Carry Ammo for XD-9

[RicochetJim]

Federal Hydra-shoks. It's just a matter of preference and convenience for me. I'm sure there are others which may have data that says they are slightly better. But, hey, the hydra-shoks will do the job . . . and they seem to feed flawlessly in my XD's. Which, BTW, is a word to the wise: be sure and run a couple of boxes of your choice self-defense ammo through your XD to check it out -- don't let the first time you use the JHP's be when you really need 'em.

[MoJo]

Mitch,

If you are looking for a good, reliable, affordable, carry round you can't go wrong with the Winchester USA (White Box) 115 gr JHP. A box of 50 sells for about $10. It runs in all three of my 9mm guns. This is the ammo you can buy at Wal Mart. The UMC 115 gr JHP looks promising but, I haven't tested it for reliability.

[blackpanther]

In the winter I only use federal EFMJ because I know they will expand thru a heavy wool coat are what ever.The hollow points I don't trust to expand.Just my personal preferance.

Ed

[ARCENG]

MoJo.......
I bought a box of Winchester USA White Box,115 gr. FMJ, 100 rnd. value pack today for $10.96 from Wal-Mart. It is target/range ammo, so yours might be different. However, my carry ammo is Remington Golden Saber, 124 gr. (+P) JHP with a price tag of $17.99 for a box of 25 rnds.
IMHO, you don't want to skimp and save if your is at stake.

Regards...........

C....

[TeamXD]

Black talon 127 gr. for my personal carry in my XD-Tactical 9MM.

[Mitch Drews]

Arceng,
You do make a good point about not skimping on carry ammo, since my life does depend on it. Hrmmm, well I guess it gives me another excuse to go to the range.

-Mitchell R. Drews

[Fly-Sig]

First, the reclassified Gold Dots are from a batch which had some kind of quality control issue and Speer did not want it to be used by law enforcement in case it didn't perform. I don't know what the problem was, but it was bad enough that Speer didn't want LEOs to use it in life critical situations. It wasn't so bad that the stuff is dangerous to shoot through a gun, though.

Second, a brand which works well in one caliber may be total junk in another caliber, and vice versa. If you want good 9mm ammo don't pay any attention to what works well in 40, 45, 10mm, 380, etc.

Third, I'm one of those guys who has done a fair amount of testing of 9mm defensive ammo. My carry ammo is the Remington 124 gr Golden Saber +P. I would be just as happy to carry the Speer 124 gr +P but it is harder to find around here than the Golden Saber.

The ones I definitely would never carry are the Hydra-Shok and the plain SXT. The CorBon JHP also performed poorly for me. I can't recall offhand what all the brands were that I've tested, but they included plain hollow points, cheap stuff, and expensive brand name premium defensive rounds. Whatever I could find at the local gun stores.

The critical factors are penetration and expansion. THe Golden Saber and the Gold Dot all performed exceptionally well. The others all suffered from poor penetration, failed to expand, had jacket seperation, and/or fragmented. The test setup was a calibrated "Fackler Box" where I could measure the penetration and recover the bullet and fragments. THe bullets only had to penetrate one layer of a zip lock baggie before entering the water trough, so there should not have been any problems with clogging of the hollow points or other extraneous factors.

The lighter rounds tended to have poor penetration and generally suffered fragmentation and jacket seperation. In hollow point ammo I did not find anything in the 115 gr or lighter flavors that performed well. In some guns the 147 gr ammo doesn't feed well. For me the 124 gr performed the best, although there was little difference in the Golden Saber or Gold Dots between the two weights.

The CorBon Pow'r Ball looks like a very interesting round which has had good reviews, as has the Expanding Full Metal Jacket round. I haven't tested these yet so I continue to carry the Golden Sabers.

[DanaT]

Originally Posted by Fly-Sig

Third, I'm one of those guys who has done a fair amount of testing of 9mm defensive ammo.

Wow. Are you in somewhere like Iraq to be abel to test 9mm ammo in a defensive situation?

Really, jello tests, wet phone books, etc are nice, but they won't always tell you the whole story. If you could simulate a human body with jello, I would sleep much easier. Hell, I am only trying to simulate skin and that has proven to be a real challenge.

My point is, lab tests only go so far, then you have to use real bodies (and for "stopping power most likely live ones) to get definative information.

I would be that you could find millions that were killed easily by ineffective 9mmFMJ...

-Dana

[Fly-Sig]

Originally Posted by DanaT

Wow. Are you in somewhere like Iraq to be abel to test 9mm ammo in a defensive situation?

Really, jello tests, wet phone books, etc are nice, but they won't always tell you the whole story. If you could simulate a human body with jello, I would sleep much easier. Hell, I am only trying to simulate skin and that has proven to be a real challenge.

My point is, lab tests only go so far, then you have to use real bodies (and for "stopping power most likely live ones) to get definative information.

I would be that you could find millions that were killed easily by ineffective 9mmFMJ...

-Dana

Well, I am honored to have been enlightened by your vast amount of information, Dana. I was shocked to learn that the current state of the art in ammunition testing is useless.

When you have done your live human tests be sure to post the data here so we can all benefit from it. For the time being, though, the best we have is calibrated gelatin to tell us if bullets will expand reliably, if they fragment, if the jackets seperate, and their relative penetrations.

I know that my current carry ammo will perform as well as any and better than most, and I know that my previous choice of carry ammo likely would fragment and fail to penetrate well.

As far as I'm concerned, you are free to put your faith in "one shot stop" data, but I'm not going to bet my life on flawed data.

You're also free to put your trust in FMJ since it has killed so many people.