Changing my .40 cal carry ammo brand

[getsome]

In a previous thread from last week: "Winchester Supreme Elite" I wrote of finding a good deal on it at Bass Pro Shop....Paid $19.00 for a box of 25 .40 cal ammo and they had a shelf full of it...I have always carried Remington Golden Saber in all my guns and never had a problem with it and they had a box of 20 for $31.00 as well as some 20 round boxes of Hornady Critical Defense for the same $31.00 price so I figured I would give the Winchester round a try...Here is my offical Redneck Backyard .40 cal balistic test...165 gn Winchester Supreme Elite, 165 gn Golden saber, 185 gn Federal Hydra shok, 165 gn Winchester SXT black lubalox coated HP and FP Personal Protection and training rounds (I think Bass Pro Shop is the only place to get these,...They both shoot ok but are nothing special)...Last up was some Federal JFP 165 gn range ammo.......I soaked 10 phone books over night and after draning some water out i placed them in a old steel oil drum...on top I placed both legs of a pair of blue jeans I cut off to make shorts and over the top of that I placed a folded towel (4 layers total)......I had to wait until my closest neighbor left to play golf Saturday morning and did the test...From a range of 4 feet I fired the rounds into the books being careful to keep them seperated and on a piece of paper I wrote down where each different round hit...While this is far from a professional lab ballistic gel test it did have some surprising and unexpected results...The Winchester Supreme Elite was by far the best of all tried...The bullet expanded very much like the old Black Talon round...It ended up at 9 1/2 inchs of book...widest expansion was 7/8 inch x 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch thick and retained 100% of original weight....Very impressive and now will be my new carry load....The Golden Saber round stopped at 10 inchs of book but expanded very poorly ending up at about 1/2 inch at the widest point but only on one side and looks to have tumbled but retained all original weight...The Federal Hydra Shok did almost exactly the same as the Remington but this is a very old box of Hydra Shok (not sure what generation) and the newest Hydra Shok design should perform better....The last three did as expected for range ammo 9-10 inch penetration with no expansion...Even the Winchester SXZ HP didn't expand and looked to have clogged up with towel material...I wish I had bought some Hornady Critical Defense rounds to try as they performed very well in a similar .380 ammo test I did a few months back....Well so much for my redneck ammo testing but I really like the Winchester Supreme Elite rounds and for the money me thinks that is the best choice...I hope someone will repeat this test with other brands and see if the results come out any different....

[Bawanna]

You invested a tremendous amount of time and effort for a redneck ammunition test. Well thought out. Appreciate your efforts and thanks for sharing it.

Finally a purpose for golf, get your neighbors out of the neighborhood so you can do what needs to be done.

[getsome]

Sooo K, I really had fun doing it but wish I had some other rounds to try and a better place and materials to do it right....I now know what I was meant to be in this life,.... a lesbian ballistic tester...:p

[Bawanna]

I think there's a lot of new out of the closet lesbians around here now. Myself included.

I've been to two Winchester ballistic workshops where they pretty much do just what you did. They of course had the hi tech and no doubt costly ballistic gelatin rather than phone books but generally the same idea.
We even shot thru windshield glass, drywall etc. Then all the measurements etc in the gelatin. It was pretty much an all day deal.
Since our agency was not the sponsor we didn't get the cool little display board that held all the spent rounds but we all got to examine each round as it was recovered. It was interesting and of course the free T shirt made it all worth while. They even slipped me a winchester desk clock for helping clean up afterwards. Truth be told I was having fun and didn't want to go back to the office but I still dig the clock on my desk.
If you punch in Dooley Enterprises I think they have video's of some of these workshops and the results. Dooley also makes racing oil pans etc, not sure what the connection is, but they are regional factory dealers to LE down in Aneheim CA, think they have a location in Oregon too. Worth a gander.