the gun has to go “bang” every time the trigger is pulled. It won’t fail to penetrate.Īlthough the.380 ACP isn’t a ballistic powerhouse, I’m more worried about the reliability of the guns chambering this round than I am its lack of ballistic performance. The round will fail to expand in heavy winter clothing. A plugged hollowpoint acts the same as a ball (full metal jacket) round and will actually penetrate MUCH DEEPER. Heavy clothing plugs hollowpoints and inhibits their expansion. The EXACT OPPOSITE is what actually happens. Most people assume that heavy winter clothing will limit penetration in flesh. The “winter clothing” issue requires some additional discussion. But if any barriers must be defeated, if your attacker is wearing heavy clothing, or if you have to take a cross body shot that penetrates the arm before reaching the vital organs, there is a much higher incidence of failure as compared to the standard “service caliber” weapons. It will probably work fine in the “average” gunfight. It meets some of our standards, but not all. 380 cartridge as “marginal” over the years. That’s why so many gun writers have labeled the. The problem gets worse when we use more stringent testing standards like the FBI’s four-layer denim test.

When the bullets violently expand, we see inadequate penetration. What do you see? For most defensive loads that penetrate deeply enough to reach the desired 12″ level, we see limited expansion. 380 do? Take a look at some of the more comprehensive gelatin testing reports available:

45 ACP, all the good hollowpoint bullets will pass the test. Almost every service-caliber defensive loads will meet the 1.5X expansion and 12″-18″ penetration tests. 380 ACP (with a starting diameter of 0.355″) we want to see a bullet that expands to roughly 0.53″. An expanding bullet is generally deemed acceptable if it expands to 1.5X its initial diameter. Expanding bullets make larger holes and reduce the chance of overpenetration. The maximum a handgun round should penetrate is 18″ of the same gelatin.īeyond looking for this 12″-18″ penetration range, we would also like to see a bullet expand. We also don’t want the bullet penetrating so deeply that people standing behind the attacker are in danger. To ensure that the bullets reach deep enough to hit a vital organ if the attacker is very fat or muscular, we want a bullet that penetrates at least 12″ of ballistic gelatin. The larger wound channel also creates more blood loss, which will eventually cause an attacker to stop his violent attack, even if a vital organ isn’t struck.īallistic experts look for a couple of key factors when evaluating handgun bullet effectiveness. As bullet holes get bigger and deeper, the likelihood of the bullets hitting a vital organ increases. As most of you know, handgun bullets do nothing more than make holes. The issue of stopping power gets somewhat complex. Unfortunately, they aren’t as reliable or “shootable” as their larger counterparts. 380 auto! The guns are popular because they are easy to conceal. That article alone has 40% more page views than the next most popular article on my site. The single most viewed article of all time on my website is A Comparison of. It’s not just off-duty police officers who are interested in the. I think carrying any gun is better than nothing, but I’m concerned about the lack of “stopping power” in the little. I was wondering, what you think about this round? I have heard issues about under-penetration in clothing (especially winter time). Our policy will not allow officers to carry anything smaller than a. 380 pocket guns for off duty carry instead of carrying their issued Glock 26 9mm pistols. “A lot of my guys on the department are going with. I received this question (edited for brevity) from a police firearms instructor last week:

380 vs 9mm