Ammo for Target Shooting & Defense

[rdnktrkr]

With a little research you can match the FPS and weight of your practice ammo and your carry ammo, which should get close on felt recoil and POI.
I personally use handloads or cheap (sometimes reloaded) ammo for practice, because I feel repetition helps a lot for accuracy. I think every ammo mfr makes good self defense ammo so get a couple of boxes and shoot one for dependability and carry one.

 

[sequins]

I recommend whatever is cheapest and 124gn for range shooting, strongly recommend looking online and buying 1,000 at a time, especially if you find free shipping or a sale price. Try ammoseek.com to find deals periodically.

For self defense I recommend Speer Gold Dot. It's taken a lot of bad guys out of the fight and has an extremely good street reputation, although some modern loads like Winchester Ranger-T do better in gel these days. Luckygunner.com has extensive gel data.

 

[FFGColorado]

With so many brands of ammo out there it's very difficult to decide which is a good brand of ammo that I can purchase for the range and for defense(when I am not at the range). What are your recommendations, I have a Beretta px4 storm compact that I plan to use for target and conceal. I will probably start with 50-75 rounds at the range and as I get more proficient, increase the amount to maybe 100 rounds. Is it better to buy the ammo online or locally at a Cabela's or gun shops?

Hard to beat Herter's 9mm at Cabela's..$9 per 50 all the time. If you are military/retired, etc, another 5% discount.

For EDC, I know 'most' info is to use a good JHP, but I have been impressed with the testing of either Lehigh/Underwood Xtreme Defender(Defender, not Penetrator) or G9 ammo..NOT cheap but has great tests, particularly thru lots of clothing..as these 2 don't 'clog' up, then act as a FMJ...

IMHO, of course.

 

[Trey Veston]

Hard to beat Herter's 9mm at Cabela's..$9 per 50 all the time. If you are military/retired, etc, another 5% discount.

I just bought some ammo at Cabela's and didn't know about the military discount. Dang. I hate giving up free money.

 

[FFGColorado]

I just bought some ammo at Cabela's and didn't know about the military discount. Dang. I hate giving up free money.

And ya always get a 'thanks for your service', too..Not a big deal and some rankle at that but it's nice to be appreciated some. I retired a 'while' ago but remember the late 60s and early 70s when "military" was almost a 4 letter word.

 

[WisBorn]

I have taken the Paul Harrell stand. I like Remington UMC for practice and carry.

I use 125 grain 38 +P JHP & 357 in my revolvers. 230 grain JHP in my 45 acp's .

In my 380 acp I carry speer fmj.

The only hyper ammo I carry is a couple of specialty loads when hiking in the wilderness. This for four legged critters that may be a threat.

Carrying something that you can afford to shoot that also performs as well as the high dollar stuff is a good way to go.