Talk:.380 ACP

380 acp penetration

I have watched a lot of 380 acp ballistic gelatin tests on youtube. Not any hollow point cartridge is able to get close to the penetration of a FMJ. In fact, many knowledgeable shooters use FMJ ammo in a 380 because they do not trust a hollow point to penetrate deep enough if they hit the attacker in the arm first or have to shoot him in the hip. If an attacker is wearing a protective vest you would be for forced to shoot him in the hip with any handgun. It is not uncommon foe criminals to wear a vest. Criminals often steal vests from a gun shop.

Penetration of modern pistol ammo is tested by International Wound Ballistics Association (IWBA)protocol. Not by penetration in buckets of water. IWBA protocol is 4 layers of heavy denim and ballistic gelatin. There are a variety of ways to make ballistic gelatin. Gelatin is tested for uniformity by the penetration of a BB at 800 fps. The BB should penetrate the gelatin 3.5". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.79.27 (talk) 22:08, 10 April 2015 (UTC) http://mousegunaddict.blogspot.com/2013/04/380-auto-fmj-heavy-clothing-terminal.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNtPHYwcDts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkscBbMGp5k — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.79.27 (talk) 23:37, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Hollow-point .380 ACP's lack of penetration is a design, not a flaw. The cartridge's design philosophy is a lightweight and compact cartridge for smaller pistols (i.e. the Ruger LCP), with stopping-power being a second thought. The only common pistol cartridge I know of that might over-penetrate even with hollow-points is .357 magnum, otherwise all pistol cartridges intended for self-defense are like this. You should watch some videos on over-penetration. If a bullet fully-stops inside someone's body, all the energy of that bullet has been transferred to the target. If it passes through it, then only a fraction of its energy has been transferred, and it is still dangerous to anybody who happens to be on the other side. You can know with perfect certainty that there is nothing valuable on the opposite side of a target on a shooting range, that is not the case in actual self-defense situations where you need to draw and shoot on a moment's notice under inclement conditions.

Pistols in general, and concealed-carry pistols in particular are not intended to penetrate armor. Get a rifle (i.e. an AR-15–style rifle) that is at least in a decent intermediate cartridge (i.e. .223 Remington) if you expect to be shooting somebody in ballistic armor, and always act like your mother might be behind the bastard you're trying to shoot. Pistols are for when you have nothing better, when you don't want to lug around a long-gun, or for fighting your way to a long-gun.

However I do agree that the ballistics and wound information on this page is very much lackluster. 2603:7080:413F:69C8:8B0C:FE01:8054:26AF (talk) 21:06, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

The Performance section is redundant and lacks critical information.

The tables given for different loads' performance does not give barrel length, twist-rate and also how many rifle grooves were used. These certainly do make large differences in a cartridge's performance, particularly barrel length, so the table is completely useless to anybody who wants to get a good idea about .380 ACP's overall performance. Even if it didn't, it's redundant since there's already a ballistic performance table a scroll or two above it, which does tell its test barrel length, although it lacks information on bullet expansion and penetration. 2603:7080:413F:69C8:8B0C:FE01:8054:26AF (talk) 20:36, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Design

"The .380 ACP cartridge was derived from Browning's earlier .38 ACP design, which was only marginally more powerful." Qualify this statement. There are no dimensional equivalents between .380 ACP and .38 ACP. Given that .38 ACP performs on par with 9mm Parabellum would represent more than a marginal increase in deliverable energy over the .380 ACP. 2600:8805:8000:3D:E5A2:3D48:54CC:1291 (talk) 00:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)