Packing 101: Self-Defense Ammunition and Training

.40 S&W 165 grain Ranger T

I see lots of people post on gun forums related to concealed carry about having just received their concealed carry permit and are now asking people what type of ammunition they should carry. Inevitably I see responses from people advising the person to pick a specific ammunition and order 500-1000 rounds of that specific ammunition for training purposes. At sixty cents a round and higher that gets expensive quickly. This is bad advice and can lead to people purchasing low-end, budget self-defense ammunition because they have been told they need to train with their self-defense ammunition. This is patently false.

There is absolutely zero need to train with the exact ammunition that you carry for self-defense. Many companies produce range and target ammunition that will match the ballistics and felt recoil of your self-defense ammunition. You might not find that ammunition at Wal-Mart or the local gun store, but it can be found. I will give you an example. If you prefer to carry .40 S&W 165 grain ammunition rated at 1150 feet per second, PMC, Speer Lawman, and Federal American Eagle all produce 165 grain full metal jacket range ammunition rated within twenty feet per second of the self-defense ammunition. I cannot tell a difference in felt recoil when I shoot Winchester 165 grain Ranger T ammunition or PMC 165 grain full metal jacket range ammunition. Unless you decide to carry some boutique ammunition, you should be able to find range ammunition that duplicates the recoil characteristics of your self-defense ammunition. The only caliber that can be difficult to locate range ammunition that duplicates the recoil characteristics of self-defense ammunition is 9mm +P ammunition. Finding range ammunition that exactly duplicates the +P recoil may be difficult. You should be able to find ammunition that comes within fifty feet per second of your +P self-defense ammunition.

The police department that I work for never trains with issued self-defense ammunition. We are issued Winchester 180 grain Ranger T ammunition, and train with an assortment of 180 grain full metal jacket range ammunition. The difference in felt recoil between the rounds is not noticeable. 

.40 S&W 165 grain PDX1

The next thing I see people talk about is rotating their carry ammunition every six months. The half-life of modern premium ammunition is as long as or longer than our lifetimes. Surplus Korean War era ammunition still fires when the primer is hit. As long as your ammunition hasn't been submerged in water, severely dented, or the bullet has been set back, it will function just fine. There is no need to rotate the ammunition every six months. I have been carrying the same Federal 180 grain HST ammunition for almost three years. To increase the durability of your ammunition, choose ammunition that has been sealed at the primer pocket and case mouth. This will help keep water out of the casing. 

 

You should check to make sure your self-defense ammunition functions properly in your pistol. Any modern service pistol will normally eat anything you give it. Shoot fifty rounds through it and make sure it functions. If you feel more comfortable shooting two-hundred rounds, go ahead. If the pistol is going to choke on the ammunition that will normally happen in the first few rounds and be a consistent problem. No matter how many rounds you fire for function testing, the pistol may/will malfunction at some point. I have had Glock pistols stove pipe, double feed, fail to extract, and fail to go into battery from time to time. Throw some snap caps into your range bag and practice an immediate action drill.

The last thing I see people getting wrapped up in is "gel testing". Any person who has seen real life gunshot wounds will tell you that anything is possible. Bullets that penetrate ten inches in "gel" have a tendency to penetrate much more than that in real life. I see people getting all caught up in penetration and expansion figures and the "what if" scenarios. Most of the commercially available self-defense ammunition that is produced with intentions to pass the FBI's pistol testing protocol will penetrate through and through many of the people that are shot with it.

.40 S&W 165 grain PDX1

Compare these pistol rounds to 5.56/.223 ammunition. Nearly every pistol round that passes the FBI testing penetrates deeper than a 5.56/.223 in "gel". Rifle 5.56/.223 ammunition typically fragments into many pieces and barely penetrates twelve inches, which is considered a failure for pistol bullets in the FBI’s testing protocol. I don’t think anyone will argue that a pistol round causes more damage than a 5.56/.223 simply because it doesn't break apart and penetrates deeper. The explosive fragmentation of the 5.56/.223 is what makes the rounds so lethal.

“Street proven” self- defense ammunition such as Federal 9mm 115 grain +P+ jacketed hollow point (9BPLE), Remington .40 S&W 155 grain jacketed hollow point, and the Federal and Winchester equivalents (155 grain JHP @ 1205 feet per second), and 125 grain .357 Magnum jacketed hollow points were and still are very effective. Those legendary ammunition choices typically fail the FBI pistol testing protocol.

Ballistics gelatin testing is a science experiment. The way you know that “gel” testing is somewhat bogus is how easily the knife blades slice through the gel to retrieve the bullet. A knife would never penetrate human skin as easily as it penetrates ballistic gelatin. The human body is denser than ballistics gelatin, and not a homogeneous mass. Thick skin, bone, muscle, and fat, all have a different density. Bullets that pass through dense objects do not expand as much and thus penetrate deeper. In my humble opinion, any bullet that is constructed to penetrate at least eight inches in a ballistics gelatin science experiment will do just fine in real life. If you don’t believe me talk to some 10mm handgun hunters that use 135 grain Nosler jacketed hollow points on whitetail deer. Ballistics gelatin tests have their place. They give us an idea of how a bullet might perform in different scenarios. Just keep in mind that the testing is done in a controlled scientific environment.

Kallie the Pitweiler

Pick premium defense ammunition using a bullet of solid construction, verify proper function in your firearm, find a range load that duplicates it and call it a day. A few boxes of your ammunition-of-choice are more than enough to sustain you for a few years. Load a primary magazine, a spare magazine, and leave approximately ten rounds to account for the possible set back of rounds cycled through the chamber. Try not to get wrapped up in stock piling hundreds of rounds of hollow point ammunition. Put away one or two hundred rounds of it and spend your money on range ammunition that you will be able to get more trigger time with.