I posted about my search for the right carry ammo for my snub. Caleb, of Gun Nuts Media, responded to my post and created a post of his own where he responds to me touting the virtues of Hornady Critical Defense ammo.

I must admit I’ve been very curious about this ammo, especially since I like 9mm and now have .38 Special to deal with too, and Critical Defense is made for those calibers (it only comes in .380 ACP, 9mm, .38 Spc, and .38 Spc +P). Plus I do like Hornady products; I use their TAP for the home-defense AR. They make good stuff, and I’ve got a warm spot in my heart for Nebraska. So… I said I wanted to do more research into this ammo, might as well post what I can find.

Let’s start with Hornady’s own page on Critical Defense. It of course is heavy on marketing, but the key of this page is that it describes the product. What I like is they are aiming to make reliable ammo in terms of performance and terminal effectiveness for citizen carry. That means they focus on small, compact, short-barreled guns, thus the 4 particular chamberings they produce. They focus on the needs of citizen defense, not police (e.g. police may have to shoot through barriers, citizens are unlikely to). They consider the bullet itself, the powders, the cases, how all the parts are assembled… it seems very purpose driven and very focused: form follows function. I like that.

The key thing about the Critical Defense ammo is the use of their Flex Tip® bullet. You see, in a normal hollow point bullet, the hollow point is what makes the bullet effective: it hits whatever it hits then the bullet expands. This expansion causes greater damage but also creates greater drag so the bullet eventually stops. This is what you want in self-defense ammo because you want to stop your attacker but also ensure the bullet doesn’t pass through and hit who knows what else on the other side. This is why full-metal-jacket ammo isn’t good for self-defense because it doesn’t do as much damage (smaller wound channel) and will pass right through whatever it initially hits. So the trouble with hollow-points is that hollow point can fill up with stuff (clothing material, wallboard) which then causes the bullet to act like a full metal jacket bullet. This is not what you want. So, Hornady has “pre-filled” the hollow point with a material that will prevent other stuff from clogging, but the tip material works in conjunction with the bullet to cause it to reliably expand. That’s why I find this ammo so interesting: it seems to finally be something that works like a hollow point and negates the one big problem with hollow points. Win win, hopefully.

While Critical Defense is new, the Flex Tip is not. As Caleb mentions, it’s been a solid hunting round with a good reputation (from what I can find). That does speak well of the bullet technology.

Stephen Camp did some informal testing of the .38 Spc and .380 rounds. One interesting note was that he did his .38 test out of a snub, and it seems his data didn’t line up with Hornady’s (I find Hornady’s published data is: .380 Auto (90-gr./1,000 fps/200-ft.lbs.), .38 Special (110-gr./1175 fps/337-ft. lbs.), .38 Special +P (110-gr./1270 fps/394-ft.lbs.) and 9mm Luger (115-gr./1140 fps/332-ft.lbs.))… suspecting that Hornady’s posted data is coming out of a longer-barreled gun. Nevertheless, in doing some wetpack tests, results of the .38 Special tests (note, not the +P) were good. Expansion was reliable as was penetration. Penetration also seemed to be of a good depth, about 12″ – 14″ (adjusted). Expansion diameters weren’t as wide as one could get with .38 ammo, at least looking at Stephen’s numbers vs. numbers in this chart. Still, the diameter numbers are respectable, especially if you consider that the promise of this ammo is that you’ll reliably get that level of expansion. The bullet didn’t seem to convince him enough to give up his current Remington .38 +P LHP carry load, but it was still compelling data.

Mark12Ministries tells of his first experience with this Hornady product. Not much hard data, but at least it was reliable in his gun.

Handguns Magazine has an article on the ammo. It’s more focused on the .380 load and a bit of a magazine fluff piece. No real hard data here.

Here’s a bunch of data on performance of a lot of .38 loads, but nothing for Critical Defense.

It’s tough finding useful data out there. A lot of chatter seems to be that this is a nice development and most “testing” was picking up a box and shooting at paper targets… so about all you can judge there is that it feeds reliably and has some level of accuracy. Important, but not really the qualities one needs in determining self-defense ammo. Plus most discussion tends to be of the .380 or 9mm ammo, and those are different beasts from the .38 Spc ammo that I’m looking for. I’m looking specifically for what can work best and squeeze the most out of the .38 chambering, and there’s just not enough data out there on Critical Defense to say one way or the other. It does seem promising.

Of course, the solution to lack of data is to create some data. I just wish I had a way to do that. I just don’t have access to facilities to permit that. Another reason why I want a lot of land and my own private range… then I can be like Old_Painless. 🙂

Speaking of him, here’s some stuff from The Box O’ Truth. Forum discussion. BOT #27 on “little guns”. Doesn’t say much about Critical Defense, but it’s always great to read BOT’s articles. It does show that .38 is still a respectable round.

Nevertheless, I must admit a pull towards the Hornady Critical Defense as a self-defense load for my snub. The bullet design is proven. The loads are specifically designed for small/compact/short-barrel guns, and for personal defense situations (e.g. quality powder with low muzzle flash). They offer it in a standard pressure and +P loads. While my 442 can handle the +P load, it’s nice to see efforts made for a standard pressure self-defense load since lots of snubs that folks carry are old and not +P rated. Plus some people may just not like to deal with the extra kick of a +P load. So, there’s no question I’m curious about Critical Defense, but I’d really like to have more tangible data. Data of the standard load vs. the +P load. How the .38 loads perform out of 2″ snubs, or even 3″ or 4″ barrels (or 6″ if someone wanted to go there, just for data collection); performance would be accuracy, velocity, and “shootin’ stuff” like ballistics gel performance. It’d also be nice to see comparisons to the Speer Gold Dot 135 grain “short barrel” stuff.

My mind still isn’t made up, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be stopping into Cabela’s this evening. I’ll see what’s available.

The search continues….

Updated: Foo.c pointed me to this brief thread at the XDTalk forums. Granted, that could have just been one bad batch, it’s tough to tell.

Ah, more discussion on XDTalk.

He also pointed me to this discussion at m4carbine.net. See especially post #24 and post #34 both from “DocGKR.” Shows that nothing is perfect, but the Gold Dot 135 +P (the short-barrel specific ones) are looking pretty darn good. That or just the good old semi-wadcutters. Or if I really want some juice, Corbon 110 grain JHP DPX.

Still, this isn’t a lot of data yet… at least, not as much data as other loads that have been on the market for much longer. So the jury is still out. Nevertheless, it’s enough data to give me pause and reconsider. I admit I’m still very curious about the Critical Defense, but am I willing to trust my life to it based on the evidence presented so far? No. It could just be Hornady working bugs out of their system, but is your life worth their debugging process? I carry Gold Dots in my 9mm because they have a solid track record (tho nothing is perfect), even when shooting through barriers (be it denim or otherwise). So why shouldn’t I trust Gold Dots here too, especially since Speer makes a variant specifically for snubs.

I guess maybe I’m leaning now towards Gold Dot (the 135 grain short-barrel flavor), investigating Corbon’s DPX, or just traditional semi-wadcutters.

Updated 11 Nov. 2009: I see that this ammo is getting more and more press, which is great. No question this is a popular posting here on my blog so that shows many people are curious about it.

Still, what I want to see is more actual testing towards what the ammo does. Not just that it functions in your gun and can put holes on paper in a tight-enough group. I want to see things like ballistics gel testing. That’s why the one bit of such testing I found, Stephen Camp’s listed above, was an interesting start. But there needs to be more. I’m not writing off this ammo as I think it’s got a sound strategy behind it. I just want to see more solid performance data before I would make a decision. It’s just too new and there’s just not enough data for my satisfaction.

If you know of something or have done testing yourself, please post in the comments.

Meantime, in my .38 snub goes traditional LSWC’s like the Buffalo Bore 20/20c. Remington R38S12 would be fine too, if someone had it in stock.