Why should I buy expensive ammo for daily carry?

You need to find a new supplier @Scoutbob!
https://www.sgammo.com/product/federal-ammo-sale/50-round-box-45-auto-federal-hst-230-grain-hp-hollow-point-le-ammo-p45hst2

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Wow! Is this a trustworthy site?

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I have priced many online stores and this is one of the best I have found, especially for EDC ammo, as opposed to range ammo. It has become my goto. My range has occasional sales so I usually pick up range ammo on sales plus a member discount and no shipping which is hard to beat.
I learned of it from others here who I trust.

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It’s worked for me in the past as well. I also shop around on gunbroker.com. Sometimes you can some pretty good deals.

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I use Hornady Critical Defense in all my carry weapons. I also rotate the carry ammo with new about once every two years. I use the old ammo when I go to the range to test a new weapon to see how it feeds the my carry ammo. That is what I do. $40-$60 per year, I think is reasonable insurance. Just my 2 cents.

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@Scoutbob SGAmmo is good to go. Their prices are consistently among the lowest for the brands they carry. Sometimes another retailer might beat them on price if its on sale. SGAmmo is in Oklahoma (I think?) and they have a very good reputation online at other forums as well. Their stuff ships quickly, they pack it very well, and their inventory count online is accurate.

You can find some other online retailers in these two other threads for other sites.

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I often use Rem GS 185gr +P in my Kahr 45. Lucky Gunner uses this same firearm for the .45 testing:

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests/#45ACP

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@Scotty–I carry the same rounds for the same reason, although I think I have some Fed HSTs as well.

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@Joe36 As always, some tremendous advice in the forum. Great question by the way. Carry what you can afford and make sure you run several magazines of your choice ammo to know what to expect. Couple of weeks ago I ran some defensive ammo through my .45 and was a bit surprised by the bite. It was Oath Tango frangible that looked like RN.

Ok, looking at the box it said 163 grn @ 1100 FPS. I could feel the difference but should have not been surprised. Pistol life does depend on how often you launch the hot rockets.

I keep my tuning by running normal ammo. I keep my reloads within normal parameters. Carry ammo gets inspected routinely. Was carrying a Glock 19 on a kayaking trip and got to go “swimming” a few times. Everything got thoroughly cleaned and inspected after that one.

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Am I reading your screen shot right, under Factory Ammo Manufacturers, Hornady is not even listed in the top 10? Just a note, after taking the Hornady factory tour a few years ago, back in the warehouse were huge pallet stacks to the ceiling with Winchester cases of Ammo. I asked our tour guide and she said they manufacture a lot of Winchester ammo here, they have a contract with Winchester.

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I’m not an IDPA shooter, but it seems like most do their own reloading, and the other manufacturers have lots of Bulk options in same/similar weights to defensive ammo. Does Hornady even have bulk options available?

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I’m pretty sure it has to due with being able to purchase in bulk plus getting brass credit by returning spent cartridges. I’m not sure Hornady has that option.

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Another follow-up report. I went to the range on Friday with my Springfield XD-S, a box of Federal HST 124-gr hollow point, and a box of Speer Gold Dot 115-gr hollow point. I shot 34 rounds of the HST with no issues. The Gold Dot had a misfeed on the 4th round. This is almost identical to the problem I had with the Hornady Critical Defense a while back; that ammo is just not compatible with the XD-S. So, I’m going to shoot another 40-50 rounds of the HST through my XD-S, and, if all goes well, I’ll adopt that as my everyday carry ammo. I’ll also test both types of ammo in my XD-Mod2, where I expect both of them to work flawlessly. Thanks again to everyone for your help in giving me a solid path forward.

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I’ve bought and reloaded a lot of hornady and wish I could start over with a lock and load press.
when it comes to bulk, do you mean like 1000 SWC? I’ve not seen that from Hornady–generally only quality jacketed rounds.

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No, I did not see anything but new material. Giant spools of copper and brass. Super loud inside with all the machines going. We were not aloud to go to the power and filling part.

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Fenix has options to buy pallets of 15k rounds, and you can order multiples. So, bulk bulk.

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Ammunition selection is often a hotly debated topic. It’s easy to find pros and cons online for any load.
Concerning the original post, Paul Harrell’s youtube channel often uses the Remington “green and white box” in his “meat target” tests. It usually performs quite well, and often performs as good or better than ammunition that’s way more expensive.

I don’t think you’ll go wrong using it, but seeing how lucrative the market is for cartridges with cool branding, I can envision Remington dropping it in favor of more boutique ammunition. More profits that way.

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I mean bulk as in high volume or range ammo for < $0.20/rnd. Federal has their American Eagle brand for example where it’s commonly available for < $180/case of 1000 rnds. Steel cased (which I don’t shoot) is even less. All of the other brands in that top 10 have “bulk” ammo available.

I’m not aware of any ammo like that made by Hornady? If they do I’d be happy to hear about it. So I think Hornady not being on that list doesn’t mean it’s not good ammo, it just means they don’t offer a product for that market

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Not sure what you mean by “dropping it in”. The thing that causes the setback is the slide slamming forward into the cartridge. I suppose you could ease the slide forward, but that may cause other feeding issues.

There is no official limit that I’ve ever seen on how many times you can load the same cartridge before you get setback, and enough setback where it would cause an issue. Typical internet knowledge is maybe 20-30 times (IIRC) will cause noticeable setback. I’m sure there are people who do this all the time and they’ve been fine. Personally I rather err on the side of caution.

I do similar to you, in that once my carry is loaded it goes in a holster and there it stays until I clean out the holster every couple weeks (lint, etc). If I unload the firearm, I will take that cartridge and usually toss it in a box I’ve labeled “once racked” and will use that to shoot up the next time I head to the range to test defensive ammo function.

To solve your pocket mag concerns, have a look at https://ammo-armor.com/ I frequently carry my spare in pocket and these are great at keeping crap out of them

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