Everyone knows that one of the best reasons to own a gun is to defend yourself, your property, and those you love. But, there’s a lot of things to consider when you start thinking about home defense. The first and most obvious question is what kind of gun you should use, and while that is certainly something that should be thought about, it is not the point of this article. Today, we’re taking a look at what you should put in your gun after you decide. I set out to discover the best bullet for home defense, and I believe I have found the answer.
The Question
There has been some debate over the years about what kind of bullet you should use for home defense. In the handgun world, the two that come up most often are full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets and hollow points (JHP). FMJs are what probably comes to mind when you think of a traditional bullet. It’s a solid piece of lead with a copper jacket around it. Hollow points on the other hand are what they sound like. They have a divot in the front of the projectile. This is meant to cause the bullet to expand and use up more of its energy on impact. It helps prevent over penetration, or at least that’s the theory. But, there is a third kind of bullet that I thought might be better for home defense. It’s called frangible ammunition, and it uses a special kind of projectile that is meant to disintegrate on impact. It is typically used for shooting steel targets at close distances to prevent shrapnel from coming back at the shooter. My idea was that if it used up all of its energy on the target and disintegrated, it would be an effective round for home defense because it wouldn’t over penetrate and accidentally hit someone other than the hypothetical home invader. So, I began an experiment.
The Experiment
In order to find out what kind of ammunition would be most effective for home defense, I picked up a brick of each of the kinds of bullets mentioned in the previous paragraph, all in 9mm Luger. Then, I got some ballistic gel to simulate our bad guy and set up some drywall behind it to see if each bullet would, in a home defense scenario, go through the intended target and into another room where it could potentially hit someone else. Obviously, you don’t want to shoot a home intruder and accidentally go through them into someone else in the house. From there, it was time to do some shooting. Armed with my Springfield 1911 DS Prodigy, my personal home defense weapon, I took one shot with each of the FMJ, JHP, and Frangible bullets.
The Results
Starting with the full metal jacket. I used a 124 grain CCI Blazer, and it did exactly what I thought it would. Straight in and straight out of the ballistic gel and clean through the drywall. Obviously that’s not ideal, so I moved on the hollow point. For this one I used another 124 grain bullet, this time from Federal, and the results were fantastic. On hitting the ballistic gel, the hollow point flowered and expanded, tearing the ballistic gel and slowing the bullet down so that when it exited, the now opened-up projectile bounced right off the drywall and landed in the dirt below. At this point, hollow point is living up to its reputation as a fantastic defense round. But I hadn’t tried the frangible bullet yet, and I was optimistic. For this one, I used a 65 grain frangible bullet from Norma (frangibles are typically much lighter than traditional projectiles), and what happened really shocked me. Just like the FMJ, the frangible bullet zipped straight through the gel and the drywall. I was astounded, and so I took a second frangible shot and it did the same thing. It seems that without a truly solid surface to break apart on, the frangible bullet simply kept on trucking. Also, because of the light weight of the bullet, the frangible ammo failed to cycle my handgun and caused a malfunction. So, in a home defense situation, it seems that not only will frangible ammunition potentially hit something or someone other than the intended target, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to get another shot off if the first bullet didn’t do the trick. So, that’s out on the curb with the FMJ. Hollow Point wins.
Conclusion
So, per the above experiment, it would seem that, when it comes to home defense, your best ammo option is a hollow point projectile. Both of the other kinds of bullets in the experiment over penetrated , and the frangible even caused a weapon malfunction. So, if you’re loading up a magazine for your bedside gun, fill it with hollow points.
Below are the pictures taken during the ballistic gel experiment taken by Porter Huntsman:
- The three kinds of projectiles tried. Hollow point on the left, frangible on top, FMJ on the right
- The wound channel and drywall hole from the full metal jacket
- The more exaggerated wound channel from the hollow point (above the FMJ track)
- The dent left in the drywall from the JHP bullet
- The expanded hollow point bullet
- The bullet track from the frangible round (lowest of the three on the gel)
- The hole in the wall from the frangible bullet
