Choosing your defensive/carry ammo?

[Circle_10]

obviously when selecting what load to carry in a defensive handgun you want to throughly function test a given load before deciding on it.
my question is "how throughly?" i have heard one should fire anywhere between 200 and 500 rounds of a given load before declaring it reliable, i guess if a malfunction occurs during that test period the load should be dropped from consideration?
but what if you are doing a 500 round test and a malfunction occurs on round number 499? that seems like it could get frustrating.
so what a good number of rounds to test before trusting a specific brand and type of ammo?
also this 200-500 round test isn't supposed to be all in one session is it? or can it be spread out over several range sessions? seems like it might be better to spread it out and clean the gun between sessions as fouling from firing hundreds of rounds at once could cause malfunctions that might incorrectly be blamed on the ammunition.
i'm trying to envision a defensive scenario in which i'd be forced to fire 500 rounds through a pistol, if that kind of shooting is neccessary i'm going for one of my AKs instead..........

 

[mrhuckins]

OMG! You own one of those evil assault-weapon, cop-killing, death-dealing, led-spewing life-taking machines??? What version do you have? How do you like it? Ever go hunting with it? I'm thinking about getting one.

I have no idea how to choose defensive ammo, as I have not had the chance to put any rounds through the two handguns I recently purchased. I will be watching this tread with interest though. Can someone recommend ammo that has been reliable in their Sig 229?

 

[P95Carry]

I may be rather conservative with this - in as much as (being a cheapskate) I do not fire vast quantities of defensive ammo thru any carry gun. Snub anyways - no prob.

Semi? ..... enough to ''prove'' - let's say. If my current SIG can feed three 15 round mags of Gold Dot +P - with no hiccups - that is Ok by me .... beyond that I am into std WWB type ball for practice.

I choose Speer because I like the terminal performance of those bullets - so, they feed good too - ergo - that is my carry ammo. Done deal!

 

[Biker]

With revolvers, a a dozen rounds or so just to make sure the round shoots to POA. With my Glocks the same because I've never found anything they won't digest. With my AMT 380, I shoot Fed HydroShoks because they work and I don't shoot it much as far as recreation goes.
Biker

 

[Jamie C.]

100 rounds, no failures of any kind, I'm happy.

200 rounds, one failure, I'm still happy.

300 rounds, two non-consecutive failures, I'm happy, but not so much. ( It's that "nagging doubt" thing... )

Two consecutive failures with anything, up to 300 rounds, I try something else.

If I can fire 500 consecutive rounds, with only 2 failures, consecutive or otherwise, I'll generally still use it. ( Can't discount just getting a bad batch in there. )

This is the rule I use for "carry ammo", and so far it's served me well.


J.C.

 

[No_Brakes23]

Uh...my piece of mind is worth a lot, but not spending more than the price of the pistol on ammo to check it out. For JHP, I buy a box of 20 and shoot ten to make sure they feed and go where I want. Then I keep a mix of JHP and FMJs in the mag to "diversify my portfolio" as it were.

 

[Circle_10]

well, it's good to know i may not need to work a bunch of overtime in order to have the cash to afford hundreds of rounds of "test ammo"
the pistol in question already has 400 rounds through it with no malfunctions, of course that ammo has been FMJ winchester "white box" from wal-mart but it does suggest the pistol is reliable, now to run it with some hollowpoint defensive ammo just to make sure

 

[Tom Servo]

If it's fed 400 rounds of the cheap stuff, you're most of the way there.

I use Gold Dots for 9mm and Hydrashoks for .45. With a new gun, I run at least 200 rounds of FMJ first, then 75-80 rounds of carry ammo through. If I have no malfunctions, then it's good to go. At subsequent range trips, I'll generally run two magazines of carry ammo through the gun just to be sure. It helps to freshen the carry ammo from time to time, anyway. If I make any major modifications, I then run the gun through the same routine again.

If you're going to have problems, you'll have them in that break-in period. I generally don't have problems, but if I do, I take a look at what kind of problems very closely. Things like multiple FTF or light primer strikes, and I've got a real problem. One failure to eject out of 300 rounds isn't going to give me much pause, though.

When I'm considering a gun, I take into account the price of the gun PLUS the cost of the above "test ammo", plus the cost of a good holster. Call it "total cost of ownership."

 

[MikeIsaj]

"of course that ammo has been FMJ winchester "white box" from wal-mart"

Well, if it will fire that with no problem, it'll fire anything.

I have a Sig P220, .45cal. I'm pretty sure any ammo will work and be devestating.

 

[coylh]

There's a big article on this: http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs25.htm

Personally I do something like this:

If a revolver: shoot one box of ammo, mainly to see if cases eject properly.

If a pistol: shoot 200 rounds of FMJ for break-in. If I am actually using FMJ for a carry load, then I'm done. Otherwise, after the FMJ put 200 rounds of the actual carry load through without failure. If I buy an additional magazine, I put a box or two through that magazine to circumvent magazine related problems.

If I were going to switch to .40S&W, for example it would cost:

$50 for 200 FMJ
$150 for 200 HP
$10-20 for each extra magazine

A bit expensive, but at the end of the process I would have no doubts that my gun/ammo/magazine ensemble was reliable.

I would also clean the gun after each 50 round shooting session. Since I'm never going to carry more than 50 rounds on me, there's no point in finding out if the gun is still reliable after shooting 300 rounds.