Recommendations for five calibers based on street performance - Duty Loads: Today's Best

Guns Magazine, March, 2002 by Massad Ayoob

Jeff Cooper once remarked that we should choose our caliber before we choose our gun. Why? Because the projectile is the purpose of the exercise and, therefore, more important than the launcher. Damn good point.

In a defensive handgun, the likelihood of stopping a human or animal attack (assuming correct shot placement) is generally the overriding concern, but it must be balanced with other factors. The shooter has to be able to control recoil for accurate rapid fire at what might be multiple threats, or a single highly determined one. This is why we don't all carry .44 Magnums. Another concern in caliber selection is consistent availability of the right ammo. A smaller bore gun that's only effective with one or two types of ammo can be a liability if the ammo supply dries up. Twice in the last decade we all experienced severe ammo availability limitations: the buying panic that followed the Brady Act and the Crime Law, and the "stockpiling spree" in anticipation of Y2K. One advantage of a .45 is that just about any round you stuff in it will hit with some authority.

Perspective From The Street

I review a large number of shooting reports and autopsies each year as an expert witness in homicide cases. I've also chaired the firearms committee of the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers since its inception 14 years ago. This puts me in a position to get feedback from departments of all sizes as to how certain rounds function in actual shooting situations.

Gelatin testing and other laboratory protocols are useful, but they are only a piece of the puzzle. A bullet's performance in the homogeneous ballistic gel is not necessarily what it will be in the heterogeneous medium of a living mammal. In a real-world situation, the bullet passes through the varying resistance of hide or clothing, elastic skin, tough muscle, solid abdominal viscera, softer tissues, liquid, and hard bone.

Let's take a look at what's currently giving the best real-world results in the most popular defense calibers:

.45 ACP

230-grain JHP: In standard pressure loads, these are the ones to beat. Federal's Hydra-Shok has been around the longest, with an unblemished record for high likelihood of stopping a gunfight with one or two chest hits. The bullet usually expands, particularly out of longer barrels. CCI's Gold Dot also expands as advertised. Both are extremely accurate. Winchester's SXT is another good choice. So is Remington's Golden Saber, though I've seen it occasionally fail to open as much as I'd like.

With regard to bullet testing, there is a big controversy between Evan Marshall and Dr. Martin Fackler. Marshall tracks gunfight reports, and Fackler relies largely on gelatin testing. Fackler recommends SXT, while Marshall sees the best results with Hydra-Shok. Flip a coin, or be an individualist: when I tested 230-grain standard pressure .45 loads in the slaughterhouse a few years ago for this magazine, the PMC El Dorado StarFire gave the most dynamic results.

An advantage of 230-grain JHP is that once you know it'll feed in your gun, you can practice with cheap generic hardball and have pretty much the same recoil and point-of-aim/point-of-impact as your duty load.

P: Do you need an added pressure load in your .45 auto? It depends. Winchester's standard pressure 185-grain Silvertip approaches 1,000 fps in a 5-inch gun, though in years past its velocity was lower. Countless shootings have shown that this bullet will almost always expand and stay in the body. This, along with lighter recoil than comparable pressure 230-grain rounds, makes it a good defense choice for your home or store. However, at P pressure, a 185-grain bullet is running about 1,150 fps out of a 5-inch barrel and at about 1,070 fps from a shorty. At that speed, you're going to get more violent tissue disruption. For me, a big advantage of 185-grain P is that at 75 or 100 yards, it'll usually print where the sights are if the gun is sighted in dead-on for 230-grain ball at 25 yards. This makes it my choice when I'm anyplace where a long shot might be required.

The 230-grain bullet hits harder at P velocity (950 fps from a 5-inch) than standard pressure at about 850 fps. The question is whether that's worth the significantly greater recoil. I'd rather go with a 185-grain fast-stepper in a P, or the 200-grain version from Speer and Pro-Load (1,050 fps). Both use the very wide-mouth Gold Dot bullet. I've seen this Gold Dot's predecessor -- the old CCI 200-grain flying ashtray bullet of the same weight and shape at the same velocity -- blow the eyes out of a steer's head from the intracranial pressure of a brain shot. That bullet measured a true inch in diameter when recovered from the back of the steer's shattered head. However, wide-mouth 200-grain bullets don't feed well in every single .45 out there. When in doubt: Federal 230-grain Hydra-Shok.

.40 S&W

180-grain subsonic: with the paper ballistics of the frontier .38-40 revolver round or a low end .45 auto, this bullet worked out better than most of us thought it would a decade ago. Still, having greater sectional density than a .45 auto bullet of about the same weight and velocity, it's more likely to overpenetrate. The single best of these rounds I've run across is Winchester's Ranger Talon. Good news: All of the half-dozen I've seen recovered from human bodies have expanded as advertised, and all but one stayed in. All were also fatal. Bad news: The Ranger Talon is sold only to police departments.