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GlockenHammer wrote:Overpenetration scares me. If I need to be penetrating cover to hit the BG, I can probably be making my own retreat. I'm 100% hollow points.

That is, if you can retreat - assuming you're not pinned down or blocked in. In that case, overpenetration is kind of the point of the ball ammo. Having something with a little more depth potential if needed.

I understand what others are saying about modern hollowpoints having penetration comparable to ball ammo and that is a very good point. If you're stacked with 100% self-defense hollowpoints then you probably have a good all-purpose round for all but the most unusual situations.

Most officers I worked with carried "ultra expansion" type of ammo in their three MAGS (sorry, I was never military), leaving them with no other options. I always figured that penetration would become more important the further along you got in a prolonged fight.

Does any one else change up ammo in the middle of your magazine stack?

When I was an LEO, I carried a 15+1 9mm and two extra clips. The top 8 rounds in my gun were HydraShok, and everything from there down was ball ammo. The extra clips were all ball ammo.

My reasoning was this: In the vast majority of situations you're going to fire half a clip or less. Probably in over 95%. For the other 5%, the further you get into your ammo supply the more likely you're going to need penetration as opposed to expansion. Unless you're in the middle of the desert, the bad guys are going to have headed behind cars, walls, trees or something else by the time you get into your second clip for sure.

I was the only person in my department who carried ammo this way. Most of the old guys just carried all standard self-protection hollowpoints, and the younger guys all had three clips of Black Talon.

I don't carry the extra clips now, but I do still stack a half clip of expansion and a half clip of penetration ammo.

It's probably not all that important to change up if you're only carrying 6 or 8 rounds total.

Thoughts?