What do you like in your .380? FMJ vs JHP

Hollow point vs. full metal jacket.

  • Hollow Point

    Votes: 84 54.2%

  • Full Metal Jacket

    Votes: 71 45.8%
  • Total voters
    155
  • Poll closed .
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I prefer the hollowpoint. I want that little .380 transferring all the energy it can into a bad guy so he knows he is being hit. I don't worry about 12 inches of penetration with a pocket pistol. If I can get 10 inches of penetration with a hollowpoint and good shot placement, I'll take it. These little .380s aren't built for tactical applications, barrier penetration or multiple threat takedowns. They are built so a law abiding citizen can have an easy to conceal weapon on them at any time.

Go to a crowded pistol range sometime and just watch how people shoot. You'll see the kind of guys there that claim they'd never carry less than a .40 miss at 7 yards with their full sized Glocks and XDs. The guy in the lane beside them might be shooting a PPK or snub nosed .38 and blowing the center X out of the target. Those are the kinda people a bad guy better hope he never runs into.
 
Jath said:
People worrying about the penetration of a .380 don't get the purpose of a .380.
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481: said:
You have missed the point.
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Jath said:
What is the point?
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Well, you state above that "people worrying about the penetration of a .380 don't get the purpose of a .380." Making a statement like that, leads the reader to believe that you know what "the purpose" of a .380 is.

Now you don't? :confused:


R.W.Dale said it best-

R.W.Dale said:
Shot placement, reliability, penetration and lastly expansion.

The first three criteria will get the job done without the fourth. However the fourth does nothing without the first three.
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Well.......I see that once again there is no resolution to this question.

My own fault really, I keep reading them. :eek:
 
Look at it this way. Regardless of where you sit on the fmj vs jhp arguments the fact remains that no matter which you're getting shot with you're still GETTING SHOT.

posted via tapatalk using android.
 
In my opinion...from wat I here around me and on the net most ppl think fmjs are the best because the military uses them...but u see the military has no choice..in the laws of war(Geneva convention) it says only fmjs..that's y they use them...thers a reason al the boxes that say critical defense, home defence, law enforcement, etc are hollow points..if u want more penetration get a bigger gun...but a hollow point at defense distance will go throughout a chest cavity and into a wall..even if u hit a hard object in his pocket and it stops the bullet its gonna hurt like hell and u should be able to get a few shots off
 
CZguy said:
Well.......I see that once again there is no resolution to this question.

My own fault really, I keep reading them. :eek:
Click to expand...
That's for sure. But at least there's some hard data from the poll. And the numbers show.... it's almost 50/50! :)
 
The heart, the lungs and the various arteries flowing into those organs are from 1 to 3 inches below the surface. If the slug expands, you do more damage to those organs. If it doesn't, it's an FMJ anyway.

If you check out ballisticsbytheinch.com you'll learn that various +P .380 rounds are traveling close to 1,150 feet per second out of a 3 inch barrel. That's quite enough for expansion when you consider that the average 230 grain .45 acp round is only traveling about 850 fps out of a 5 inch barrel and reliably expand.

The .380 has grown up.


.
 
Why can't folks grasp the notion that bad guys don't stand there hands on hips chest puffed out waiting patiently for you to shoot them?

Sometimes they're fat, big, mean and not always gracious enough to move that 18" bicep they're busily using to stab you in the face with using a screwdriver so you don't have to shoot through thus ensuring you're latest YouTube tested JHP load can penatrate to those vitals.

posted via tapatalk using android.
 
Why can't folks grasp the notion that bad guys don't stand there hands on hips chest puffed out waiting patiently for you to shoot them?
Click to expand...

I've got seven rounds in my Colt Mustang. If I ever have to use it, I'm putting every one in into the center of his chest. I'm not going to rely on one lucky shot that penetrates through to his spine. I'm going to use hollow points because in every study ever done, hollow points have proven to be more lethal than FMJ's.

.
 
R.W.Dale said:
Why can't folks grasp the notion that bad guys don't stand there hands on hips chest puffed out waiting patiently for you to shoot them?

Sometimes they're fat, big, mean and not always gracious enough to move that 18" bicep they're busily using to stab you in the face with using a screwdriver so you don't have to shoot through thus ensuring you're latest YouTube tested JHP load can penatrate to those vitals.
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I've often wondered this myself.

Seems like many people (I am not singling out anyone in particular) simply assume that both parties will stand there face to face and "slug it out" like they do in the 1950s era Westerns.

My Department (my last employer prior to my retirement) actually got away from having Officers stand still and qualify from static positions (although they still run the state mandated quals that way because they have to) because we've had OIS where the involved Officers didn't seek cover as efficiently as they should have. You fight like you train (that includes the decent law abiding folk here) and the underlying/tacit assumption that an assailant intent on doing all sorts of horrible things to you is just going to stand there and present a perfectly immobile frontal target (with shallow penetration requirements) to the endangered citizen is a recipe for disaster, IMO.

Odds are the bad guy, especially if he lacks an option for cover, may choose to charge the armed citizen and a wrestling match for the gun will ensue. This means that one might have to shoot upwards through the torso/abdomen at some weird angle and given the size of some folks ten inches may fall well short of the structures/organs that need to be hit.

Violent armed encounters are dynamic and unpredictable at their best, not the static idealized events depicted in the movies.
 
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KodiakBeer said:
I've got seven rounds in my Colt Mustang. If I ever have to use it, I'm putting every one in into the center of his chest. I'm not going to rely on one lucky shot that penetrates through to his spine. I'm going to use hollow points because in every study ever done, hollow points have proven to be more lethal than FMJ's.

.
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Your fallacy is you assume you can put those shots there and the target will let you.

You plan for the least ideal shot not the most.



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You plan for the least ideal shot not the most.
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Isn't that another way of saying "plan for the least likely scenario"? Hhhhmmm, let me think about that... No.

Even at face value, if I get less than an ideal shot I still want a hollow point because it's going to do more damage.
 
KodiakBeer said:
Isn't that another way of saying "plan for the least likely scenario"? Hhhhmmm, let me think about that... No.

Even at face value, if I get less than an ideal shot I still want a hollow point because it's going to do more damage.
Click to expand...

Who said least likely?

Which do you think is most likely.

A bad guy standing there like a flesh and blood sillouette target waiting to be shot?

Or having to wrestle to get unholstered while someone is choking you to death?

I know if I was intent on doing you harm which I'd be doing. That increased damage from a shallow penatrating jhp is useless unless it goes through an organ.

Of course the real answer is to carry a caliber powerful enough to expand AND penatrate.

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KodiakBeer said:
I've got seven rounds in my Colt Mustang. If I ever have to use it, I'm putting every one in into the center of his chest.
Click to expand...

You can say that it'll be this way, but it won't.

Anyone who believes that an aggressive life-threatening assault (and the thug committing the act) will permit such an opportunity is only fooling themselves, over-estimating their abilities, or in most cases, both.
 
Well folks aren't going to just stand there and let you shoot them. They may not even stop after you shoot them.
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You can say that it'll be this way, but it won't.
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You gentlemen make good points, but my point is that I don't intend to be so unaware that I end up grappling on the ground with some assailant. If that happens, I'll just do my best.

I once watched an idiot chase down a deer in heavy snow with a Ruger .45acp. He emptied his magazine of FMJ's into that deer (7 or 8?) rounds at close range, none of which seemed to affect the deer at all. Me and another guy finally got out our rifles and tracked the deer some 300 or 400 yards where we found it curled up in the snow, still alive.

I don't trust FMJ's, at all. FMJ's tend to stretch tissue and close behind the wound channel. There are plenty of studies showing this.

A wadcutter of some kind, as pictured above by Certaindeaf, yeah, I could live with that.
 
Well said 481! well said!


RN fmj is a particularly bad choice I agree. But a fp or TC profile aids in wounding greatly

But I've been on the other end of the spectrum where out of a full box of cor-bon 90g jhp's on as many armidillos none stopped or completely penatrated the small critters even from a long barreled bersa 380


IMO 380 and 32 are not fight stopping calibers. You are going to have to make GOOD HITS that penatrate to see any effect. For this jhp vs fmj matters not getting the bullet there is everything.
 
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