Defensive .380 Acp(9㎜ Kurz) Loads?

I recently acquired a pocket pistol in .380 ACP (aka 9㎜ Kurz). I am curious what defense loads others are carrying if they are also so armed. I've had good results with Cor-Bon and Hornady in other calibers, so that is likely where I'll head first, but, still, I figured I'd toss it out there. Thanks.

 

Test loads on some pig ribs. Get some ribs discount, y'know like a butcher is getting ready to toss some meat going out-of-date. Put some cloths or leather on the outside of the ribs and on the other side of the ribs put some ballistic gel or a box of packed-tight newspapers soaked in water or veggie oil.

I saw a vid online and in it, .380 hollow point loads didn't dig deep enough. The fellow who made the video said that he was shocked by the results and was thinking about using full metal jackets so as to have rounds go deep enough. Me, I always go with hollow-points unless range-blasting with some weapon that will not feed'n'fire anything else.

Reality is that some felons are BIG and doped into not feeling any pain. You can't shock them. They have to be injured deep and injured mightily just to get a temporary cessation in insane turbo-violence.

With the .380, think dumping a magazine into the felon, reloading, dumping the second magazine, reloading, ... .

I'm not exaggerating. I know of a drug unit shooting in NY, NY; decades ago, this. The dealer goes for his revolver. NARCs hit him with a load of buckshot and a .38 round breaks his pelvis. Dealer goes for his revolver that he has dropped. He is then hit with another load of 12 ga. buckshot. He now runs past the cops out into the hallway. Cops spin and shoot him again with a load of buckshot. Felon slides down far wall in hallway and asks them not to shoot him anymore. He died in transit to hospital, however he just wouldn't go down. This is NOT rare. Ask the cops and they'll tell you that they routinely run into cape buffaloes of the human variety and they can't be killed.

By the way, that NY, NY Narcotics crew started using 12 ga. shotgun slugs. Shotgun slugs kill. In revolvers, the .357 mag, the .41 mag are the killers (.44 mag over-penetrates and sometimes doesn't dump energy). In the realm of autos, the big bores / heavy bullets are effective, yet still require multiple shots on monsters. I like rifle carbines with flat nosed deer loads. And did I mention shotgun slugs ...

 

Basically when someone is jacked up on some of the drugs and charging you, you need to double tap the chest and if that doesn't do it go to the head. I remember one in Houston that empties and then was on mag 2 out of a Browning Highpower 9MM before he stopped the guy. 15 rounds in the chest and he nearly got the cop.

The 380 is at the lower end of effectiveness for defense. The numbers look good but as Old Geeser pointed out they are not always dependable to penetrate. This means that you have to act on this as a possibility and if a couple of shots to center mass don't do it you have to go upstairs.

Massad Ayoob advocated adding this to all police training and ran a seminar with a Hogans Ally. The last moving target was a man with an ax coming right at you. The knock down plate was behind the HEAD and most of the cops that ran through "died" because their training was totally based on repeated double taps to the torso.

If you are going to carry any of the non-magnum powered rounds you need to keep this in mind. This isn't a new problem nor one that only the 380 has. The famed and much loved Colt 1911 45 ACP was adopted because the military had gone from the old colt 45 single action to a double action colt that shot a 38 long colt round. All went well until they tried to stop those jacked up Moro warriors in the Philippines during the Moro rebellion at the turn of the century. Too many time they would take the entire cylinder and still live to kill the officer with a machete. The end result of their search for a better handgun was the Colt 45 ACP.

Even the 38 special with the old time lead roundnose loads were not always great stoppers and it wasn't until the slightly lighter jacketed loads came out that the cops had a fair stopper in the 38 special. To me even the 9mm in FMJ is not to be trusted. It will penetrate but if it misses the bones it doesn't have a good shock effect because unless you are almost touching them it will probably be subsonic at the moment of penetration.

All that said up until the recent round of smaller 9mm pistols I considered a 380 a good backup weapon.

 

I've had a couple .380's. They were an ok option for CCDW. With the idea that having something was better than nothing in a close encounter. I never trusted them for more than the last line of defence. Now that we have a copious selection of compact frames in respectable calibers, that not a problem.

 

The 45 used in the Philippines was a Colt single action army firing a 45 long colt round... IF they could get one. The ISSUE handgun was a Colt double action revolver shooting a 38 long colt that was anemic as hell. This war was in 1898 and since the colt 45 ACP was not in existence at that time and first issued in the Colt 1911 auto pistol it obviously was not in action then. BUT the problem with the 38 long colt in that war was the reason for the Army to look for another weapon and that weapon was the 45 colt ACP both gun and round. To this day it is the best all around handgun that our military has ever carried. The 9mm is a political decision not one based of fact or stopping power. You need to read the post before you comment. I made this point very clearly in my post.