Best .45acp Defense round

Post mortems show that when shot where it counts, .45's do not need super grade bullets to work. PERIOD.


They are large enough to cause tissue displacement and more often than not leave a wound channel that does not seal up, leading to Pneumothorax. once that happens, its lights out pretty quick. While shooting a superpremium bullet is a good idea, it is not as critical in the .45 as it is in the smaller calibers. If you are a cop and need to shoot thru barricades, car bodies etc, the use of a bonded core will help, but good old .45 ball will carry on thru most cars better than that anyway.
 
Buy whatever your local leo's carry. If you pop someone, it looks better to do it with the same round as the locals use.
 
I know i'll be in the minority here but i've always leaned toward your basic 230 grain ball and worked on shot placement. In todays litigious society you cap a dirtbag with a "dangerous" bullet and you find yourself in court you'll have to defend your choice. I know it's ridiculous and it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6 but if you can avoid the problem it's better. All the above mentioned rounds are exc choices but i'll stick with a well placed 230 ball everytime. also, as a rule, you don't have feeding problems with the ball as opposed to some of the flying ashtrays. good luck and hope you never have to use the piece. ahgar
 
ahgar said:
I know i'll be in the minority here but i've always leaned toward your basic 230 grain ball and worked on shot placement. In todays litigious society you cap a dirtbag with a "dangerous" bullet and you find yourself in court you'll have to defend your choice. I know it's ridiculous and it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6 but if you can avoid the problem it's better. All the above mentioned rounds are exc choices but i'll stick with a well placed 230 ball everytime. also, as a rule, you don't have feeding problems with the ball as opposed to some of the flying ashtrays. good luck and hope you never have to use the piece. ahgar
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I don't see how that's true today when the police all use hollowpoints now.
The risk of overpenitration and the safety of non combatants could easily be argued.
I do think using a round not used by police that is more powerful than normal like 10mm could be used against you as it was already done successfully.
Unless your local police use .44mag or 10mm I'd stay away from those rounds
if you're worried about juries.
Bigger wildcats would be even worse.
 
ahgar said:
I know i'll be in the minority here but i've always leaned toward your basic 230 grain ball and worked on shot placement. In todays litigious society you cap a dirtbag with a "dangerous" bullet and you find yourself in court you'll have to defend your choice. I know it's ridiculous and it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6 but if you can avoid the problem it's better. All the above mentioned rounds are exc choices but i'll stick with a well placed 230 ball everytime. also, as a rule, you don't have feeding problems with the ball as opposed to some of the flying ashtrays. good luck and hope you never have to use the piece. ahgar
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have heard this arguement before and still say if ya are in the right in a shoot, ya are in the right, irregardless of the tool used, as long as its legal in your neck of the woods. .45 ball isnt too bad though, unlike say 9MM ball.

talking of old tech the old speer 200gr flying ashtray is a prime example imho, there are so many better loads than that available now i dont know why anyone would want that load, if they even still make it, stuff now will expand better and more importantly feed correctly,

i would never use glasers myself, or any other load like that, not enough penetration for one, they dont feed well in some pistols for point 2, the only reason to use stuff like that is where overpentration is a major concern.
 
use whatever functions 100% of the time. a round of ball ammo in the badguy beats two jammed hollowpoints in the action. dig?
 
again, i dont think its any big deal these days to expect (and demand) near 100% reliablity with any carry pistol and ammo, its a simple matter to find a pistol which will function with HP ammo, glock, SIG, kahr, berretta, i have heard that even S&W autos made these days will function just fine with HP ammo, colt 1911's too.

of course before ya carry any pistol its a good idea to shoot a little ammo thru it (200 rounds or so, at least) to insure proper functioning and accuracy.

now if ya have some old pistol (say a S&W 59) then yes ya probably will have to experiment to find something which will feed, but any top quality pistol is gonna function with good ammo these days, if it doesnt send it back and get it fixed.

this is 2007 not 1987.
 
winchesters Black Talon or Ranger talons for me 230hp also talon in .380,9mm,.357sig,.40 you just can't beat them
 
Don't laugh, but I use WWB JHPs. It's not a premium round by any means, but it acts similarly to the ammo I practice with most, WWB FMJ. It's also cheap enough that I can actually afford to practice with it.

Don't know if it's the best though. I'm glad I've never had to find out.
 
The beauty of the .45acp round is the fact that you can pick any of the quality 230gr or even 185gr hollow points and they will work superbly.

Now, If you want to see the latest and greatest in .45,.40, & 9mm that not everyone knows about yet, go to Federal's website and read about their new HST design. And no, it DOES NOT stand for Hydra-Shok 2. This new offering is very hard to come by right now but if you are lucky enough to find it, especially you guys carrying 9mm, buy all of it you can.

NOTE: If anybody finds a big stash of it somewhere but the dealer will only sell in huge quantities, please don't let that discourage you. Just contact me and I will buy it all and then sell you whatever you want as a thanks for finding it....Yes, I am serious!
 
...we bond the copper jacket to the lead core one molecule at a time...
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Those guys at Speer really believe in Old World craftsmanship. Must take years to produce one of these. ;)

One plus for the 230 grain hollowpoints is that if you practice with 230 grain ball ammo, your point of impact won't be much different than your carry rounds.
 
Allow me to go against the tide here

I use 230 lead truncated cone flat points with a huge metplat.

I have used this load extensively on small, medium and large game.

Accurate, penetrates well ( primary consideration with a handgun round) and Really sound neat when it hits meat. Sounds like smacking someone with a baseball bat. I run these at about 850 FPS or so from a 5 inch barrel.

In my experience it has anchored everything from feral dogs and cats to pigs and deer of various sizes.

No matter what you use though.... Bullet placement is still the #1 factor, #2 is getting the handgun bullet deep enough to hit something important.

Everything else is pretty much gravy.

Just my Opinion.
 
My Colt 1911 A1 is loaded with 230gr Winchester Black Talons alternating in the magazine with 230gr Speer Gold Dots.
 
I don't know if anybody here has heard of it or or not but Federal had something a few years back called Expanding Full Metal Jacket, or EFMJ for short. It looked like a flat nosed FMJ round, but it had a rubbery thing on the inside that flattened out and mushroomed when the bullet hit flesh. The reason for it was because if a hollow point bullet filled with cloth (from a person's clothing) before entering the body, it wouldn't always expand. They tested this by setting up a block of ballistic gelatin and putting a t-shirt over it. The hollow points didn't always expand, but the EFMJ rounds expanded 100% of the time. I don't know what weights the bullet came in or even if they produce it anymore, but it sounds like a good idea.
 
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