jlh820

To the OP. Sorry, but I think you can see you've stumbled across a holy war. The simple truth is that any factory load your gun takes can kill somebody. Hollow points are designed to mushroom and expand on contact which makes a much larger and traumatic wound. People hit with JHPs are often put out if commission with one round. Except for 45, that's not so much the case with ball or FMJ ammo. I recommend using a JHP round that matches your practice round as closely as possible. I hope this helps answer your question.

The rest of you guys, please continue your war.

jlh820

I said, continue your war, not shoot at me. The OP asked a simple question and rather than talk about ballastics gel, how far a rifle penetrates a deer or prove someone else wrong, I tried to give him a simple answer.

I know you were making a joke, but why did you make "that" joke? It's not that funny when the "joke" is aimed at you.

ditto1958

Hi Bigdog, sadly my budget did not allow for a Glock or M&P. However, the SD9 seems to be a high quality firearm. Cannot find anything cheap about how it is built. Am going to find some HP's that are more of a standard length, shape and weight.

Benemorte

WOW. I have read some scary stuff on the net, but never I have even come close to reading something like this on these forums. At the very least, you owe a sincere apology. If I were an admin of this site, the ban hammer would be paying you a visit for sure.

CJS1945

I carry with Hornady Critical Defense, and have also used Federal Hydra-Shok. I have hand loaded for 45 years and can load ammo to equal or exceed regular factory ammo, but the quality and consistency that i have chronographed with premium personal defense ammo is almost imposable to equal. Some of the powder they use are not available to reloaders and the price is not bad when the quality and dependability is taken into consideration, they spend a lot on research and development and have equipment that we can only dream of.

shootist

You were joking about war, people get shot at in wars we wern't having a war here just talking, just joking back with you.

bsms

357 rounds with JHP typically penetrate around 15 inches. Sometimes less, even in gelatin. Sometimes much more. That is enough if you shoot someone in the chest. If it is a big guy, and your bullet first goes thru his arm, it may not be enough. If you've been knocked to the ground, you may be shooting up at the guy's torso. If penetration varies from 8-24 inches in gel, are you feeling lucky? You see, any self defense round will NOT always penetrate enough.

.357 Magnum Ammunition Performance Data

357 Magnum

With a 3" barrel 686, I'm probably not getting every bit of oomph from the round anyways. So the question becomes: Your life is on the line. You may be killed in the next 10 seconds. Which is a greater concern - getting enough penetration to seriously injure or kill the attacker, or the chance your bullet will go thru the guy and kill someone else?

I've never heard of a handgun round going thru someone and killing someone else. I've never heard of a case where a handgun round went thru someone and seriously injured someone else. It COULD happen, but it is, at least, very rare. The recent NYC incident injured bystanders with misses and ricochets, according to the accounts I've seen.

And since I'm not a cop, the odds of my shooting with a crowd in the background is near zero. My typical self-defense scenarios are in my home or while pulled over by the side of the road. If I'm in a movie theater (almost never) or eating out (maybe 6 times/year) and a crazed gunman starts shooting people at random, then I doubt a DA is going to get mad because I shot the guy and a round went thru and then hit someone. After all, the guy is shooting multiple people - stopping him becomes the #1 priority.

Everyone needs to figure out what is best for their situation. If I carried in a crowded office, I might have different criteria.

Yes, guys use a 357 for hunting. I don't know anyone who considers it overpowering for shooting deer. Adequate? Yes. Too much gun when fired from a short barrel? Nope. How many drop down to a 38 because a 357 is too much gun for deer?

BTW - a bullet exiting thru skin looses about 200 ft/lb of energy, which is why bullets are often found under the skin on the far side. If your bullet goes thru his arm first, you've lost about a third to half the power of a 357 round.

Also, I would use factory rounds because the factories are pretty good about matching bullet construction & powder to get good results. They do a lot of testing while I shoot Coke cans...

Brady

+1
I do have some "premium" ammo but would not feel 'under-gunned' with Wally's ammo as long as it's a major brand hollow-point and 125 grains or more. I prefer more.
Wow, all these posts to say this.

ExArmy11b

I won't repeat what's been said already, but I have some points-



Don't try to make sense of what the US Govt. uses or why they use it..........using the NATO standard of ball ammo as a comparing point is useless, how much of what NATO or our govt. does actually makes sense? And yes, I have seen 5.56 ball zip right through Bad Guys and then they were still able to run. Dead insurgents have been found with numerous old 5.56 wounds. NATO says the 5.56 round that tumbles inside tissue, the ORIGINAL intent of this round, was "inhumane" and so now NATO uses 5.56 ball that passes right through tissue. And NOW, I read, that NATO is considering going back to the "tumbling" round that actually worked in Vietnam..........so no, not every decision the Govt. makes should be an example of good judgement.

Police have used 110-130 gr. .357 for decades for a reason.

But, tons of people carry factory .45 ACP +P 230 gr. ball ammo in their CC guns every day............I carry FMJ ball ammo in my .32 ACP pistols, when I carry them for defense. Who's to say these little .32 pills won't zip through a bad guy and hit someone? You just never know.......

I have heard of .22 LR rounds zipping right through people, and 158 gr. .357's bouncing off people's skulls, so make your own conclusions and carry what you're comfortable with. Unless you carry a .22 short revolver, you're going to risk overpenetration no matter what.

If you want to carry reloads in a self-defense gun, that's your choice. I have heard people say "no one will know I have reloads, the brass says Remington" Yes but you will be asked if you had reloads or factory ammo in the gun, when you are in court defending yourself.

I don't think all of the factory SD rounds are a "crock", and yes, they're expensive but you shoot one 25-round box to function test, and use the other for carry. It's not a big deal. Remington Golden Saber is an excellent and proven SD round.

I do think the stuff like the "Zombie Max" ammo is bordering on ridiculous, but Hornady sells a ton of the stuff, and they are a business after all.

Sr40ken

The videos were nice, but only an indictment of Montana Gold bullets. Does anyone think that those would do no more damage than ball ammo? Proper tool for the job as my dad would say. There is plenty of evidence that some of the modern SD rounds work and works well. But the best ammo on earth will not do it's job if you don't hit the target.
That being said my CCW ronds are Hornady Critical Defence in the .40, Winchester Ranger HP in the wifes .45 and "OH NO" handloaded Montana Gold in the .357., handloaded 75gr HPBT in the Mini 14.

NickFroelich

does anyone really wanna risk even the chance of harming an innocent bystander?
i would carry HP rounds in any self defense weapon i would carry. im not worried about saving a few bucks when it comes to a matter of life and death.
over penetration is a risk i dont want to take. if others are willing to either take that risk then thats on them. i want the energy transfer from expansion.

ExArmy11b

Honestly, it seems these days that firearm technology has evolved to the point where .357 Magnum and 9mm have become "pocket gun" rounds. We have guns like the LCR .357 and the LC9, guns that would have been "space age" 20 or even 10 years ago.

.357 Magnum has become the new .38 +P and 9mm Parabellum is the new .380, it seems. We even have S&W and Taurus making ultra-light alloy frame snub .44 Magnums

I try to cut back on giving opinions on stuff like this because people are going to do what they want anyway.......IMO 158 gr. .357 Soft Point would be an excellent stopper, but I always thought, through my own experiments with my snub nose .357s', that .357 out of the snub revolvers isn't worth the extra blast and recoil, for the velocity gains over a solid .38 +P like Golden Saber or TAP. If you feel you need the extra 2-300 fps, than by all means go with the .357.

kiwihunter

Benemorte were you the lad at school that cried to the teacher all the time?...shootists comments were obviously meant tongue in cheek with nothing more sinister implied than a little dark humour to which you are obviously immune...i noted to that you also complained about my Taliban joke in the punchlines causing it to be removed...you are reasonably new to this forum and it seems you have nothing better to do than run around complaining to the mods about your perceived violations of the codes of this site ....mate if you were in admin on this forum it wouldn't exist...either enjoy this great forum for what it is a diverse bunch of guys and gals that have a common interest in Ruger firearms or find another forum but stop moaning and trying to impose your ideals on everyone else you are not the forum sherriff

jlh820

Hold on there, Kiwi! I appreciated Benemorte's remarks as I was the butt of the joke. That was a tasteless and thoughtless joke. While I somewhat understand shootist's sense of "humor", the way it was worded made it sound like everyone on the forum disagreed with me and they were asking permission to shoot at me.

As someone who has made several outstanding posts about the needless deaths of your countryman, I'm surprised "you" would condone this conduct.

Killing people isn't a joke! And that's what was insinuated towards me and by the entire forum, at that.

So don't start demeaning Benemorte for having the guts to stand up against something that was wrong - no matter the intent behind it.

Sr40ken

It's context was joking and it's intent was joking. He didn't say or imply to shoot anyone. In fact he asked a question in a joking manner..............with a smileyface.
Some are looking where there isn't anything to look at. JMHO