I carry an LCP2 all the time in and out of the house. I used to do that with my 9mm handguns over the years, but I recently changed to 380 for several reasons which I will not go into to save space and time. I am a prudent person and make decisions based upon viewable evidence not opinions or conjecture. I have many free hours to do research and I used them on selecting a 380 ACP ammo.
It is well established that 380 JHP has unpredictable expansion in denim covered gel using FBI test specifications when decided from a short barrel like 3” or less, and that can be true even for longer barrels. It also generally exhibits poor penetration when it does expand because of the drag caused by the expansion. The main reason being that the round will not reach the velocity needed to develop the force required to cause the JHP to mushroom. It is also well established that 380 FMJ will not create a wound a desirable wound channel, and that it can over penetrate in some cases depending upon mass of the target.
I went looking for a solution of good penetration with good wound channel. I did not buy my 380 until I found the answer that satisfied me that 380 can be an effective SD round. I know that accuracy is the compensator for other ammo deficiencies, I fought with a hand gun in Nam and I know how hard it is to achieve the desired accuracy in a gun fight when the target is not paper, steel, etc, and when it shoots back at you. So while I think accuracy is a vital factor I know I wanted to have more advantage than that.
I read numerous testing reports and articles, and I looked for videos of 380 testing done by competent testers not by people who simply made meaningless tests. A meaningful test has to be a comparison. I found those tests on You Tube done by Military Arms Chanel, AP 2020 Outdoors, and Ammoquest. Ammoquest did extensive testing of many brands of 380 JHP over many months. It concluded that Precision One produced the best result with Federal HST second. Precious One was given first place and the test was closed. The many individual ammo tests are still on YT.
Then it reopened testing to try Lehigh Defense Extreme Penetrator ammo. It is a a monolithic copper bullet that relies on fluid transfer to create sound channel. It does not expand. It just uses fluid pressure to expand the wound channel. The ammo archived 13.5 to 16 inches of penetration consistently whether through gel or gel with denim. That met FBI specs. It also made sound channels that were twice the diameter of the HST, which failed to expand in some cases and failed to reach acceptable penetration in others.
But I needed more proof. That is when I searched for other tests of the same bullet in either Lehigh or Underwood ammo. Military Arms Channel and AP 2020 outdoors ran tests that confirmed the bullets effectiveness in 380. Some of those tests showed the bullet to be barrier blind achieving the same penetration. and wound channel through denim, simulated bone, wood, wallboard, auto glass, and sheet metal. Paul Harrel who generally does not like hyper ammo tested it an found it to be good.
As I type this I am wearing an OWB holster with my LCP2 with 7+1 holstered. My EDC is now the LCP with three 7 round magazines plus 1 in the tube. I feel secure with that.
The Ammoquest video I referred to above.
