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ady’ the first
i tical

f e n se is andgun
De only h n line
and munitio and
am esigned t all
d a
i n e ered cally
eng specifi eds
ls e
leve or the n n of
f o
s i t uati dern
and he mo en.
This 185-grain .45 ACP Critical Defense bullet from a 3-inch
Model 1911 penetrated 11 inches of ballistic gelatin after pass-
t citiz ing through a heavy clothing barrier. Note fabric and down
e d material pasted to nose of polymer insert, which could have
arm plugged the nose cavity of a conventional hollowpoint bullet.

F
or personal-defense or home-
defense handguns, particular-
ly for the ever-growing num-
bers of compact and short-barreled
pistols and revolvers on the market,
proper ammunition choice can liter-
ally be a life-or-death decision. This
choice is neither simple nor easy,
and there are many considerations
to be weighed. Hornady’s Critical
Defense ammunition line offers a
remarkable new alternative for the
millions of Americans who are tak-
ing advantage of their legal right
to carry firearms concealed on their
persons for protection.
The fundamental purpose of a
personal-defense handgun cartridge
is to incapacitate a violent attacker
as quickly as possible—to make him
stop his assault before he can deal
injury or death to you or your loved
ones. Put bluntly, the bullet from a
personal-defense handgun load must
be able to penetrate deeply while
opening as large a wound channel
as possible, disrupting critical organ
function and causing immediate,
massive loss of blood pressure and
attendant neural/motor function.
Not “knock-down” power (there’s no
such thing), but disruptive power.
For this reason, expanding hollow-
point bullet designs have always
been preferred for personal defense
as opposed to solid nonexpanding
bullets, which can penetrate deeply
but do not typically cause immedi-
ately destructive organ damage even
when passing through vital areas.
Unfortunately, there has been a
fundamental drawback to expanding
hollowpoint bullet design ever since
the very first popular high-perfor-
mance JHP handgun ammunition
line, SuperVel, appeared on the mar-
ket in the late 1960s. Hollowpoints
are by definition more fragile than
solid-design bullets. They have to be
in order to upset. But this very
characteristic also makes them
subject to interference or damage
from impact with external and inter-
nal materials such as clothing or
bone, which can prevent them from
expanding as designed (or cause
them to expand prematurely and
prevent sufficient penetration).
All the many hollowpoint bullet
designs currently on the market
(and there are many good ones)
operate by the same basic principle.
When a hollowpoint strikes tis-
sue, pressure-liquefied protoplasm
(which is 90 percent water to begin
with) at the point of impact is forced
into the hollow nose cavity, generat-
ing hydraulic pressure that forces
the cavity open, peeling back the
jacket material and “mushrooming”
the internal core material. That’s
if everything goes right. But if the
nose cavity is blocked, either by
being plugged (the “cookie-cutter”
effect) or collapsed by barrier

52 SHOOTING TIMES/DECEMBER2010/JANUARY2011 shootingtimes.com

 material or bone prior to deep-organ behind walls or inside a vehicle. For application of a variant of Hornady’s
impact, hydraulic force is prevented an armed citizen, legally justifiable soft polymer-nose Flex Tip (FTX)
from entering the cavity and the “personal defense” is just what the bullet design, which was origi-
bullet essentially becomes a solid, term implies: personal. Up close, nally developed for the company’s
failing to expand. exposed, face-to-face. Even in the LEVERevolution line of lever-action
For many years, hollowpoint most armed-citizen-friendly states, rifle ammunition to allow loading
bullet performance was judged and a civilian who shoots at a criminal of ballistically efficient pointed bul-
compared by being fired into blocks blocked behind a wall or inside a lets in a tubular magazine without
of bare ballistic gelatin without any vehicle will likely be considered by danger of primers being ignited
“barrier material” interposed prior law to be engaged in a gunfight, not under recoil. At a glance, a Critical
to impact. (I have never forgotten in self-defense. We can all imag- Defense bullet looks like a Flex Tip
the comment of a veteran major-city ine circumstances (think drive-by bullet with the tip of the polymer
street cop from those days, who, shooting) where returning fire at an cavity insert cut off at the front of
after reading a gel-block perfor- obscured target might be our devout the jacket. That’s almost right, but
mance report on one ammo maker’s wish, but shooting at a vehicle that not exactly.
new load, remarked, “That’s all very might also contain non-combatants The polymer used in pointed
well and good, but we’re not often on a public street is still a universal Flex Tip bullets is pliable but
required to shoot at naked people.”) legal no-no. not squishy. The Critical Defense
Then, following a widely publicized polymer is much more compressible
1986 shootout in Miami where The Critical Breakthrough by comparison, and a piece of the
two FBI officers were killed while With all these considerations insert material is easily malleable if
attempting to apprehend two crimi- in mind, a few years ago Hornady squeezed between finger and thumb.
nals inside a vehicle, a new perfor- embarked on a program to develop The cavity itself is wide, deep, and
mance standard and test protocol a line of ammunition specifically for straight-wall cylindrical with a flat
for judging law enforcement hand- citizens who carry or use compact 90-degree-edged bottom.
gun ammunition was developed. It concealable handguns for personal The best way to understand the
required minimum bullet penetra- and in-home defense: a product function of the design is to think
tion and wound cavity standards in line that would not be designed to that what Hornady has done is use
ballistic gelatin after penetrating a meet law enforcement standards for a hydraulically active medium to
variety of barrier materials, includ- wallboard, sheet metal, or auto glass essentially “pre-fill” a very large hol-
ing different thicknesses of clothing, barriers but would totally resolve lowpoint nose cavity, thus eliminat-
wallboard, sheet metal, and automo- the age-old problem of hollowpoint ing the hole that might be plugged
bile glass. This new FBI Standard cavity plugging when penetrating by an attacker’s clothing or other
revolutionized ammunition develop- an attacker’s clothing. Not just some material while providing a jump-
ment and led directly to today’s wide of the time, not just most of the start to the expansion process. Upon
range of high-performance hollow- time, not just nearly all of the time, impact, the soft insert polymer is
point handgun bullets. but each and every time. The result, compressed by the resistance of the
However, even the best of today’s after extensive experimentation and target tissue and swells to impart
hollowpoint designs are still testing, is Critical Defense. equalized outward pressure around
subject to cavity plugging from The key to the Critical Defense the entire circumference of the bul-
fabrics under certain conditions performance breakthrough is the let cavity, causing the same uniform
and to nose collapse from upset and expansion
oblique impact with bone as if an open hollow-
and other barrier mate- point were fired into
rial. Also, it is critically a “naked” unclothed
important for an armed medium. It works
citizen to understand that unfailingly whether
personal-defense ammuni- fired through light
tion standards and law summer clothing,
enforcement ammunition heavy layered win-
standards are not the ter clothing, or even
same—and should not leather. The presence
be. Police officers may of the insert material
be called upon by their also resists nose col-
duty to exchange fire Flat-tipped Critical Defense FTX bullets employ a softer, more malleable lapse should the bullet
with criminals concealed polymer nose insert than is used in pointed LEVERevolution FTX bullets. glance against bone

shootingtimes.com SHOOTING TIMES/DECEMBER2010/JANUARY2011 53

 Hornady’s Critical Defense ammunition
line is currently offered in these seven
loads, and more are on the way.
just under the target’s skin (think, a
rib), allowing the hydraulic expan-
sion mechanism to keep operating.
Incidentally, the leather thing
really impresses me. A few years
back I shot a 150-pound whitetail
facing directly chest-on at about 20
yards with one of the best perform-
ing .41 Magnum modern hollowpoint
loads on the market. It wheeled and
streaked away. After tracking the
animal (essentially no blood trail)
for nearly a mile, I found it dead. I
recovered the bullet from the rear
54 SHOOTING TIMES/DECEMBER2010/JANUARY2011
thigh, nearly 3 feet of full-length
penetration through lungs, liver, and
viscera. It was essentially reload-
able—zero upset. The hollow cavity
was plugged full with a perfectly
circular wafer of cut-out deer hide,
hair still attached. The hollowpoint
had become a solid on impact. If it
had not plugged, and had expanded
as designed, the deer would have
merely stumbled a few steps and
collapsed.
So I ask myself: Which result
would I prefer if facing an attacker?
One that falls down right there or
one that can still run a mile?
Hornady initially introduced
Critical Defense ammunition in
early 2009 with 90-grain .380
Auto, 115-grain 9mm, standard-
pressure 110-grain .38 Special, and
110-grain .38 Special +P loads. New
for 2010 are 165-grain .40 S&W,
185-grain .45 ACP, and 125-grain
.357 Magnum loads. More will be
coming.
The bullets for each caliber/load
are designed so that the compress-
ibility of the polymer insert mate-
rial, the thickness and taper of the
external jacket, and the skiving
grooves in the jacket’s ogive are
individually tailored for specific
bullet velocity and weight. Plus, all
loads are optimized for performance
with velocities from short-barreled
compact-concealment pistols and
revolvers, while also maintaining
performance in full-size guns of the
same calibers.
Their performance is impressive.
shootingtimes.com
 Hands-On Test Results
My first experience with Hor-
nady’s Critical Defense ammo was
with the 90-grain .380 Auto load. I
fired it at a distance of about 15 feet
from a palm-sized 2.75-inch Ruger
LCP into a block of ballistic gelatin,
fronted by an FBI-standard “heavy
winter clothing” barrier consisting of
layered cotton T-shirt material, lined
denim jacket material, and a down-
filled parka. The bullet expanded
All Critical Defense loads are optimized for
effective performance in compact carry-
concealed handguns.
shootingtimes.com
These fully upset .45
ACP and .40 S&W
Critical Defense bul-
lets from standard-
size pistols were
recovered from
ballistic gelatin after
passing through
standard FBI-protocol
four-layer “heavy
winter clothing” bar-
rier. Penetration was
12+ inches for all.
instantly and fully, and it penetrat- for view on the Hornady website:
ed straight-line to a depth just over www.hornady.com.)
10 inches. That’s deep enough to More recently, I repeated the same
penetrate and disrupt any attacker’s heavy clothing scenario with the
vital engine and equal to what I new Critical Defense 185-grain .45
would normally expect from a con- ACP load, this time from a Spring-
ventional 9mm JHP load from the field Micro Compact 3-inch Model
same barrel length. Repeated firings 1911. Penetration this time was 11
duplicated the result. My attitude inches, with picture-perfect expan-
about the potential of the “marginal” sion so perfectly symmetrical that
.380 Auto for effective personal the bullet ended up exactly front-on,
defense was instantly changed. (You with no yaw or tumble, and the red
may have watched me doing that, in polymer Flex Tip plug coming to rest
real time, on Guns & Ammo Televi- about a half-inch directly in front
sion, and the video is also available of the bullet. That only happens
SHOOTING TIMES/DECEMBER2010/JANUARY2011 55
 when a bullet’s upset is CRITICAL DEFENSE RANGE RESULTS
perfectly concentric, and More Than The Bullet
Standard
it’s extremely unusual Velocity Deviation Accuracy There is more to
with conventional hol- Ammunition (fps) (fps) (Inches) Critical Defense
lowpoint designs even in .380 Auto Taurus TCP, 2.84-Inch Barrel, 21 Feet ammunition than
bare gelatin much less just the bullet, and
Hornady 90-gr. FTX 933 19 2.75
after plowing through it is in fact one of
9mm Luger Glock 19, 4-Inch Barrel, 50 Feet
a down parka. Interest- the most thoroughly
ingly, the flat nose of Hornady 115-gr. FTX 1135 16 3.88 thought-out prod-
the polymer insert was .38 Special S&W Model 360 PD, 2-Inch Barrel, 21 Feet ucts of its type ever
pasted with a circle of Hornady 110-gr. FTX 993 20 2.90 developed. Hornady
mixed fabric, which tells .38 Special +P S&W Model 360 PD, 2-Inch Barrel, 21 Feet
has also taken full
you what would have advantage of the same
Hornady 110-gr. FTX 1087 23 2.25
happened to that bullet recent advances in
.357 Magnum S&W Model 386 AirLite, 3.13-Inch Barrel, 50 Feet propellant technology
if its hollow cavity had
actually been hollow. Hornady 125-gr. FTX 1388 25 3.00 it uses in its high-
From a full-size 5-inch .40 S&W Springfield XD, 4-Inch Barrel, 50 Feet performance rifle
Springfield TRP 1911, Hornady 165-gr. FTX 1153 21 3.75 innovations, such as
incidentally, full-upset .45 ACP Colt Commander, 4.25-Inch Barrel, 50 Feet
the Compact Mag-
penetration of the num rifle cartridges,
Hornady 185-gr. FTX 975 17 3.50
.45 ACP load reached to power its Critical
NOTES: Accuracy is the average of three, five-shot groups fired from a
12.5 inches, and the sandbag benchrest. Velocity is the average of five rounds
Defense loads with a
165-grain .40 S&W measured 10 feet from the guns’ muzzles. low-signature muzzle
Critical Defense load flash, lower-than-
averaged 13 inches from a 4-inch you’d expect from any of Hornady’s standard recoil compared to same
Springfield XD. Accuracy of all premium-grade handgun ammo, as bullet-weight/same velocity loads
Critical Defense loads is the same as revealed in the chart. with conventional propellants, and

56 SHOOTING TIMES/DECEMBER2010/JANUARY2011 shootingtimes.com

 improved burn-rate stability at a
wider range of ambient tempera-
tures.
Plus, the ogives of the Critical
Defense bullets themselves are
slightly more straight-taper than
the curved ogive of Hornady’s other
handgun bullets, both as a design
parameter attendant to the upset
function of the Flex Tip hollowpoint
insert and to improve feeding with
the autoloader rounds. The bullets
in all Critical Defense loads are can-
nelured and crimped to avoid bullet
setback in the case. Most auto-
loader ammunition is taper crimped
without cannelures, which can
allow bullets to be pushed back in
their cases if repeatedly chambered
and re-chambered in autoloaders,
leading to an excessive-pressure
situation when eventually fired (this
is a common occurrence with carry-
concealed pistols where the user
may chamber the same round then
replace it at the top of the magazine
every time the gun is put away).
58 SHOOTING TIMES/DECEMBER2010/JANUARY2011
Conventional
semiauto bullets are
smooth-sided and
taper-crimped into
their cases. Critical
Defense FTX bullets
are cannelured and
crimped to prevent
setback into the case
if repeatedly cleared
and re-chambered
without firing.
That won’t happen with the Critical Put simply: Hornady’s Criti-
Defense design. cal Defense is the first, and only,
And finally, the entire Critical handgun ammunition line designed
Defense line employs nickel-plated and engineered at all levels specifi-
cases. Not just because they’re pret- cally for the needs and situation of
ty but also because they are easily the modern American armed citizen,
visible when reloading in low-light and it is the only handgun ammu-
situations, and they do not acquire nition to once and for all solve the
the scummy surface patina that “hollowpoint problem.”
affects standard brass cases when
left in a magazine without firing for
extended periods, which can cause
drag and failure to feed/extract reli- SHOOTINGTIMES.COM
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