thinking of switching to FMJ for 380 pocket carry...

For pocket 380s, I carry...

  • JHP

    Votes: 8 16.0%

  • FMJ

    Votes: 32 64.0%

  • something exotic (lehigh, buffalo bore, etc)

    Votes: 10 20.0%
  • Total voters
    50
Jayne

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I've found myself with no other viable option than super discrete pocket carry on more occasions than before for reasons that no one cares about, and that got me to thinking about the ammo I'm using.

Currently I'm running Hornady Critical Defense, but although the pistol has 804 rounds through it, only 50 of those have been the critical defense. It's kinda proven out that they're reliable, but 50 is a small test.

So, several of us were discussing it today and toyed with the FMJ idea.

Advantages are:
1. reliability, you can fire 250 rounds of your actual carry ammo in practice to ensure it works
2. ability to test at will, every time you roll up to the range, you can fire your carry ammo and replace it without feeling the pain of launching $2 rounds down range
3. penetration, it's a pocket 380 with a short barrel, so that extra penetration from the FMJ could be helpful

Disadvantages are:
1. no HP expansion. in theory it happens even at the lower velocities of 380 due to the bullet design
2. no fancy anti-flash powders, no snazzy nickel brass, no polymer tips, nothing l33t
3. missing heavy crimp could lead to setback if cycled a lot, but see #2 above which makes this less of a concern

What else to consider either for or against FMJ in 380?
 
MacEntyre said:
I think I heard an opinion on this from @BatteryOaksBilly once or twice...
Click to expand...

He may not know much about foot ailments, but I sold all my holler points because I trust his opinion.

Hydraulics and electrical. Cut them off, you shut the system down.

I'm a believer.
 
I have couple of amt 380's
they don't run critical defense well but has proven to be reliable with ball
I carry one critical defense in the pipe and the mag loaded with ball.
 
I've always thought I'd rather poke a smaller hole in better organs than just muck up the outer meat. 380 penetration isn't great at best, so I'll take more of it over marginal expansion of a hollowpoint from an itty-bitty barrel.
 
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I too have had this dilemma; Essentially, for practical reasons, FMJ makes sense since 380 fails to achieve minimum penetration requirements even with most FMJ but I opted to go with a 90 grain Sig V-Crown JHP. Purely because I can accept the inadequacy of 380 penetration and performance because it's a compromise of "rather have a shit gun then no gun" but I can't accept the questionable reliability of 380 FMJ manufacturers.
At least with a defensive hollowpoints I get the better quality propellants, primers, nikel plating (extraction).
I personally can't justify gambling on the "hott" boutique ammo. 380 will always be subsonic, pushing it ~10 fps more isn't going to make a difference ballisticly, and anyone claiming to push it faster is either lying or, since most (if not all) 380 guns are direct blowback: playing a dangerous game.
 
(Copy of my post from another thread couple days ago)

You pose a set of interesting questions. All of your common place defensive handgun calibers incapacitate the very same ways. There are two physical and one psychological means of incapacitation.

First, hit the central nervous system. Hitting the central nervous system disrupts the brain’s capabilities of communicating with muscle groups to make the body move and even breathe. Depending on where the disruption occurs, you may observe instant or delayed incapacitation. I’m some cases, the incapacitation, may be isolated to certain regions of the body. Which can mean the person is still a threat for a undesirable periods of time.

The second means of incapacitation is through hypovolemic shock. Which means the body has lost a significant amount of blood and fluids, and the heart can no longer pump vital elements needed for life. Hypovolemic shock is not instantaneous and the length of time solely depends on how fast the body is losing blood. During hypovolemic shock the body will still be able to operate and will be a threat during this period.

The third means of incapacitation is psychological. In simple terms, a person get shot and in their mind they believe they are incapacitated. Physically, the person is still a threat, yet cannot mentally make their body function. Psychological incapacitation can be short to long term. Meaning you cannot count on the person staying incapacitated.

The only way to ensure incapacitation by common defensive handgun calibers is through shot placement and penetration. If the projectile missing the central nervous system, large organs, and major blood vessels. It does not matter what handgun you are using. The best you can hope to achieve is psychological incapacitation.

Once proper shot placement has been achieved, then the projectile must be capable of penetrating deep enough to hit the central nervous system, large organs, and major blood vessels. If penetration is insufficient the best you can hope to achieve is psychological incapacitation.

To answer your questions, the matrix I use for choosing handguns, calibers, and ammunition is based upon the following. One, I must be able to accurately shoot the gun. Recoil sensitivity and grip size may rule out many fine firearms. Two, it must fit the environment and conditions. For example, summertime I’m not walking around with a Glock 17 or Government model 1911. If I have on shorts then a smaller, lighter handgun will be my choice. Three, the caliber must be capable of penetrating deep into the body through clothing. This can be achieved by muzzle velocity or bullet design. For .380, and under (or very short barreled 9mm) I’ll carry FMJ ammunition. For larger calibers and longer barrel handguns that can achieve penetration by velocity, I’ll carry JHP. This may not have answered your questions as you posed them, but it is how I make my decisions on what to carry.
 
Ball all day. A lot more reliable. Save the extra money to buy more ammo to keep shooting to stay sharp. It’s a lot more important to be able to hit your target where you want, The Ammo with the most stopping power is the one that hits it target.
 
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kcult said:
He may not know much about foot ailments, but I sold all my holler points because I trust his opinion.

Hydraulics and electrical. Cut them off, you shut the system down.

I'm a believer.
Click to expand...
I just changed my vote based on this!
 
I carry Speer Lawman 95 grain FMJ (TMJ) in most of my .380 pistols year round.

There are 2 guns in particular that I carry with Buffalo Bore 100 grain flat point hard cast but usually only in the winter, and clothing has naught to do with it!

I'm not entirely sure but I don't believe I own any hollow point loads for that caliber.
 
Penetration trumps expansion. If you can't get to vitals, what's the point? Expansion retards penetration. The only reason you want expansion is to reduce the potential of the bullet exiting the target at high speed and putting others at risk, if that particular bullet tends to do so. The 380 does not. In an ideal world, the bullet maintains enough energy to exit the target, leaving two wounds and fall to the ground. And forget the energy dump idea. There's not enough energy in pistol rounds to matter.
Bullet shape does play a factor, as round nose wound channels tend to close up and reduce exsangination.
Winchester has these...
a6cd1d87852ce3a1fd810242394445ea_3.jpg
 
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georgel said:
Penetration trumps expansion. If you can't get to vitals, what's the point? Expansion retards penetration. The only reason you want expansion is to reduce the potential of the bullet exiting the target at high speed and putting others at risk, if that particular bullet tends to do so. The 380 does not. I'm an ideal world, the bullet maintains enough energy to exit the target, leaving two wounds and fall to the ground. And forget the energy dump idea. There's not enough energy in pistol rounds to matter.
Bullet shape does play a factor, as round nose wound channels tend to close up and reduce exsangination.
Winchester has these...
a6cd1d87852ce3a1fd810242394445ea_3.jpg
Click to expand...

Oh nice. I'd like to find some of those and try them out! Thanks!
 
I carry 9mm ball. I rather have a round i shoot the piss out of and know works than a fancy round i haven't shot nearly as much of. I'm of the opinion that handguns are largely handguns. If you don't hit anything important, the only thing that will make them stop is pain. Hollow points a really more for stopping pass through.
 
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I’m firmly in the “.32 and under, ball (especially hotter Euro stuff), .38, wadcutters, 9x19 and over, use a good JHP with a proven track record” camp.

With 9mm and .45, I have yet to shoot a gun that doesn’t group well with a quality JHP like Gold Dot or HydraShok.

I’ve seen a few too many upside-down or sideways primers crammed into the butt end of standard range-fodder cases (WWB, American Eagle) to trust basic ball ammo for carry, but I wouldn’t second-guess a good match loaded FMJ with a nice, flat meplat. Still, I live in an urban environment with neighbors close by and work in a crowded office building, so I worry both about accuracy and penetration.

.380 is a toss-up. The Hydrashok Deep and a couple of XTP loads seem to perform on par with milquetoast 9mm JHPs, so I would go with one of them first provided they were reliable in a given gun.
 
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I read an article on this not long ago, if I can find it I'll post the link. Their thoughts for 380 and smaller was to stick with ball ammo due to better penetration.
 
somethingwolfpack said:
380 will always be subsonic, pushing it ~10 fps more isn't going to make a difference ballisticly, and anyone claiming to push it faster is either lying or, since most (if not all) 380 guns are direct blowback: playing a dangerous game.
Click to expand...

Underhood's Extreme Defender using the Lehigh bullet = 1,300 FPS

I owned a Walther PP blowback .380 in the late '70s or early '80s. Since then, all of my .380s have been locked breech designs.
 
Get Off My Lawn said:
If they run reliably, I’d carry a TC FMJ with a large metplat. For the same reasons @Michael458 has pointed out for the large carriages for yuge dangerous game.
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georgel said:
Penetration trumps expansion. If you can't get to vitals, what's the point? Expansion retards penetration. The only reason you want expansion is to reduce the potential of the bullet exiting the target at high speed and putting others at risk, if that particular bullet tends to do so. The 380 does not. In an ideal world, the bullet maintains enough energy to exit the target, leaving two wounds and fall to the ground. And forget the energy dump idea. There's not enough energy in pistol rounds to matter.
Bullet shape does play a factor, as round nose wound channels tend to close up and reduce exsangination.
Winchester has these...
Click to expand...
Some years ago I somehow ended up with 2-3 little pocket 380s. I have always been a student of Terminal Ballistics. At the time, if I was going to have a 380, then I wanted the most effective terminal ballistics possible. I had zero intentions of loading for these, just not worth the trouble and very limited use that I would have for the things to begin with. I picked up various different Factory ammo and ran a few tests. As mentioned, I am a huge fan of Flat Nose Solid/FMJ projectiles in any caliber or cartridge, a good solid will solve a lot of issues. I ran across these FMJ Flat Nose Winchesters, I think the same as what @georgel mentioned above. Mind you my test medium is far far denser than ballistic gel, wet news print with every 10 inches a 1.5 inches of magazine/catalog mix. Most handgun rounds won't make it to the 10 inch mark in this medium.

Common bullets for 380s are the Round Nose FMJ, which is basically useless in large caliber rifles, much less small caliber anything else. Drilling a tiny hole, and as stated tissue will close back up after passage. But, to give you an idea of how things work;

DSC07791-1-L.jpg


I had a couple of expanding ammo to try as well........ Some sort of Hornady Zombie bullet, that actually did rather well for what its worth, I did not record the weight, and I am quite sure the velocity IS NOT CORRECT, as noted by the ??

DSC05391-XL.jpg


And this expanding version of Hornady XTP.......

DSC07792-L.jpg


And then we tested the little Winchester Flat Nose FMJ bullets and for 380 caliber I thought they really did great, and even today, this is what is loaded in the magazines of the 380s I have on hand.......

DSC07788-L.jpg


In my opinion there is not much to a 380 and you need everything you can get out of one, but without doubt I would rather have a 380 in my pocket than a "pocket knife"..........
 
I saw several mentions of Lehigh bullets in posts above, while briefing the thread. I am a very big fan of the Lehighs, and carry Lehighs in both 9mm and 45 ACP. The Lehigh Extremes work as advertised.
I know what they can do in 9mm and 45 ACP, but I do not know in 380. If I am not mistaken, I believe the Lehigh for 380 is either 60-65 gr? Lehigh loves velocity, the higher the velocity the more trauma inflicted, if you can get velocity from a 380 then that might be a good tool to have. Personally I might try a Lehigh on top of the magazine, followed by the Flat Nose FMJ ...........

DSCN9174-X2.jpg
 
I voted FMJ.

The more I shoot the less into boutique rounds I become. Don’t get me wrong, I still carry HPs in my 9mm edcs, but it’s mainly out of habit and past positive experience with specific rounds. Mainly tried and true HSTs and Gold dots. But if someone handed me a magazine or FMJ to carry the rest of my life I wouldn’t feel any less armed.

When I carried a .380 I always used FMJ as I figured it was a bit anemic to begin with out of a little mouse gun so I wanted to drill as deep a hole as possible.

In my worthless opinion, what would matter the most is find one round that your gun is dead nuts accurate with and carry that. If it happens to be a fancy JHP, fine. If it happens to be Tulammo, fine. Putting the hole exactly where you want it every time trumps the minimal expansion.
 
In my opinion, the hollow point hydroshok golddot hst xtp abcxyz critical bonded defense ammo all share one thing, excellent marketing and advertising. Very few people will ever have to use their weapon to shoot someone but, they are told they must use this ammo to survive a shoot out.
 
Geezer said:
In my opinion, the hollow point hydroshok golddot hst xtp abcxyz critical bonded defense ammo all share one thing, excellent marketing and advertising. Very few people will ever have to use their weapon to shoot someone but, they are told they must use this ammo to survive a shoot out.
Click to expand...
Not only are you handsome but your pretty dang smart
 
Geezer said:
In my opinion, the hollow point hydroshok golddot hst xtp abcxyz critical bonded defense ammo all share one thing, excellent marketing and advertising. Very few people will ever have to use their weapon to shoot someone but, they are told they must use this ammo to survive a shoot out.
Click to expand...

If ammo companies were honest, the marketing would say anything short of a fist-sized wad of buckshot is a total coin toss. A pistol just launches a tiny rock that might hit something important if you’re skilled—and lucky.

I just like accurate ammo with nickel cases. My summer sweat could make plastic rust.
 
All my autos get FMJ cause reliability trumps everything, e.g if it don't work ya dont get a chance to poke a hole in it anyway.

All my Revolvers get lead semi or full wadcutters, cause nice clean cut full caliber holes bleed gooder.
 
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