Pros and cons of each?

This post has been edited by redbarron06: November 1st 2009 12:16 AM

Big and slow or small and fast. I use 230 grain xtp hollow points for business and 230 grain FMJ for plinking. No, I don't have a good reason for it.

I carry with 230gr speer gold dot and plink with winchester 230gr FMJ. I like the ballistics on the Speer and the winchester weighs the same so it's good practice ammo. Hand cannon

IIRC +P only gives about 50-75 fps over standard. Seems hardly worth the effort but then again every little bit helps.

I only ask because I have always carried 230s. Speer, Winchester, Golden Saber and so forth. Well the other night at the BPS I ran into some Golden Saper in 185 and 185+p. I picked up the 185s figuring I could always use another box os SP ammo especially as hard as it has been to find latley. So far I am using it all in a 5 inch but have a 4 inch in the works.

My theory is with the 230 you have the added weight working for you if the hollow point fails to expand.

I like Hornady TAP FPD 230+P. Heavy and fast.

We always used 230gr Gold Dots for .45 duty ammo, until we had to make a large purchase last June. Supposedly all we could find was 185gr Golden Sabre. I'm not a fan. I want a bonded bullet, and I want as much lead as I can throw at the bad guy. As someone famous once said when asked why they carried a .45, "Because they don't make a .46".

What I've read over the years was that the 230 JHP was designed for the 5" barrel and that's where it shines, once you cut down the barrel length ya also need to go to a lighter bullet as even modern 230gr JHP's do not preform as intended at lower velocities & the .45 JHP are extremly velocity dependent.

Now I don't know how true tis is, but a friend and I played with a couple boxes of Hydro shoks and silver tips out of his Wilson customized Colt Officers' Model & my Colt series 80 Govt model & it seemed that the 230gr's did not expand or penatrate as deep out of his 45 when compared to mine.

Source?

Um our backyard testing that other than being fun had no actual scientific validity or what I've read over the years??

Of course it had actual scientific validity, you're being much too modest. Many other places, that "backyard testing" would have been an "intensive study comparing commercially loaded ammunition in various projectile weights, fired from varied length pistol barrels, complete with photographs".

Where you read it. What you are saying makes sense, but I don't think that any .45 with a barrel shorter than 5" needs to shoot 185 for optimal performance.

That being said, I could be wrong, which is why I am asking you for your source.

Can't quote anybody specific, it's just what I've read in different gun mags, web sites, the much vaunted but called fake "Strasbourg Tests" stuff from Evan Marshall's web site http://www.stoppingpower.net/ stuff Massad Ayoob has written about over the years.

Seems like the 200gr "flaying ashtray" was said to be best in a 4" barrel & the 185gr in a 3" but that's just what I can remember from reading mutiple sources over the years.

Till it's proven with references ya can quote it's just conjuncture thus why I tried to word the orginal post in a way to not come across as fast hard data.

Wonder if The Box O' Truth could compare this and prove it or not...

I was wondering the same thing, in all honesty I haven't even looked.

Sorry if my earlier post seemed snide, I was genuinely curious.

It does seem logicial that a light round might perform better from the shorter barrel. However in my "backyard tests" I have shot Hyrda shocks, Gold Dots, Black Talons and a few others into 55 gal drums full of water and then retrieved them and the 4 inch barrel I was using at the time was getting them all to pretty much mushroom. As a matter of fact I could not even recover the gold dot because it completley broke apart with no shape retension at all.

When comparing ammunition to .45 acp, I typically compare everything to 230 g FMJ. Besides the fact that's the old time MIL round, its more than proven its self in the terminal ballistics category.

Where that puts the 185 HP is about the same terminal ballistics as the 230 FMJ but due to that 100-200 fps muzzle velocity gain, you gain about 2" on drop out to the 50 yard line. Of course to say that, the bullet has to expand (in flesh) which puts the bullet expansion need to see a benefit from the 185 HP at distance down to around 300 fps. That's going to be the better bullets or the better the closer you will get achieving that.

From a design standpoint, the metal jacket on ammunition can only go so thin. It has to have enough to catch the rifling and not split. That means better bullets will be serrated at the tip to assist expansion. Deeper the serration, the lower muzzle velocity it will expand. Soft nose has a lot better expansion but its a trade in that you give up a little drift so you are gaining drop but giving drift.

As you can see the 185 has some advantages and a nitche in the loading world. Its when one is talking 25 yards or less and comparing to a 230 HP that it doesn't.

Tj

Well, going by this, I will be at Gander Mtn. today for a new holster. I guess I should pick up some 185s for the new 3" Kimber,all I have laying around are 230s.

I had a misfire out of a 1911 I no longer have, federal hydra shock, i don't know if it was under powdered or what, but the bullet just happened to hit the cabinet where there was a piece of particle board separating drawers from the undersink cabinet. The bullet only went in 3-4 inches and deformity was that the little stick in the center had been pushed in. That made me not want to use hydra shocks anymore. I've never had any problems out of Gold dots or the TAP I used to carry. That was out of a charles daly 5" for the record.

The difference between my G36 and full size 1911 was about 65 fps using one of my +P type handloads and a 230 Gr Golden Saber.
The GS fired in damp sand still opened up... albeit a bit less. Velocity in the G36 was about 935 fps.