Why the name Pup & Ammo Recommendations

[billmc]

OK, when I tried to post this I received a message stating it was to long.  I'm gonna try to split it up.  Hopefully, I won't loose anything.

(Part 1)

Here is a Firearms Tactical Institute report on Gold Dots - specifically out of short barrels.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs9.htm

Thanks for that link.  For me at least, I found it to be interesting reading.  Once again, I found myself following the links to other documents as they came up.  I learned a lot.  By no means am I an expert, and I have no way of verifying anything that was written, but I proceed based upon the assumption that they know what they are doing and have no reason to lie to me.

It looks as if a consortium was put together to come up with a more meaningful means of testing ammo, based upon the most common situations most police agencies face, rather than the standard established by the FBI; it was called International Wound Ballistics Association (IWBA).  If you follow the links through from the one C0ont0 gave us, you'll find out who it was made up of; but at the moment the only one I can remember is Winchester.  Speer was not a member, but their Gold Dot bullets have been designed to meet this standard.  Winchester developed their SXT bullet as a result of these tests and standards.  Its the bullet that is used in the Ranger T (and I think the PDX line, somebody correct me here if I'm wrong).

[billmc]

(Part 2)

Here is one link I found rather interesting, its to the THE IWBA HANDGUN AMMUNITION SPECIFICATION PACKAGE :  http://www.firearmstactical.com/iwba.htm

I thought I'd cut and paste a couple of highlights from the supplement (I've added the bolding):

3.2 a)    The purchaser must define the mean bullet weight range desired. Suggested maximum and minimum values are 145 and 150 for 9mm, 177 and 182 for .40 S&W or 10mm, 227 and 232 grains for .45ACP. These recommended ranges of permissible mean bullet weights correspond to the conventional maximum bullet weights in the calibers. The performance loss with slightly lighter bullets is not significant and might allow some manufacturers to reduce some costs; if desired, this can easily be implemented by slightly lowering specified minimum for the weight range. These suggested values are compatible with the belief (based on knowledge of the dynamics of bullet penetration1) that handgun bullets should be near the conventional maximum value for the caliber in standard pistol barrel lengths for best wounding efficiency. Purchasers who disagree with this belief can obviously specify whatever bullet weight they desire in this section. See Section 3.3 for comments on compact pistol ammunition.

3.3 a)    The purchaser can specify a mean bullet velocity, but this is not wise. The user can specify a lower value than the maximum velocity compatible with SAAMI maximum pressure standards, but this is not advisable because the bullet expansion may be less reliable at lower velocities. The bullet design is intimately connected with the bullet velocity, use of JHP handgun bullets at velocities significantly different (lower or higher) from the design velocity is very ill advised. The purchaser usually does not have enough information to make a realistic specification velocity, and this is best left to the manufacturer. The actual velocity achieved will depend somewhat on the pistol used, but the purchaser is fully protected because the Section 6 performance requirements must be satisfied with the offered ammunition.

3.3 b)    Note that the velocity achieved may be reduced significantly in the shorter barrels of some "compact" pistols (with a probability of at least some loss in expansion). Ammunition designed for both standard and compact pistol barrel lengths may not achieve optimum performance in both pistol types. If ammunition for compact pistols is desired, it can be specified separately. In any case, the purchaser should acceptance test the ammunition in the pistols to be used.

6.1.2    Most physicians knowledgeable in wound trauma believe that adequate penetration depth is the most important single property in handgun ammunition. The appropriate value for minimum penetration depth has generally been assumed to be 12 inches ever since the first FBI wound ballistics meeting in 1987. Unfortunately, this assumption has often been interpreted very simplistically (i.e., 12.1 Inches of penetration is good, but 11.9 inches of penetration is no good), but the real situation is more complicated. The problem is the possibility that the bullet will require an unusually large penetration to reach vital structures well inside the body. This can occur when the bullet must traverse non-critical tissue; e.g., the extended arm of an assailant aiming his handgun, and/or an unusual bullet path angle in the torso, and/or an unusually fat or beefy individual. The probability of needing this extra penetration is a judgment call, but most people believe it is a significant factor and much more important than the relatively modest increase in expanded diameter achieved by reducing penetration depth (e.g., approximately 30% increase in expanded bullet diameter is achieved by designing to an 8 inch penetration depth rather than 12 inches). This is the reason the professional wound ballistics community specified the 12 inch minimum penetration even though they are well aware that an 8 inch penetration is usually adequate. The suggested specification values for mean penetration depth are greater than 12.5 inches and less than 14.0 inches. Even at the limit of minimum value of this range (12.5 inches) and the limiting value of standard deviation (0.6) in Section 6.1.1, about 80% of the penetration will be greater than 12 inches and essentially all will be greater than 11 inches. This bare gelatin test provides a lower limit on penetration because most shootings will involve at least some clothing; slightly less expansion and slightly deeper penetration can be expected in typical service use.

[billmc]

(Part 3)

6.2    Most expansion failures of JHP handgun bullets reported in actual shootings where hard barriers are not involved are probably due to factors that effectively plug up the hollow point cavity and reduce pressure in this area, although the dynamics model that occasionally leads to this result is not completely known in detail. This requirement in the IWBA Handgun Ammunition Specification is designed to force JHP bullet designs that expand much more reliably against soft barriers (hard barriers are discussed in more detail below). This requirement was selected after experimentation to provide a standardized, inexpensive, and precisely defined soft barrier that was a stressing but reasonable protocol for ammunition evaluation; it does not represent a simulation of specific clothing. The JHP bullet design features required to satisfy this requirement are well understood, and ammunition having these design features expands much more consistently and reliably against soft barriers than ammunition without these design features. The heavy denim specified has a nominal weight of 16 ounces per square yard, and the actual weight seems to be held within 2% of this nominal in different lots (this variation is too small to be significant). This denim is soft to the touch and does not have starch, sizing or other stiffeners. Unfortunately, cloth does not seem to have the kind of specifications that make it easy to define for the retail purchaser; apart from weight, the selection is by feel and appearance (most seamstresses seem to find this very satisfactory). As a (non-profit) service to users, the IWBA office (PO Box 701, El Segundo, CA 90245) will ship a 36 inch by 60 inch sample of this denim by priority mail to addresses within the USA for $20 ($30 for foreign addresses).

Comments on Expanded JHP Bullet Diameter

    The absence of any mention of expanded JHP diameter in the IWBA specification is not an oversight, expanded JHP bullet diameter is omitted because it is not independent of penetration depth. A JHP bullet of any weight, velocity, and penetration depth has an effective expanded diameter that produces the forces on the tissue during bullet penetration, and this effective diameter cannot be changed without changing at least one of the other parameters. In effect, bullet weight, velocity and penetration depth define the effective expanded bullet diameter. Penetration depth is easy and unambiguous to measure, but effective expanded bullet diameter is difficult to estimate with useful accuracy because the expanded periphery is inevitably irregular and not easily related to the effective expanded diameter. As a result, measured expanded bullet diameter is much less useful than penetration depth as a performance parameter in an ammunition specification. As a rule of thumb, effective expanded diameter is about 50% to 60% larger than original JHP bullet diameter when penetration is adequate. If bullet weight, velocity and penetration depth are specified, effective bullet diameter can be "required" to be any value not greater than it actually is, but this is pointless. There is no point in "requiring" effective expanded bullet diameter to be larger than allowed by the dynamics of penetration.

I think I must've come across some of this before, therefor my preference for the heavier bullets, but darned if I can remember where and when.  Anyway guys, thanks for the education.  Now all I have to do is get my hands on enough of this ammo so I can wear out a spring or two, establishing (what you already know) this pistol's reliability.

Bill

[Ghost Chili]

That is some really good info, Bill.  Thanks for posting it.  I might reconsider swapping out the 124gr. Gold Dots with the 147gr. version.  I suppose the heavier bullet, though driven slower, will retain more momentum and penetrate better, especially if it fails to expand. 

While shopping online for more Gold Dot ammo, I noticed Speer has the "Personal Protection" line and also a "Short Barrel" line and the packaged ammo seems to fall into either designation.  There is also the "Law Enforcement" line and those come in 50rd. boxes for a much better price than the civilian 20rd. boxes.  Anyone know if there is a difference between the three labels?  My immediate assumption is the LE labeled ammo might be tailored for 4-5" barrels of service pistols and the Short Barrel ammo designed for the 4" and under guns. 

[MRC]

Thanks for the post, very interesting reading.

My only problem is that the paper is 14 years old and I know that about all ammunition has changed in that time frame.  Whether all the conclusions are still true is an unknown.

[billmc]

My only problem is that the paper is 14 years old and I know that about all ammunition has changed in that time frame.  Whether all the conclusions are still true is an unknown.

For whatever reason, I look at dates and think "that wasn't that long ago", then I do the math and it was "that long ago".  It seems to get worse as I'm getting older.

I had thought about the question of technology changes since this was published.  I worked with computers, they age faster than dogs do.  It kinda seems like one dog year is equal to seven computer years; so when reading through some of this stuff, I wondered how relevant it is to today.  I convinced myself that it is all still very relevant because, A - I don't think the textile industry is progressing all that fast, jeans are still made from cotton and cotton still grows on trees, so to speak.  B - Human physiology, as far as I know, hasn't changed in the past few years (although with my personal situation, as I'm getting older, I might dispute that).  C - It appears to me, that the basics of firearms are still pretty much the same, I think the last major advance was the introduction of the self contained cartridge, since then they've just been tweaking that.

If I go with the idea that penetration is the most important factor, anything above and beyond that is just gravy.  I'm not a student of this stuff, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the original idea behind an expanding bullet was to make a bigger hole.  I have an electric hand drill in my toolbox at home, it is a 3/8 drive.  The biggest hole I can create with that drill is a 3/8 hole, unless I use a drill bit that starts off 3/8 then expands to something bigger.  Most of the time this works for me, but sometimes I try to drill into a substance (usually steel rather than wood) that I can't use the 3/8 drive drill and expanded drill bit, I need something with more "oomph" to it, like a 1/2 drive drill.  So I guess, if I want to be able to consistently make holes larger than 3/8, I need to consistently use the 1/2 drive drill.

I bought my very first pistol when my squadron was getting prepared to deploy for the desert shield operation; I wanted something that, if needed, I could interchange with issue equipment; so I bought a Beretta 92FS.  (Nice shooting piece, I've recently gotten one in stainless.)  I reasoned that the military must know what they are doing (that was a mistake) and left it at that.  I didn't know anything about politics and compatibility with NATO or that the Geneva Convention precluded the use of expanding bullets.  Jump ahead to today and I read that the folks actually doing the fighting are having the same complaints now, that they had 100 years ago.  It ain't getting the job done (then it was .38, now its 9 mm - same, same).  Back then the Army did a study and concluded that troops should be equipped with nothing less than a .45.  I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I'll guess that a .45 ball will never make a hole smaller than .45, but that a 9 mm won't always make a hole bigger than 9 mm.

I had mentioned that my intended role of the R9 is as a backup, I traded the .380 LCP for it.  From what I've seen, the 9 mm, for the most part will penetrate a sufficient amount, whereas the .380 won't do it all the time.  The pistol I'll go to first, and yes it is loaded with JHP, is a .45 ACP.

The shot a little, carried a lot idea I only buy into half way.  I'm thinking more like shot enough and keep on hand in case plan "A" fails.

[C0untZer0]

The paper is 14 years old, but we've had the technology to test all sorts of different bullet designs for a long time now.  IMO, the bulk of the new knowledge and design configurations came in the wake of the 1986 Miami FBI shootout.

We can't use gold because it's too expensive, so that leaves combinations of lead, antimony and polymers.  I think it's a lot like the 1911, at this point it's pretty much all been done.  What has changed though is Carl came out with a smaller 9mm than previously existed, so i think that leaves room for ammo makers to maximize a bullet design for the shorter barrel that will still come in (hopefully) in that 12" to 14" penetration range and expand to +60 caliber.  (I notice the gold Dots seem to top out at .57-.58" expansion).

One thing I have noticed is that the 147gr Gold Dots are relatively easy to get, the Winchester 147gr Ranger T Series (RA9T) are very difficult to get.

[billmc]

I thought I'd share some comments with you guys from an email I sent to Speer asking some questions.  His answers are intermixed with my original message, so in order to see his answers more easily, I'll Bold them, that's not how they are in his original reply.

William: see the response to your questions..........below.

Shoot Straight!
Coy Getman
2299 Snake River Ave.
Lewiston, ID 83501
CCI/Speer Sr. Technical Coordinator
(866) 286-7436


I have three 9mm pistols, a Beretta 92FS, a Walther PPS, and a Rohrbaugh R9s.  I'd like to be able to keep on hand one type of ammo that could be used effectively in all three pistols for self defense.  The Rohrbaugh specifically states to not use +P ammunition.  The Rohrbaugh has a 2.9 inch barrel, the Walther has a 3.3 inch barrel and the Beretta has a 5 inch barrel.........If one round is to be used in all then you'll not be able to use any +P products, that means that there is no Short Barrel (SB) product option for you as it is a +P load.

Amongst your Gold Dot products, which load would you recommend?.........#23614 is a 115 gr, #23618 is a 124 gr and # 23619 is a 147 gr all are NOT +P Gold Dot loads.  I generally have a preference for the heavier bullet, but on your ballistics table pages, you indicate a 4 inch test barrel was used.  Will enough velocity be generated, out of the 2.9 inch barrel, to consistently cause the 147 gr GDHP to expand and penetrate the recommended 12 inches?.....I believe the 147 gr would have poor expansion at the reduced velocity from the 2.9" barrel, penetration will probably push the 12" or more as the nose diameter would be reduced from the non-expansion.  Do you make the 147 gr GDHP in a short barrel product?...........No only a 124 gr +P in SB  Would a short barrel load be adversely affected if fired from a 5 inch barrel?.............expect more expansion followed by deeper penetration.

Lastly, I do have a difficult time finding vendors of your products.  I have not found any local to me yet and have ordered off the internet; however the internet vendors, I've used, do not always have the product in stock.  Could you provide to me a reliable source from which I could obtain your products?.........one of the best methods is to have the local vendor order the products you desire, superior products don't stay on the shelf very long in today's market.

Thanks for the help,
Bill

So my take on what he said about the 147gr GDHP is that the nose of the bullet will probably compress some, thereby causing it to penetrate further.  The picture of the bullet I see in my head, is shaped something like an unfired Hornady Critical Defense round.  The penetration would be there and the minimum size the hole would be is 9 mm.

Also this would go along with the recommendation from the firearmstactical report that C0untZer0 had linked earlier,

 

Here is a Firearms Tactical Institute report on Gold Dots - specifically out of short barrels.

I thought it would be an interesting report since the R9 seems to favor Gold Dots and obviously the R9 is a short-barreled pistol.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs9.htm

which states:
"We have no qualms about offering the following general personal defense recommendations for Speer’s Gold Dot handgun ammunition:

9mm
If your handgun has a barrel length less than 4 inches, consider the 147 grain Gold Dot JHP or the 124 grain +P JHP."

[Nathan]

speer 124 for Personal defense
PMC bronze 115, cheap practice ammo

no WWB or reloads

[C0untZer0]

At least from what I've read on this forum, it seems that whenever anyone has a particularly finicky pistol, and they're having problems finding rounds that feed and cycle in the R9 reliably, the recomendation is "try 124gr Gold Dots".  And the feedback from what I've read usually comes back that the 124gr Gold Dot ends up feeding well.

I really freak out if my SD pistol has a failure, I obsess over if it really was the ammo or if it was the pistol.  I can't just buy a bunch of different ammo for my R9 and chalk up failures to ammo not being a good fit for the pistol.

So I'm going to be using the 124gr Gold Dot for the first 100 or so rounds I put through my R9.

[Z]

At least from what I've read on this forum, it seems that whenever anyone has a particularly finicky pistol, and they're having problems finding rounds that feed and cycle in the R9 reliably, the recomendation is "try 124gr Gold Dots".  And the feedback from what I've read usually comes back that the 124gr Gold Dot ends up feeding well.

I really freak out if my SD pistol has a failure, I obsess over if it really was the ammo or if it was the pistol.  I can't just buy a bunch of different ammo for my R9 and chalk up failures to ammo not being a good fit for the pistol.

So I'm going to be using the 124gr Gold Dot for the first 100 or so rounds I put through my R9.

I started with Speer 115GD ammo in 2008. I have not changed since. It has worked 100% reliable in all the R9s i have owned over the years!

[Aglifter]

My pup tumbles 147 gr bullets, but I only ever tried FMJ practice loads.  (147 gr is not a traditional load for a 9MM pistols, AFAIK) 

I would echo not being able to hit the desired impact velocity intended for a 147 gr bullet.  Now, while I don't know if it would work well, because I just thought of it while typing, an all-copper bullet, such as a Barnes DPX, might be an excellent choice for a pup - the SD would be excellent, while keeping the weight lower, to help acceleration (While I'm trying to extrapolate from DG rifles, you'd, essentially, be splitting your physics - at impact, the SD controls bullet performance to a large extent - I believe more than the inertia difference, and mass influences the ability to accelerate in 2.9")

I know DG rifle wounding mechanisms are similar to pistols. 

I never knew pup referred to something other than an affectionate nickname... 

[C0untZer0]

I'm hoping the R9 like 9mm Speer Lawman 124 grain TMJ  as much as they like Gold Dots.

I do have 100 rds of Gold Dots, which I will start my R9 out on, but they're expensive...

[Ghost Chili]

I am wondering if I may have gotten lucky with my R9.  Went out to the range yesterday to get some practice in with my other pistols and ran about 75 rounds of random 9mm rounds through my R9.  About 40 rounds were old reloads I found in one of my ammo cans in the closet from over 5 years ago.  120gr. LRN bullets that were tumble lubed and loaded up on a LEE progressive press.  I tend to load my reloads a tad weaker than factory to reduce wear and tear on my range guns and save some powder.  The R9 ran all reloads just fine.  Felt recoil was a bit less as expected, and all shots were within a 5" circle at 8 yards.  I was afraid of possible leading in the bore so I fired the remainder of an old box of Russian Brown Bear ammo last to hopefully blow out any lead.  The Russian stuff is 115gr. Bi-metal FMJ with lacquered steel cases.  That stuff is easily 15+ years old as I recall having my father buying some of that stuff in the giant tuna cans when I was a kid.  All rounds fired and functioned flawlessly.  I'm starting to think this little thing will shoot rocks if I can fit them in the mag!

[tracker]

What a great testament to the pup when she will digest food way past the "sell by" date. Peristalsis is alive and well in this fine weapon.