I’ve read the below article about frangible ammo, and found its arguments compelling. I have a box of the SinterFire Special Duty loaded in my Ruger LC380 (both purchased back when I didn’t know much of anything about ammo types, calibers, hiollow-point or frangible, or anything! but thanks to the articles and forums here on USCCA, I’m learning).
I still find the article’s arguments in favor of frangible compelling, especially in my case. If I EVER have to shoot for self-defence, it would almost certainly be in the nearby presence of others, and/or more likely to be against a wild animal.
HOWEVER, when I went to purchase a few more boxes of the SinterFire Special Duty, I found it sold out at nearly every online outlet. I’ve never seen it at my local gun shop. So I’m wondering, have attitudes changed? What do you all in this forum think about frangible ammo?
As long as you are looking at ammo options, check out Liberty Ammo’s ultra-light, ultra high velocity offerings. Wound path very wide and deep enough, but because the energy is absorbed so quickly, over penetration most unlikely.
I have it and load my .223 home defense mags with it. Seems to make sense in my situation, living in a condo I have neighbors a couple of layers of sheet rock away.
One more thing, where the bullet stops the hydraulic shock begins. Works like blunt force trauma, liquid is non compressible, so the body fluids do the rest of the work. If it’s working on 400ft/lbs energy, that is all disbursed in the “target”, and not carrying excess energy on to another target via over penetration.
What I meant by this was that people were using arguments that frangible ammo minimizes risk of over-penetration and risk of harming bystanders.
Somehow it might be the truth if we compare this ammo to FMJ.
But when we talk about self defense, we must considered few factors:
we can hit human soft tissue
we can hit bone
we can miss
Using frangible ammo we have 1 positive result, 1 50/50 result and 1 noneffective result
you hit human soft tissue - ammo remains compact causing minimal wounding effects
you hit bone - projectile will disintegrate
you miss - projectile will disintegrate or not (depending on where it hits) and may or not harm bystander
Using hallow point ammo we have 2 positive results and 1 50/50 result
you hit human soft tissue - projectile expands and creates good wounding effect
you hit bone - projectile expands and creates good wounding effect
you miss - projectile expands or not (depending on where it hits) and may or not harm bystander
I always calculate risk vs requested outcome before making my decisions.
Thank you!!! That was very well written, and exceedingly helpful! I think I’ll be looking into some of the hollow-point and other options given in this thread.
Interesting subject. Not familiar with it. Thought I heard it was made for practicing on steel plates, so it not ricochet yet offers a visual and audible “ping”.
Is it hard to find or expensive?
If there is a place for frangible ammunition as SD inside of a home of a family such as bird shot might (first couple of rounds), I can see how frangible can be an interesting discussion.
But outside of that scenario, facing a lethal threat or someone armed with “real” bullets; When I weigh the benefits over what is lost by using it, I’ve trouble seeing efficacy as a “SD” use.
Reportedly, most handgun rounds in JHP have some protection against over penetration and against ricochet.
I don’t find that article compelling. I don’t read a lot of the USCCA blog articles but that one seems particularly poorly written.
If you are worried about pass-through (over-penetration when hitting your target) a good hollow point (Federal HST, Speer Gold Dot, etc) will give you the right amount of penetration even when passing through heavy jackets, lots of muscle/fat, bone, etc. They are highly likely to stay in the body and if they do exit it is with very little momentum. Good hollow points will give you predictable, consistent results in a wide variety of situations.
If you are worried about penetration when you miss… Anything, frangible or not, will go through every piece of drywall/sheetrock between you and your neighbors like a hot knife through butter and likely exit the building and keep going until it hits something substantial. Hoping you happen to hit a stud with a frangible round is not a valid plan for me.
IMO, the first thing to do when considering your home defense is knowing where your valid lanes of fire are. If you stand at X, you know if you shoot in Y direction and it’s safe with a hit/miss because there’s nothing past that wall or there’s a bookshelf filled with encyclopedias on the other wide or an exterior brick wall is there. Whereas if you stand at X, you know you can’t shoot in Z direction with a hit/miss because that’s a child’s bedroom on the other side of just drywall or your neighbor’s living room.
If you literally can’t shoot in any safe direction, I’d rather a shotgun loaded with birdshot (which will barely go through one layer of drywall) than frangible. And even then I think I’d risk #4 buckshot instead.
And failing that, then maybe a firearm just isn’t the right answer for your particular situation. Use something like the Bryna system that shoots pepper balls, or one of the larger home defense pepper sprays.
155gr SinterFire Special Duty ammo is what currently resides in my .45 Shield, which is on my hip. Every loaded 9mm in my possession, save two, are loaded with 105gr Sinterfire Special Duty rounds: my console gun, a CZ P10F, is loaded with Hornady 124gr XTP +Ps. The HK USP9 in my main safe is loaded with W-W 115gr +P+ Defenders.
