Do you prefer slower and heavier, or lighter and faster?

[bigboredad]

Well if I had to touch one off in a house or gas station restroom or something like it I'd rather do it with a a 215gr .32 meplat 45 at between 830-900. As opposed to a 1450-1550 fps 357 125gr jhp which is certain to cause permanent hearing damage. I also have more confidence in short fat and heavy. Ymmv

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[Texas by God]

Groo mentioned the FMJ flat nose. Here we are in 2020, why aren’t ALL FMJ’s flat nose by now? I’m just wondering- and wishing they were. I prefer flat nose in my cast loads.

[MOC031]

Speaking in terms of self-defense ammo... Curious as to what other folks prefer.

Whatever I'm carrying (and for the last few years it's back to a 9mm from 40 S&W), it will be one variant or other of whatever a lot of LEO agencies are issuing.

So these days, it's Federal 147 gr. HST. If I could only get Federal 124 gr. HST, I wouldn't lose sleep. Or if it was Federal Gold Dot in either of those weights... again, I would lose no sleep. Not +P? Still not losing sleep. Fackler and other terminal ballistics guys, along with ammo companies chasing government contracts, have and continue to invest months of time and millions of dollars designing, testing, modifying, etc to meet government LEO criteria.

The first service ammunition I was issued was 38 Spl 158 gr. round nose, trundling along at about 800 fps if I remember correctly. Only police shooting I was somewhat involved in was arriving other the noise and excitement was over. Crappy round nosed ammunition, fired by the worst shot amongst us, all the way across a tire shop: two COM, bad guy about to execute the wounded cop laying at his feet, DRT. Bang-flop. Because when it mattered, he put two right where they were supposed to go.

It was a real step up later when we got issued the 158 gr LSWCHP +P replacement!!! And I wouldn't lose too much sleep if I were forced to carry that once again - or the Model 10 service revolver it was issued for.

It's not hard to find anecdotal evidence of x caliber of gun with y ammunition failing to stop, no matter what the size of the hole in the end of the barrel is. Especially the further back you go looking for evidence to back your position either way.

As well as no shortage of opinionated gun writers over the years with little to no actual experience in either shootings, or reviewing those shootings, much less being involved in programs to engineer and develop better ammunition that include reviewing thousands of reports filed after shootings. Pick your side: they're there to tell you what they want you to hear. Theorists, mostly.

These days, in the current service calibers and manufacturers of service ammunition, I very much doubt there's a whole lot of difference if you were to review the thousands of police shootings over the last decade. That would cover most of the current calibers and service ammunition. Many run around attempting to pick fly poo out of pepper, looking for the speck that favors their position.

One issue is you should indeed practice in the first place. And second, you should practice with what you carry. That gets expensive if you're talking about current service ammunition - and there's the problem of availability. But it doesn't have to be that expensive HST, Gold Dot, etc. ammunition - all it has to be is it's ballistic equivilent. The practice ammunition I reload uses bullets from government pull downs. Some marks, only real terminal ballistic performance is making a hole or sound after hitting a target. But they feel the same, they hit pretty much the same POA/POI as the expensive stuff. Works for me.

Two things are for certain: handgun ammunition will continue to improve in performance. And nobody ever lost money starting a self defense caliber/bullet/weight war in their magazine articles, books, or online.