I tried the Buffalo Bore .380 ACP

[Bushman]

90 grain hollow point through a water filled gallon Minute Maid orange juice container at 7 yards. I backed up the container with dry phone books. The mushroomed bullet stayed inside the container and split both the front and the back of the container. It did punch an indentation into the first phone book for about .5 inch.

The 90 grain Cor Bon was shot into the same medium and only split the front of the container and only indented the back side. The bullet indented the phone book .25", but was the least impressive of all four loads tested.

The 90 grain Hydra-Shok was the surprise of the test. Split the front of the container just like the other two, but went on to fully penetrate the back of the container and go .5 inch into the first phone book with as nice a mushroomed bullet as you could envision.

I had never shot a 52 grain +P+ MagSafe round out of my pistol, but I wanted to try it in comparison. The label says 1,720 fps with more stopping power than a .45 ACP hollowpoint. That round got me the most wet from blow back out of all four loads tested. The front of the container showed the most tearing and the entrance hold is blown back out looking more like an exit hole from the amount of blow back. All the others are showing indented entrance holes. The surprise there was was that four of the #6 shot in that MagSafe load also went through the back of the container and penetrated .5" into the first phone book.

At $18.00 for 6 of those MagSafe cartridges, you won't be target shooting with them, but they look pretty wild out of a .380 ACP for a defensive load. I would probably follow up with Hydra Shoks or the heavier 95 grain Buffalo Bore ammo in the clip.

[Badger]

Bushman,

So the label says "a .380 HP at 1720 fps" is better than a .45 ACP HP. LOL. You keep your .380 and I will keep my 200 grain JHP .45 ACP loads. This sounds like the BS they told us grunts in 1965 when the M-16 came on board. It was alleged the .223 was better than the 7.62 Nato round....yadda, yadda. I kept my M-14.

Badger

[Smokey]

Thanks for your results. I've been thinking of doing some testing on my .380's. I have some Buffalo Bore but not any of the others you mentioned.

[Hi Ball]

Bushman good that you ran the tests on the .380-auto, at least now you know it is NOT the big hitter many ignorant people believe it to be quite frankly.

You might try some of that POW-R-BALL ammo next time you run a test with your mouse killer! They also feed very well in little auto's.

Now please don't believe all that HIP about how much "power" those little .380-auto's can generate. Not even with a magic wond, will it come close to the .45acp calbier using 185 grn up to 230 hard-ball ammo.:)

[Bushman]

Badger, an excellent analogy of a .223 verses a 7.62 Nato (.308) and that being a military application, all things needed to be equal with the use of fmj bullets. Now say that you could have been issued soft point ammo for that .223 and still had to use fmj for the 7.62 Nato. That would have leveled the playing field considerably.

There is no question that a .380 ACP is a mouse gun and the smallest cartridge that should even be considered for a self defense application. I equate that .380 a lot to using the smaller .224 up to .243 size cartridges for deer hunting. If you are going to use those little ones, you had best have a very good or premium bullet. Your (and my) .45 ACP is a lot like using a .30-06 for deer hunting. Pick any bullet off the shelf and you can't be too far wrong.

I video tape all my bullet tests and I watched that tape again last night. A .45 ACP with a 230 grain Hydra-Shok or a .44 Special 200 grain jhp, or a .44 Magnum 185 grain jhp turns a water filled gallon milk jug into smithereens. No question that they all would work better than a .380 ACP, but their physical size makes them impractical for the average person with a CCW.

That brings us back to the .380 ACP and finding the best bullets available. Admittedly I think that the 1,720 fps is way optimistic on the 52 grain MagSafe cartridge package. I can tell you that just from the blow back in my test that it has something over the other jhp bullets.

I'm going to defer to the early 90's Strasbourg 180 pound goat shooting test where they took five goats for each handgun bullet, hooked them up to an electroencephalograph and blood pressure transducer and shot them in the lungs in a controlled experiment. If the bullet hit a rib, that was recorded as well. They recorded the incapitation time when the goat collapsed and was unable to rise to a standing position.

For the .380 ACP the best bullet tested was the MagSafe bullet with an AIT (average incapitation time) of 7.12 seconds. For my favorite 90 grain Hydra-Shok it was 10.94 seconds. for the Cor-Bon 90 grain +P it was 11.12 seconds.

For the .45 ACP using my favorite 230 grain Hydra-Shok it was 8.40 seconds. For a hardball 230 grain bullet it was 13.84 seconds. Badger for your CCI 200 grain Lawman bullet it was 8.92 seconds.

[Badger]

Bushman,

Many thanks for the feedback. I have a .380 and an old Colt M1903 .32 ACP. With the "mouse guns", I will just keep shooting until the bad stuff stops.

Interesting goat test report. The wild card would be that some goats are tougher than others; or some were hit better than others to crank up the 4.85 or 8.62 seconds. I wonder if the test should be redone with two shots per goat since few bad guys succumb INSTANTLY to one hit we adopted the well-known "Double Tap."

Badger

[Bushman]

I just reread that goat test again, because I hadn't read it for a couple of years. To correct the 180 pound goat weight, the goats were all male adult French Alpine goats and the weights were all between 156 and 164 pounds. They killed 611 goats and got valid test results on 580 goats. Goats were used because their bone calcium content is the closest match to that of a human. Pigs have a much higher fat content and lower calcium content compared to humans. The tests were done over an 18 month period using various loads for the .380 ACP, .38 Special, 9mm, .357 Magnum, .40 S&W, 10mm and .45 ACP. I thought it was interesting how much a rib being hit would influence the time of incapacitation. All animals were autopsied.

For rib hit results using that .380 ACP in comparison to rib hit results using a .45 ACP:

.380 ACP 60 grain MagSafe at 1,313 fps.
Rib hits: 8.57 seconds.
No rib hits: 4.95 seconds.

.380 ACP 90 grain Hydra-Shok at 1,008 fps.
Rib hits: 12.37 seconds.
No rib hits: 8.80 seconds.

.45 ACP 200 grain jhp at 936 fps.
Rib hits: 9.93 seconds.
No rib hits: 4.90 seconds.

.45 ACP 230 Hydra-Shok at 847 fps.
Rib hits: 10.70 seconds.
No rib hits: 4.95 seconds.

To test double tap would have added yet another variable. Precise placing would have been compromised by the different animals moving. To be sure some animals, just like some bad guys, are tougher than others. They had three occasions where the goat stayed on his feet for a full 60 seconds. In one case the goat was stationary for 51.3 seconds then even made a 2 second attempt to eat. 158 grain round nose lead bullet from a 2" barrel .38 Special. Not recommended. It is an interesting read that you should be able to Google. I do wonder what the average bad guy would be doing for 12.37 seconds before he became incapacitated by a mouse gun?