.45 acp hollow points opening?

[Yo Mama]

It is ignorant to use FMJ's in any high caliber handgun. Typically the main backstop in a shooting is the back of the "bad guy". FMJ's will go through that person and risk hitting another inocent person. And worse is if you miss the bullet will go through the walls and possibly into anotet home. You should ALWAYS use hollow points in an urban situation.

It's not ignorant if you have all the information possible to make an educated decision. There are times and places for HP as well as FMJ. A HP can easily go through multiple walls. You're looking for fragmenting ammo to have any shot of not going through drywall,....and it's a big if. It's been discussed here about FMJ not having a likelyhood of penetrating through multiple people. More often, shot is a miss entirely and hits an innocent person.

Also, not all bullets are equal. A .45acp will act differnt than a 30-06. With roughly 850 fps out of the .45, FMJ is just a different animal.

This is bad advice. Anyone who tells you that you should sacrifice an advantage in a gunfight is giving you bad advice. Anyone who keeps and carries a gun that they do not trust to function with modern self defense ammunition is compromising the very reason for carrying a pistol at all. Why not carry a percussion cap pistol? A crossbow?

Say someone like a DV victim can't affort your fancy smanshy HP. Just one example, but remember not everyone can affort the nice HPs.

BTW, you'll find folks here that do carry a cap pistol

 

[Cards81fan]

It is ignorant to use FMJ's in any high caliber handgun. Typically the main backstop in a shooting is the back of the "bad guy". FMJ's will go through that person and risk hitting another inocent person. And worse is if you miss the bullet will go through the walls and possibly into anotet home. You should ALWAYS use hollow points in an urban situation. Like some of the others have said, speer gold dots, ranger t's, federal hst's are just of a few premium cartriges that perform great in any situation. I carry 230 grain in my 45, if you prefer higher velocity, get a lighter bullet. Just my 2 cents smitty704

I prefer JHP to FMJ for personal protection, but if you think that JHP are safer due to their lessened penetration, I'd say that's naive at least and potentially dangerous at worst. I'd wouldn't feel under-gunned by any means with magazine full of FMJ. But a clogged, unexpanded JHP works about the same as a FMJ anyway. And bullets often fail to expand. So the risks with either round are pretty much equal.

All that said, JHP are preferred due to their increased size when they expand. No because they are somehow less able to penetrate drywall and insulation.

 

[EasyGunner]

I have shot at least 5 or 6 different brands of the expensive premium ammunition through my glock 36, glock 21c, and my 1911. Never has hollowpoint ammunition jammed and not fed as thoroughly as full metal jacket ammo. FMJ is definately just as lethal with correct shot placement. Just ask the dead guy with shattered bones and gaping holes.

 

[RUT]

>>The .45 acp is plenty big enough. You don't need hollowpoints.<<

Yeah, my sentiments exactly.

 

[Remllez]

I may be wrong here but wasn't the 1911 designed to shoot FMJ at around 800-850 fps resulting in very few shoot throughs? Not saying jhp's are bad but if not driven fast enough to force open they are basically a fmj.

There are just too many variables involved getting a jhp to open consistently, clogging of the nose being chief amongst them. Fmj's don't clog they punch thru clothes,bone,et al. I'm not convinced of the likelihood of any slug that passes through the bad guy continuing on to hit someone, the odds are just too high to be a determining factor for me.

Ultimately the choice is a very personal one for everyone discharging a firearm in defense of ones self or to end a confrontation.

 

[ku4hx]

Good place to start:
http://www.brassfetcher.com/45ACP.html

 

[Vern Humphrey]

>>The .45 acp is plenty big enough. You don't need hollowpoints.<<

Yeah, my sentiments exactly.

You know the old saying, "A 9mm may expand, but a .45 will never shrink."

 

[mdauben]

The 230 grain Hydrashoks were the standard for a couple decades. Then, suddenly, it didn't expand anymore (apparently in the 4-layer denim tests), and we got HSTs instead.

I really agree with this. At one time, Hydra-shoks were considered one of the best choices for SD. I have carried them in both my 9mm and 45ACP for years. Now, suddenly they suck?

I don't say that the latest premium JHP ammo can't be better, but IMO Hydra-shok was already so good, there isn't enough room for improvement left to allow for the current hyperbol over it's dated ineffectiveness.

I would happily continue to use Hydra-shok in both my pistols, except its getting hard to find locally. That's the only reason I am currently looking into any other SD ammo.

 

[PedalBiker]

YouTube has loads of videos of people who have tested hollowpoints in very creative ways. The best I've seen is the guy in NorthCarolina (I think) who uses gallon milk jugs filled with shredded newsprint and water. He does denim tests too.

BrassFetcher has good information too and there's water data at Steve's pages.

You can buy test media like gellatin of that wax stuff. I think wet newsprint is great. Water is too hard, almost anything will expand in water.

I like Golden Sabers, Gold Dots and Hornady Critical Defense. The new Hornady ammo seems to open well and is loaded with lighter bullets at modest velocities. I prefer it for indoors. Outdoors It's usually something heavy and +p.

I like FMJ for those new plastic targets. It doesn't tear them up like HPs do.

 

[Ben86]

I overheard someone talking saying that the average .45 hollow point will not expand due to lack of speed.. Is this true?

That person probably doesn't realize that premium modern hollowpoints are designed to open up at a wide range of velocity. Meaning that sure a longer barrel will likely result in more expansion than a short one, but a short barrel will produce acceptable results as well. Don't sweat it, be concerned more about your skill to put the bullets where they need to be when they need to be there.

I prefer to stick with premium, bonded JHP from any of the big name manufacturers. My current .45 carry load is the Winchester PDX1 230 grain. Gold dots, and HSTs are great too.

 

[Effigy]

Regarding Hydra-Shoks, they don't "suck" but they still cost about the same amount as as newer, improved designs. It's hard for me to justify choosing those over something like a Ranger-T or HST load. I can order Rangers or HSTs for $0.50-0.60/round online while Hydra-Shock costs about $1.00/round at the LGS.

As for ".45 FMJ is good enough", well I won't deny that it's plenty good. But a good 9mm JHP can expand to over 0.6" diameter. A good .45 JHP can expand to over 0.7" diameter. That's a pretty big difference, and it's still going to penetrate 12+ inches. How much penetration do you need before it starts becoming irrelevant at best, and a liability at worst? When I can get premium defensive JHPs online for about $0.60/round the added cost is trivial, even if you're buying a couple hundred rounds to test reliability in your gun.

 

[Seven For Sure]

I'm not against the idea of using non-HP ammo for SD as long as it's not traditional ball (conical) in profile. Flat Point Hard Cast, EFMJ referred to above and truncated FMJ are my choice for solids in that order.

Speer truncated TMJ's made larger, cleaner holes in an old washing machine (early 80's?) and car door from a large early 1970's American vehicle than conical FMJ's (Hornady?). They were both 200's, same barrel, same velocity (avg. 1,030 / 4"). I also tested a 200 gr. Bear Tooth loaded by DT in .40S&W and it made larger holes than the .45's every time without fail.

From my experience using handguns to take nuisance and meat hogs, I've seen what bullets with large meplats do. A lot of damage from contact and plenty of straight-line penetration. A conical jacketed bullet may penetrate a little more but bone sends conical jacketed bullets off track sometimes also.

 

[Sean Smith]

This isn't the 1980s, bullets can now be designed to expand at the velocity they're actually going to be shot at. That's why people suggest using the more modern bullet designs, because they're more reliable performers in a wider range of circumstances. Older designs often were less reliable feeders than newer designs, too. Self defense loads all cost about the same so there is no positive reason to use older designs unless your gun is just bizarrely fussy and feeds only one specific JHP and nothing else. If you're serious about self-defense you should be grubbing for every advantage you can get, no matter how small.

If you don't want to use JHP at all because you're more worried about under-penetration than over-penetration that's a different conversation, though it's worth pointing out that most agencies that use guns for a living disagree.