380 Self Defense Ammo???

[EHL]

The quote that .380 "is really not acceptable for law enforcement use and most savvy agencies prohibit them." is an opinion. Truth be told, MANY agencies allow the .380 as an authorized off-duty gun. Some, like the Indiana State Police, actually issued the Beretta Model 84 for off-duty, when they used the Model 92 as a carry-gun.

It's statements like that, which propose opinion as fact, where most troubles come from. If you'd look a little further into the author's writing, he thinks that the 9mm shouldn't be used as a duty caliber, either

Thank you for putting that quote into context JR47. It is an opinion of a professional, but anybody with an agenda can produce just as many if not more professionals that opine in the exact opposite way. The fact that some pro said it was a bad choice means just that, "they thought it was a bad choice". The fact that other pros have expressed that a .380 was "adequate for SD purposes" means just that, they believe that .380 was "adequate for SD purposes". It's up to all of us to either buy into or not buy the opinions expressed.

I for one accept the notion that .380 is the minimum for an SD caliber. But that's neither here nor there. The topic of this thread was what .380 brand of ammo would we recommend, not "Is the .380 is even worthy of being an SD caliber?"

EHL, were the tests that you performed in calibrated gelatin? Perhaps the new test medium available? Just curious. What pistol was used?

JR47, to answer your questions, No, they were not tested in calibrated gelatin. I used the poor mans, and I do stress POOR college guy method of milk gallons filled with water. I'd read from several other guys that 4 gallons of water roughly equated to 12" of calibrated geletin. Maybe this is wrong??? When this was brought up, I didn't read any naysayers though.
I would like to eventually test all of SD ammo (not just my .380) for all of my calibers in calibrated gelatin.

The test gun was the Kel tec P3AT. I wanted the absolutley shortest barrel for all of my tests so I could get roughly "worst case scenario" results.

 

[Marcus L.]

The quote that .380 "is really not acceptable for law enforcement use and most savvy agencies prohibit them." is an opinion. Truth be told, MANY agencies allow the .380 as an authorized off-duty gun. Some, like the Indiana State Police, actually issued the Beretta Model 84 for off-duty, when they used the Model 92 as a carry-gun.

It's statements like that, which propose opinion as fact, where most troubles come from. If you'd look a little further into the author's writing, he thinks that the 9mm shouldn't be used as a duty caliber, either.

If you are talking about my opinion, I find the 9mm to be a very ideal caliber for both duty and self defense(I take it you are confusing my opinion with Dr. Roberts who also supports the 9mm). It is true however that during the days of early hollow point designs the FBI considered the 9mm to be less than ideal for duty use due to its poor performance against common barriers such as windshields. This was the primary reason for their adoption of the 10mm auto, then later the .40S&W. Here's a briefing that describes the opinion at the time:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi_10mm_notes.pdf

However, 9mm ammunition technology has vastly improved making it a wonderfully versitile caliber. The FBI signed new ammo contracts with Winchester for their Ranger Bonded ammunition in both .40S&W and 9mm. No where did Dr. Roberts or Dr. Fackler mention that the 9mm was not effective, nor did they hint at it. The .380acp on the other hand has not evolved as the other service calibers have. .380acp JHPs are still where they were in the 1980s because there isn't much to work with. It has VERY, VERY poor sectional density meaning that even the best ammo designers can not make it "reliably" penetrate to acceptable levels in standardized FBI testing. A little info on sectional density:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/tacticalbriefs/volume4/number1/toc.htm

When Dr. Roberts mentions "savvy" agencies prohibiting its use, he means agencies that are in the know when it comes to their equipment and how best to serve their employees.

 

[Marcus L.]

EHL,

Proper gel testing is a VERY expensive process which is why most internet testing is inaccurate. I would not trust the Brass Fetcher data unless they can provide evidence of accurate testing. Many internet sites claim to be performing standardized testing, but they usually provide no supporting evidence that they actually do.

An exact gel consistancy must be made for exact sized blocks, in addition to exact cooling temperatures in the fridge. Once it is taken from the fridge for testing, it must be calibrated. A BB is fired into the block of gel at a specific velocity. The BB must reach a specific penetrate depth within the gel and if it does not, the gel must be thrown out and not used in the testing otherwise the data will be inaccurate. Obviously, this gets very expensive which is why Ammo Labs shut their doors because they could not afford to keep up their testing and provide accurate results. The only testing facilities I would trust for accurate gel testing are DOD and large LE agency testers such as the Firearms Institute or the National Defense Association Industry. For you information, Dr. Gary Roberts works with both the Firearms Institute and the NDAI meaning that he knows what he's talking about with the .380acp. Dr. Roberts has also worked with the FBI and Dr. Martin Fackler on large LE agency testing on ammunition and equipment. They have even incorporated swine ribs in gel to mimick the human rib cage, but determined it did not pose enough of a barrier to ammunition to warrant further use of it.

EDIT: Just to address the topic of water testing. During the days of early hollow point designs, ammo companies tested their designs using water. This led to a big problem. Muscle tissue and other organs are not 100% water. As a result, hollows points were not opening up reliably in actual shootings, and penetration was much less. Water is after all a liquid, and muscle and gel are solids. Drop a bullet onto a block of gel and the bullet doesn't penetrate the gel, drop a bullet into a bucket of water and the water quickly moves around the path of the bullet and the bullet sinks to the bottom. Before the late 1980s and the advent of gel testing, these early hollow point designs were tested using water and they were not performing well in the field. The .357magnum was doing well because its higher velocity overcame the problems with these early JHPs, but slower velocity calibers were not mushrooming reliably. This is how the legend of the .357mag's stopping power was born. The average .380acp Ranger Talon only penetrates into gel about 7", while in water it can penetrate more than double that and expand very well. Ballistic gel was designed to mimick swine muscle tissue which is similar to human muscle tissue. It is not 100% water, and it very accurately mimicks the solid consistancy of muscle tissue. That is why it is used instead of water. It works and it works well, as is evident by the much more predictable nature of bullet effectiveness in actual shootings in the last 20 years.

 

[lanternlad1]

Rem Golden Sabers are the heaviest .380 bullet at 102g. I put the heavies bullets I can in my .380s. Heavy bullet = more mass = more penetration. If they don't feed properly, then I use CorBon PowerBalls. Feeds like FMJ, works like HP. Gun is useless if bullets don't feed.

 

[JR47]

When Dr. Roberts mentions "savvy" agencies prohibiting its use, he means agencies that are in the know when it comes to their equipment and how best to serve their employees.

Really? Would you happen to actually have a list of agencies that prohibit the .380 ACP as a back-up weapon? It's his OPINION. No more, no less.

The preparation of gelatin blocks isn't rocket science. The directions are readily available, as are the ingredients. Calibration is simple, and temperatures, and their maintenance, are easily achieved. As for homogenity, that, too, is simple to achieve. Blaming results that you disagree with upon poor blending or casting of gelatin is a simple way to dismiss them, but hardly scientific, despite the smoke-screen of "it isn't stated."

What guarantees that the testing agency that you agree with didn't produce flawed gelatin? A mistaken measurement could produce batch after batch that was flawed. Placement of the temperature probe could also produce routinely flawed data.

Multiple tests could result in harried technicians producing an entire lot of improperly blended gelatin.

The 9mm is the 9mm. Bullet development has achieved reliable expansion and penetration. However, that has also made the choice of such ammunition much more dependent upon barrel length for that performance. No matter how much we proclaim it's superiority, it's still a .355" projectile. The fact that it has to be driven to +P and +P+ velocities to produce practical performance objectives requires enough barrel to allow that. In short-barreled guns, there are few choices.

All in all, the same performance enhancements have allowed other calibers to show the same improvements.

EHL, your testing was your testing. It still shows a comparative result. While the body isn't composed of plastic and water, neither is it composed of blocks of gelatin purportedly emulating swine flesh. There is no correlation between a block of gelatin, and the varying densities of flesh, bone, and organs of a living creature. Ballistic gelatin is the modern equivalent of the Thompson-LaGarde tests of 1904, with better instrumentation.

There is also a growing body of information that regards the neural shock of bullet performance as important. It was ignored, even after verification, by the god Fackler. Being unable to measure it, or reproduce it in his tests, it was relegated to a foot-note. Today, with enhanced computer modeling, and more sensitive instrumentation, it is a repeatable phenomena.

I have found that the Hydra-Shok, and it's follow-on, the HST, perform well in 10% ballistics gelatin, calibrated, and temperature monitored. It won't meet the FBI criterion testing, as it's performance against glass, and sheet metal barriers is lacking.

One of the caveats of water testing was that water is non-compressible. It was found that fragmentation in water tests was indicative of expansion in flesh. While that may not sound scientific, if you're going to use water as a test medium, then the findings of that test should be explained.

 

[kokapelli]

There is also a growing body of information that regards the neural shock of bullet performance as important. It was ignored, even after verification, by the god Fackler. Being unable to measure it, or reproduce it in his tests, it was relegated to a foot-note. Today, with enhanced computer modeling, and more sensitive instrumentation, it is a repeatable phenomena.

That's just not true in regard to handgun velocities.

There have been many police officers here in the United States who've been shot with medium-high energy Magnum handgun bullets (as well as shotgun slugs) while wearing soft body armor. Soft body armor is constructed of several layers of fabric. When a projectile impacts soft armor, its energy is transmitted directly through the flexible fabric to the officer's body. There's not one documented incident in which an officer was knocked unconscious or physically incapacitated or in any way rendered unable to perform willful activity after his soft armor stopped such a projectile. These officers absorbed nearly 100 percent kinetic energy transfer, yet none were incapacitated by the blunt trauma "shock" of projectile impact or temporary displacement of underlying soft tissues.

As for the Hydra shok 380 round, when they gelatin tested it at stoppingpower.net it did not expand and so didn't do any better than a generic fmj round.

Here are their results..........

The following are results from gelatin tests done at Evan Marshall's
"stoppingpower.net" group.


Pistol used is Keltec .380 3AT

Corbon .380 90 gr. +P

Pen 16.50+" Exp N/A (left the block, not recovered)

Speer .380 90 gr. Gold Dot

Pen 10.50" Exp .476

Federal .380 90gr. Hydra Shok

Pen 16.50" Exp .356

The assumption is that bullets that left the block did not expand, because surely a 380 round that expands can not penetrate 16.5" of gelatin.

 

[Marcus L.]

EHL, your testing was your testing. It still shows a comparative result. While the body isn't composed of plastic and water, neither is it composed of blocks of gelatin purportedly emulating swine flesh. There is no correlation between a block of gelatin, and the varying densities of flesh, bone, and organs of a living creature. Ballistic gelatin is the modern equivalent of the Thompson-LaGarde tests of 1904, with better instrumentation.

There is also a growing body of information that regards the neural shock of bullet performance as important. It was ignored, even after verification, by the god Fackler. Being unable to measure it, or reproduce it in his tests, it was relegated to a foot-note. Today, with enhanced computer modeling, and more sensitive instrumentation, it is a repeatable phenomena.

Then you can also consider BPW to be nothing more than Strausbourg with better instrumentation. When Courtney gains any kind of respect in the ballistics field, I might jump on that bandwagon. Right now he is flooding the internet with his research and self published papers, but not spending much time going head to head with anyone who can with intelligence and education give an accurate critique. For now, I have no problem with Courtney's recommendation of high kinetic energy with a minimum penetration depth of 12"(FBI standard is 12-18", 12" being minimum) as it does not conflict with FBI standards as Marshall and Sanow energy dump did. The downside to this is decreased pistol handling due to increased recoil, muzzle flash, and muzzle blast. This may be more of a detriment than a gain in an actually shooting scenario.

Standardized ballistic gel testing does not measure physiological effects on the destruction of the human anatomy. None of the papers I have read imply that it does so. A requirement was made by the FBI that their pistol ammunition penetrate to a certain depth as was determined by field experiences, and that it also create as large a hole as possible through commonly encountered barriers in the field. Is it a perfect testing system?....of course not, but it is a damn good one. If you are concerned about the incorporation of ribs, the Canadians did that in a 1994 study in which their conclusions were that it did not effect service calibers using heavier bullets, but did have minor effects on lighter loads. As a result LE shooting incidents seem to go much more in favor of the officer provided they shoot straight, versus previous generation shootings that were based on stopping power ammo development.

Gel testing didn't just come out of someone's rear, it was developed in conjunction with applied medical science. There are essentially two methods for rapid incapacitation of a determined attacker that are agreed upon by the medical community as a whole. Blood loss and central nervous system damage. A determined attacker on PCP will not stop fighting unless parts of his body are disabled which anatomically prevent him from fighting. In dozens of PCP shooting cases I have read of in FLETC and DOI files the perp stopped fighting when he was either shot in the head or he bled out. Some of these cases went back to the early 1980s with .357mags and .41mags. Spinal cord hit, brain hit, aorta hit, heart hit,....etc. Only CNS hits are instant, blood loss hits take 5-10+ seconds for desired results depending on what is damaged. Hundreds of autopsy rooms, military field hospitals, and emergency rooms later the verdict is still pretty much unanimous....that this is the only proven method of rapid incapacitation through a gunshot. There is nothing observed that would hint at some other reliable means of rapid incapacitation. Even high powered rifles still have no mysterious effect. Their effects are still localized to the area of the wounding agent(the bullet), only its effects are increased through yawing, tumbling, fragmentation, and temporary cavity stretch that is large enough to tear tissue.

So, the criteria is simply. To increase your chances of rapid incapacitation on an attacker your ammunition should maximize penetration and expansion and you must target specific regions of the body to expect good results. Provided that penetration is good, the larger the caliber, the better your odds of rapid incapacitation. The .380acp, does not do this very well in caparison to the 9mm which creates a much larger volume wound channel. The FBI standardized testing has been in place for 20 years now and it has greatly improved the terminal effects of modern duty ammunition. I'm sure a lot of readers will ignore or deny the content of these posts, because after all you've invested money and confidence in the .380acp and those are hard things to let go.

 

[JR47]

Gel testing didn't just come out of someone's rear, it was developed in conjunction with applied medical science.

Cute, but not relevant. It was developed, as you, yourself, said, to equal swine flesh.

If you are concerned about the incorporation of ribs, the Canadians did that in a 1994 study in which their conclusions were that it did not effect service calibers using heavier bullets, but did have minor effects on lighter loads.

Again, not what was stated. The body isn't a homogenous amalgam of anything. It is composed of fat, muscle, bone, cartilage, and both hollow and soft organs. Nothing, not swine flesh, nor ballistics gel, will result in performance in that medium.

The FBI decided on essentially arbitrary minimums and maximums, based on 1980's technology, and the Spartan form of democracy, for it's multi-phase tests. Could that be improved upon today? Why, of course, but only at the cost of revealing just how flawed the past performance criterion actually are. Building bullets to meet the criterion results only in bullets that excel in that criterion. Transferring that success to the street requires an almost religious faith, and also requires that any competing position, or research, be denigrated as false, or incomplete.

At the very least, Thompson-Legarde used actual living beings from stockyards for testing. As far as humans go, there are multiple examples of soldiers sustaining numerous fatal wounds, and yet remained able to fight back long after they should have. They weren't on drugs, either. There are more mechanisms involved than CNS disruption under controlled conditions, or exsanguination. Dr. Courtney's work is undergoing peer review, as you well know, but failed to mention. With the death of the IAWB, from fratricide, and the withdrawal of Fackler from research, the remaining zealots are operating from information 20 years old.

 

[Newton]

I carry hot loaded FMJ in my LCP.

JHP out of a pocket rocket like the LCP is a total waste of time IMHO.

 

[Energy Recruitment]

In terms of total ammunition sales, the 9mm Parabellum is the biggest seller by a wide margin. The reason is simple: It is compatible in so many guns. Since World War I, the 9mm has been the dominant cartridge in Europe and much of the free world. When American law enforcement began the switch to semi-automatic pistols, high magazine capacity was a major concern, and the 9mm led the pack in those terms. Today almost everyone who makes pistols has one or more 9mms in the line.Three bullet weights dominate today's 9mm selections -- 115, 124 and 147 gr. loadings. Within that group you can find standard, +P and even a few +P+, which are restricted to law enforcement. The information regarding all the various calibers, bullet weights and factory velocities is available at the various web sites, or in catalogs.

 

[JR47]

And, while nice in an academic sort of way, it has NOTHING to do with the OP's question.

When the Facklerites destroyed themselves in an orgy of fratricide, each striving to be more correct than the other, the "research" that they championed was already over two decades old. Science, and it's ability to quantify results, had advanced far beyond the results solidified by the Fackler crowd. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the fact that most of the work derived by Dr. Fackler was in 20% gelatin, and not 10%. This required a conversion of results. Not exactly the paradigm of science, there. There are still a few adherents to the now nearly 60 year old research, derived from Korea onwards, as we can see. They routinely ignore new research, calling it unproven, much like Fackler's own research in the 1960s. Here, and you thought all of the dinosaurs died out 65 m illion years ago.

The Remington Golden Saber, the Speer Gold Dot, and the newer Honbady Critical Defense rounds are all good bets in the .380 that you're CARRYING. Talk of buying something in a different caliber won't help anyone. When was the last time that a CCW carrier was involved in shooting through auto glass, or sheet-metal, anyway? That's an LEO scenario.