Best self defense 45acp ammo for bedside

I am not extremely picky with 45acp defensive ammunition. YMMV. I use remington golden sabre's, in 230 grain flavor.

I really like the Remington Golden Saber 185 +P after using it on deer. I am convinced it would perform against those that wish ill will against me and the family.

Any .45ACP bullet center mass is going to wreck the bad guys day.

Winchester Supreme Elite Bonded PDX1
Federal 230 grain Hydrashok JHP
Federal 185 grain JHP

I am a very big fan of Corbon's Pow'R Ball in .45acp. I think that it offers the best balance between penetration and expansion.


Cor-Bon "Pow'R Ball" High Performance Ammunition
by Jeff Quinn

I also use 230gr. Golden Sabers, standard pressure. Are they the best? I don't know. They shoot great and are reasonably priced for premium JHP's.

Can't really go wrong with modern .45 acp load. However I have noticed Hornady TAP ammo is very flashy.

Any of the JHP defensive ammo sold by the major companies or police surplus ammo is a good choice. There isn't a nickles worth of difference between any of them. Remington Golden Sabers, Winchester PDX1 or XTP's, Federal Hydrashocks or HST's, CCI Gold Dots, Hornady XTP's or TAP to name a few will work equally well. Regardless of the ammo you still need to put the shot on target, there are no death rays (yet).

You will need to fire enough rounds to know that they feed reliably through your pistol and shoot where aimed. Other than that pick up what you can find at the most reasonable price.

I use Golden Sabers in my HK USP. (I also use +P, you said you didn't want those but I felt like I should mention it in the interest of full disclosure).

230 gr HST
230 Gr Gold Dots

230gr Ranger Talons

I use mostly WWB FMJs for range and I have fired about 150 WWB JHPs without a hickup so that is my defense choice. All 230 gr in a Ruger KP90. Too big for me to use as a carry gun but I love it for a home car or boat gun.

+1 on the 185gr. Golden sabers. Its what I conceal carry.

185 gr or 230 gr gold dots, 230 gr WWB JHP, 230 gr Winchester pdx1. All have fired well from my gen3 g21.

From the thread "Service Duty and Self-Defense Loads" at http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=19887

Listed in alphabetical order (not to be interpreted as listed in order of performance):

Barnes XPB 160 & 185 gr JHP (copper bullet)
Federal HST 230 gr JHP (P45HST2)
Federal HST 230 gr +P JHP (P45HST1)
Federal Tactical 230 gr JHP (LE45T1)
Speer Gold Dot 230 gr JHP
Speer Gold Dot 230 gr +P JHP
Winchester Ranger-T 230 gr JHP (RA45T)
Winchester Ranger-T 230 gr +P JHP (RA45TP)

-- Obviously, clone loads using the same bullet at the same velocity work equally well (ie. Black Hills ammo using Gold Dot bullets, Corbon loads using Barnes XPB bullets, etc…)

Click to expand...

I load my defense handguns with Speer Gold Dot. It and Federal HST can be purchase in 50 round boxes for about $30 from http://www.policehq.com/Ammunition/FEDERAL-AMMO

The most important requirement is that it functions flawlessly in your pistol.

After that, I strongly suggest testing it in your pistol shooting through cloth into gelatin or wet newspaper. I have tested many of the loads mentioned in this thread, and a lot of them do not expand when fired through cloth. All those beautiful expanded bullet pictures that the manufacturers show were fired into bare gelatin.

This is particularly important if your pistol has a short barrel. I get better performance out of my full size 1911, but I usually carry a G30, and there is a difference.

not to hijack lambertiana, but what do you carry in your G30?

low flash = Winchester Ranger T series

I carry Gold Dot 230 gr (not the short barrel or +P). Here is a picture to demonstrate what I test for. Recently I got a box of the Hornady Critical Defense, and this is the result. I fired 10 rounds into wet newspaper with two layers of t-shirt and two layers of denim in front, from about 10' distance.


The same day I tried the Winchester PDX1 230 gr, and I only recovered one bullet (out of ten fired). The remainder went all the way through the 12" of wet newspaper and 12" of stacked cardboard to strike the hillside behind with considerable force; I assume that they did not expand. The one I recovered is on the left in the picture. On the right in the picture is a 230 gr Gold Dot tested on a different day under the same conditions, all 10 rounds fired that day looked just like that. The Gold Dot penetrated a little more than the Critical Defense. The Critical defense averaged about 8-9" penetration in the wet newspaper, the Gold Dot was about an inch more. I did not notice a significant difference in recoil or POI between the CD and PDX1.

I have also tried the older Taurus copper load (the same as the current CorBon DPX) and it was inconsistent in the G30 - some expanded beautifully, some did not. Same for Remington Golden Saber 230 gr.

In my full size 1911 I have also tested 230 gr Hydra-shok (only one expanded), Winchester SXT (none expanded), PMC Starfire (none expanded), and CorBon 230 gr JHP (inconsistent, some worked great, some did not expand). 230 gr Golden Saber worked pretty well in the 1911, and the Taurus copper was fantastic in the 1911.

I just got some 230 gr Ranger T, I hope to test it next week. And I would really like to get some 230 gr HST, but I have been unable to find any in stock anywhere.

I like the WWB JHP 230gr. Cheap, expand well, easy to find

OP, here is my advice:

1. remember you are using a pistol in a home environment with possible loved ones on the opposite side of a wall. A .45 can easily go through walls. So can almost any other bullet, so this is not the point, the idea is be ready for this possiblity.

2. As others said, any .45 will work, but I'd go with a few and try them out in the gun first to know they are reliable. With a Glock it should be no problem.

3. From full size barrel no reason to go with anything other than 230 grains.

Great Picture lambertiana Thats why I use Hornady CD in all the calibers I own, I also have a small amount of PDX1's in the calibers its available but it will just be shot up as practice ammo. I want the sure expansion so the bullet doesnt end up going thru walls and destroying something or someone else that it wasnt intended for.

i like Rem golden saber....230gr variety. the FBI HRT use it.