Monday, December 5, 2011

Hornady Critical Duty

Huh huh huh. . . . .'duty'. . . .huh huh huh huh.

Yes, I'm a child.

I saw this stuff this weekend on Guns & Ammo TV where Patrick Sweeney and Dave Emary from Hornady's engineering department ran them through the FBI's test protocol. It's pretty impressive. A major hangup for some folks regarding the Critical Defense lineup is that it's not designed to pass these tests, but the Critical Duty lineup looks good to go. It does remedy the problem of hollow point ammo clogging up with denim or other materials and failing to expand because it has the Flexlock tip in the nose just like Critical Defense ammo. It's also not a bonded bullet; the core is mechanically locked to the jacket using a deep groove, which is the same concept of the non-bonded Remington Golden Saber bullet, but better executed. From what I saw on the show, the expansion is not as dramatic as some of the other defensive ammo on the market, which is probably why it was so uniform with penetration.

It is being tauted as "Law Enforcement Ammo", but at least it's not emblazoned on the box, not that I can tell anyways. For 9mm, there's a standard pressure and +P offering in 135 grains, with both of them being more towards the hot side. The 175 grain 40 S&W load seems to be rather warm as well.

Here's more from Shooting Illustrated.

***ETA -- Hornady has some additional information on their website where they compare Critical Defense and Critical Duty. I note this:

Critical DUTY™ handgun ammunition is built to meet the needs and requirements of LAW ENFORCEMENT and TACTICAL PROFESSIONALS, as well as those law abiding citizens who prefer a full-size handgun for their personal protection and demand superior barrier penetration and subsequent terminal performance.*

4 comments:

Broken Andy said...

I hate it when ammo companies mark their boxes with " law enforcement" labeling. It makes me want to avoid it.

Unknown said...

Me too. This one doesn't look that way, but time will tell once it hits the shelves.

Drew said...

i foresee 4 gallon jugs of water jumping in front of some 9MM +P 135 gr. i wanna test these jokers out.

Unknown said...

Drew, I hear ya. I've been saving up gallon milk jugs to do some testing as well. Until someone comes out with affordable, reusable ballistic testing media, water jugs will have to do.