounds for civilians to use, the fact remains that law enforcement agencies often select ammunition based on a different set of criteria than the average citizen will have to deal with in most cases. Of necessity, police agencies are forced to consider ammunition on the basis of things like the ability of a given round to penetrate barriers such as car bodies and automotive glass. It's not likely that the average civilian is going to encounter similar circumstances. So with this in mind, what are the votes for the ideal defensive round in the 40 S&W at typical bad breath distances? Apologies if I've omitted your favorite round. There's quite a bit of ground to cover out there.
 
My preference in all calibers are federal HST. They test well and, more importantly, run reliably in all my guns.

I liked both 165 and 180 when I had a .40, but preferred the 180s recoil impulse.
 
Tests from short barrel using heavy clothed gel (reasonable criteria for SD)
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests/
12 inch minimum is desirable in case the bullet strikes a forearm first.
Most regular 40 bullets hit the 12'' minimum, 135 gr. Guard Dog failed to average that.
When I carry a 40 it is loaded with 180 gr. HST or Gold Dot; I've got some old school 180 Hydra-Shoks they did okay.
180 Rangers performed very well too.
Of your listed choices, 180 Gold Dot is what I've got.
 
Honestly just about any name brand HP over 155 gr. will work. My BHP shoots the 155's much better than heavier loads so it's what I use.
 
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I would choose anything in 180gr. The round was developed for the 180 gr bullet.

The internet stories you hear about LE guns getting beat to heck, are mostly attributed to the lightweight, high speed versions. Most problems seem to go away when they go to 180 gr bullets.
 
I haven't tested how well 165gr HST or Ranger T shoot in my 40s, too hard to find. As far as grain weight, I shoot in the 155-165 range depending on brand. Muzzle flip is quite a bit more manageable in the lighter offerings. I keep some easy to find 180gr HP on hand in case I run out of my preferred rounds and can't replace them readily.
 
165gr Gold Dots.

I bought a bunch of 155gr Gold Dot rounds from Buffalo Bore. They are rated at 1221 ft/s from a Sig P229. Those are decent rounds. My daughter likes that ammo. (I gave the gun and ammo to her.)
 
I generally go with either 180 grain Gold Dots or Federal HST (more often the latter), but I have also bought Remington 180 grain Golden Saber which performed very well in the Lucky Gunner ballistic testing. I would be happy to go with 180 grain Winchester Ranger, Ranger T, or Ranger Bonded, but I seldom see it and when I do it is considerably more expensive than the Speer, Remington, or Federal options.

I nearly always shoot 180 grain when it comes to FMJ .40 S&W ammo, so it seems to make sense to use the same projectile weight for SD. All of the above 180 grain loads appear to have adequate or more than adequate penetration in ballistic gel testing, so I don't see any compelling reason to go with a lighter, higher velocity projectile.
 
I don't pay too much attention to those specifics. I like buying hollow points that are cheap enough to be able to train with. I recall reading a recent pdf report from the late 90s/early 2000s about defensive use of firearms. Vast majority of cases 1-2 rds seem to do it. Have something reasonable with you, make sure you can fire it reliably and you should be good.

I have a bunch of old skool federal hydroshocks.

I still have some of those early 90s evil black talons in my 10mm (the ones that make police drop dead at the very sight), alternating with hydroshocks.
 
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I do not care what police agencies may have adopted a specific load, but do care what LE officers have actually used, time after time, in real-world incidents. If there has been a significant history of failures-to-stop, there will tend to be chatter about it.

I work for one of the largest PDs in the USA, and we shoot a number of bad guys. The mandated load for uniformed officers, from 1997 to 2012, was .40 S&W, but it was phased-in, with nobody being required to change duty pistols, as we buy our own duty firearms, and making vereran officers spend money does not go over so well. (In 2012, .45 ACP re-joined the list of approved duty cartridges, and in 2015, 9mm regained its approved status. This year, 9mm became the standard duty cartridge for new-hires, so .40 S&W will gradually fade away, due to attrition.)

Well, the good news about .40 S&W, is that all the decent duty loads seem to work well, if the shooter does his part in placing the rounds well. We have to buy our own duty ammo, within guidelines, and for while, Gold Dot was very popular, due to local availability, and lately, Hornady Critical Duty was been more available, with Gold Dots becoming difficult to find. Winchester Ranger has a local following, too.

I voluntarily transitioned to .40 S&W in 2002. I used 165-grain Golden Saber in my G22 duty pistols, 2002-2004, because it was locally available, in quantity, for a decent price, shot well for me. When I switched to SIG P229 pistols, in 2004, I found that 180-grain Gold Dots shot better to point-of-aim. Both 165-grain and 180-grain Gold Dots seemed popular in my area, among LEOs, and Milwaukee PD officers seemed happy with the street results of their issued 180-grain Gold Dots.

I returned to using 9mm and .45 ACP duty pistols, starting in 2015, because shooting started to hurt, about age fifty. Yes, .45 ACP has more recoil than .40S&W, on paper, but .40 S&W seems to have more Snap & Whip, pun intended. Plus, all-steel, full-sized 1911 pistols have a nicely low bore axis, and pleny of mass to damp the suddenness of the recoil impulse. Yes, I can, indeed, carry a 1911 in my duty holster, in one of the largest cities in the USA. Life is good. (As a matter of practicality, however, a G19 works better, as a duty pistol, while inside our terribly small new patrol vehicles, particularly with a right-hand holster, while in the passenger seat, or a left-hand holster, while in the driver's seat. I wear a size 34 duty belt, so being "big" is not the issue.)

Regarding the poll, I did not "vote," because I do not know what shoots to the all-important point-of-aim in others' pistols, and some of those loads are unfamiliar to me.
 
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I liked the 155 to 165 gr. loads when I had a .40 S&W. Recoil and muzzle flip seemed to be more manageable with those bullet weights.
 
Rexster said:
I do not care what police agencies may have adopted a specific load, but do care what LE officers have actually used, time after time, in real-world incidents. If there has been a significant history of failures-to-stop, there will tend to be chatter about it.

I work for one of the largest PDs in the USA, and we shoot a number of bad guys. The mandated load for uniformed officers, from 1997 to 2012, was .40 S&W, but it was phased-in, with nobody being required to change duty pistols, as we buy our own duty firearms, and making vereran officers spend money does not go over so well. (In 2012, .45 ACP re-joined the list of approved duty cartridges, and in 2015, 9mm regained its approved status. This year, 9mm became the standard duty cartridge for new-hires, so .40 S&W will gradually fade away, due to attrition.)

Well, the good news about .40 S&W, is that all the decent duty loads seem to work well, if the shooter does his part in placing the rounds well. We have to buy our own duty ammo, within guidelines, and for while, Gold Dot was very popular, due to local availability, and lately, Hornady Critical Duty was been more available, with Gold Dots becoming difficult to find. Winchester Ranger has a local following, too.

I voluntarily transitioned to .40 S&W in 2002. I used 165-grain Golden Saber in my G22 duty pistols, 2002-2004, because it was locally available, in quantity, for a decent price, shot well for me. When I switched to SIG P229 pistols, in 2004, I found that 180-grain Gold Dots shot better to point-of-aim. Both 165-grain and 180-grain Gold Dots seemed popular in my area, among LEOs, and Milwaukee PD officers seemed happy with the street results of their issued 180-grain Gold Dots.

I returned to using 9mm and .45 ACP duty pistols, starting in 2015, because shooting started to hurt, about age fifty. Yes, .45 ACP has more recoil than .40S&W, on paper, but .40 S&W seems to have more Snap & Whip, pun intended. Plus, all-steel, full-sized 1911 pistols have a nicely low bore axis, and pleny of mass to damp the suddenness of the recoil impulse. Yes, I can, indeed, carry a 1911 in my duty holster, in one of the largest cities in the USA. Life is good. (As a matter of practicality, however, a G19 works better, as a duty pistol, while inside our terribly small new patrol vehicles, particularly with a right-hand holster, while in the passenger seat, or a left-hand holster, while in the driver's seat. I wear a size 34 duty belt, so being "big" is not the issue.)

Regarding the poll, I did not "vote," because I do not know what shoots to the all-important point-of-aim in others' pistols, and some of those loads are unfamiliar to me.
Click to expand...
Very useful information. Thank you for sharing this with us and thank you for what you do for the public in general.
 
I've gone mostly with 165 grain Critical Defense and just recently have had success with Fiocchi Extrema 155 grain. I like them because they seem to work 100% in my somewhat finicky CZ 40P. My other .40's seem to eat most anything, but I'll likely stay with these two rounds so I don't have to assign specific ammo to specific guns.
 
my preferred .40 load is a 180 grain gold dot loaded just shy of 1000 fps (998 if I'm remembering correctly). second choice would be a 180 grain hornady xtp loaded to the same velocity. i would like to try the hst, as i have heard a lot of good things about them but so far i haven't been able to find them as components.
 
I have been carrying 165 gr. Remington Golden Sabers in mine. I didn't vote in the poll as I don't claim to know what is best. I seem to remember reading an article that said 155 gr. had the best record of one shot stops. I tend to believe any quality jacketed hollow point ammunition will do.
 
I've always had good results with lighter bullets and lighter pistols, though my experience is markedly unscientific. I prefer 135gr in my S&W Shield and 180gr in my S&W 4006 TSW, and when I owned other polymer pistols such as the Glock 22 or H&K USP, I preferred 155gr.
 
These threads always generate posts where people list the round they carry but don't list the reason why.

I think to go about selecting a self-defense cartridge. you have to gain an understanding or at least form a belief about what causes incapacitation. After that it is a matter of what part of the bell curve you want to cover. 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 round 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 might 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 if a bad situation were to develop... 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.

Maybe another way to approach it is to go by reputation or anecdotes - for example the Remington 165gr Golden Saber developed a good reputation with many law enforcement agencies, including the Tulsa Police Department, the Speer 165gr Gold Dot developed a good reputation with many law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.

But there has to be some logic behind the selection process.

And the cartridge has to work in your firearm.
 
My Glock 22 is loaded with 180 gr. HST, very good performance in this test, 13'' penetration / .74 expansion after 4 layer denim.
 
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