bullet

[protekurbutt]

there has been a lot of FBI research on it, but what in your opinion is a good put-down bullet for a .45? I was just wondering if you are in "that situation" where you happen to have a .45 with you and you encounter a bg. What do you think the best ammo would be?

[Evilrp]

Whatever bullets are in the weapon....

I carry 230gr +P Hornady TAP .... It feeds in all the platforms I carry and has been very accurate and totally reliable in each of them as well. But I wouldn't turn my nose at ball ammo or another PD ammunition if it was all I had @ the time.

[scotts94_z28]

Any good factory loaded 230gr hollow point. I run speer gold dot's in my G30.

[OscarWhiskey2]

The one's that have good shot placement!!

[Jeff]

Any good factory loaded 230gr hollow point. I run speer gold dot's in my G30.

+1 on that. Any quality hollow point made for self defense will be fine. Find out what your gun likes best.

[ddan24]

speer gold dot 230gr hp

[tinker]

The one's that have good shot placement!!

+1!!! You can have the best bullets in the world but that won't mean anything if you dont hit your target in the right places.
If your hits are good, then any quality defensive bullet will do the trick.

[protekurbutt]

I agree, most important is placement. No question on that one.

[FrankRochester]

Placement is first.. anything from Remington, Speer, Federal, Hornady, Winchester will work fine.. If you are running a 3" defender type pistol I recommend staying away from +p cartridges. The reason being is: Increased recoil, flash, wear, and little gain in velocity with that short of a barrel. Unless you are running something out of a 4" barrel or longer the +p isn't worth the negatives. I actually run standard velocity in my 5" Government model. Its worked good for 100 years at that speed. And with ball ammo no less. So the hollow point is there to keep it from going through someone and into another room. Eh, just my opinion..

[kmussack]

Across the common pistol calibers there is little meaningful difference in their terminal ballistic effects irrespective of their caliber or design.

Take a minute and look at this picture and ask yourself if you see any significant difference between the tracks.


This picture represents typical performance of hollow-point bullets in ballistic gelatin. Notice the dimensional similarity of the tracks. (Sellers of ammunition would ask that you focus your attention on the small differences.)

When you choose to use a particular type of bullet you invariably make a compromise. With a hollow-point bullet design you choose the promise of a slightly larger permanent wound track at the expense of penetration, cost and functional reliability.

Recognizing the fact that bullet placement, not bullet type, remains the most critical element in the whole “stopping power” equation I personally choose full metal jacket “ball ammunition”.

FMJ feeds more reliably in a semiautomatic pistol than any hollow-point ammunition.
FMJ is less expensive than hollow-point ammunition.
FMJ penetrates deeper than hollow-point ammunition.

Some may choose to describe the penetration of FMJ ammunition as “over-penetration”. Personally I consider “over-penetration” to be akin to being too tall to play basketball.




In the illustrations above you can see that a 230 grain FMJ from a .45 pistol can be expected to penetrate in excess of 60 centimeters (2-feet) of ballistic gelatin while a typical hollow-point round will penetrate only 25 centimeters.

Some years ago the FBI unilaterally declared that 12 inches (30 centimeters) is the bare minimum of penetration of the target required.

In order to meet this standard one must take into account the probability that some type of material may intervene while the bullet is on it’s way to the target. (Clothing, windows, doors, walls, tree branches, etc.)

So give some thought to just running FMJ ammunition.