P320 and new HP ammo??

[JJ_BPK]

Spotted this picture of a tray of P320 mags with HP??

The poster said they will be using RN for quals and HP, down range,, Possibly Speer Gold Dot +P..

I love Gold Dot and use it in most of my toys,, BUT I don't worry about the locals going up-armor with Type IV plates,,,, YET..

I'd be interested in the penetration test,, RN vs HP on type IV vests.

Last month they announced a trial for a better rifle/ammo combo because they are saying the "new" armor will defeat the current 5.56 ammo.

Going to HP on pistols seems like the wrong direction??

Opine...

[JamesIkanov]

In my very humble opinion.... if you are using a secondary weapon against someone with plates, and (probably) a rifle, you are already up shit creek without a paddle. JHP or Round nose won't make one lick of difference. Same almost virtually goes for soft armor, actually, with a few fairly exotic exceptions that I am quite sure are not made by Winchester. Most soft armor is only beaten by doing something crazy like loading a 50gr all copper bullet so hot it pushes .223 velocities out of a rifle barrel in a 4-5" handgun barrel (there exist tests of such rare bird commercial loads that prove that this will beat soft armors), or doing something to the bullet design like making it pointier and harder. The only way you're going to beat rifle rated plates with a handgun is if they are ceramic, without kevlar in front, and you manage to put most or all of a standard pistol mag in about the space the base of a can of spray paint. And even that would probably be both unreliable and frankly kind of impossible in a "real world" situation. The common school of thought as I have been introduced to it is that if someone is overtly wearing armor (and all you have is a pistol) then you should target the head, or barring that, extremities, but not the pelvis.

So if you actually hit something that isn't behind armor (A leg, arm, or a face), the round gets more bang for your buck than FMJ. Kinda all about taking what you can get. Since it won't beat hard rifle armor even if you put the meanest, nastiest special penetrator in it simply due to a velocity problem, you might as well make sure if it hits something soft and squishy it will give it the worst day possible. And if they aren't wearing armor at all, then hell, that's a whole lot less trouble right there. As far as I can tell it's just one more way to improve (if slightly) what they can and not worry about what they can't.

I'm going to try to avoid speculating too much on this other factor, but the other huge reason to go for even 147gr JHP 9mm over 115gr FMJ/ball or 124gr NATO ammo in the LE/Civvie world is that 147gr will break up and slow down more readily in soft tissue, and you will see less "pass through" meaning less collateral damage. I honestly think that's a fringe benefit for the majority of .mil users because AFAIK most of the very special end users that that might be a really serious daily job kinda concern for (*cough* hostage rescue *cough*) already have a pretty big ability to pick and choose most whatever ammo works best. I'd say it's maybe useful for MPs but I'm fairly sure that they can carry JHP already since their job is law enforcement. I could see it mattering more in a shitty situation where there's work to be done in a space that has both enemy and non combatants, but that is very much speculation and probably secondary or even tertiary in consideration.


Short Version:
JHP or RN won't make a lick of difference against rifle rated shit. JHP works much better in soft tissue that you can/will hit than RN will. JHP doesn't like punching clean holes through BGs into collateral damage across the hole, but that's probably not relevant in the context it will be used in primarily.

[The Reaper]

Last I heard, USSOCOM is still buying Glock 19s for their troops.

TR