Have some fun with the kids at Garand Thumb as they blow some meat apart with some power .45 ACP ammo.
“HST!” “HST!” “HST!” “HST!”
I would love to see how lighter, zippier boolets (such as my Norma 175gr carry ammo) would test under the same circumstances.
It’s not Garand Thumb (love his vids, informative and entertaining!), nor is it as comparable as the tests Lucky Gunner does, but this good old boy shoots it in some jello out of a micro and a 5” model.
Slower than indicated on the box, and that is consistent with another test I watched (water jugs, not a good test medium), they tend to chrono about 70 fps slower than advertised. Still, as this fella mentions, if you’re down range of anything coming out of ole bigmouth, you’re gonna have a bad day.
Also, we’re trained to NOT just shoot a perp once. Anyone worth shooting is worth shooting several times, for good measure, and you put 3 in a 6” circle around the HVAC—not a difficult task at combat ranges— and it really doesn’t matter what caliber you’re using. .45 ACP, 9mm, even old school .38 special out of a S&W Combat Master ought to finish the job. But the Norma was not as devastating as the box photo would have you expect it to be.
Still, given your skill level, I wouldn’t want to provoke you into shooting even good old military ball ammo, Kim. That 3 rounds in the HVAC is gonna be decisive, I’d bet. That said, Norma is known for outstanding rifle precision ammo and components. Not sure they’ve mastered the defensive round game yet.
https://youtu.be/Wd1HcOV2plg?si=LOLvEnmo7Ije4RAr
The fact that there are not a lot of tests of this, nor gun rag writeups makes me think this test is fairly representative of what to expect from it. If it did clock at advertised values, penetrated well, and reliably expanded, Norma would be taking out full page ads in all of them, and there would be tests galore like there are for the HST. They’re hard to find.
I’ve always found the old reliables, HST, Remington Golden Saber, Hornady XTP or their newer Critical Duty, Speer, et al, work just fine. I think the manufacturers are grasping at straws trying to find the new hotness. Probably not worth the effort at this point. Hard to do better than that current lineup, I would think.
Yeah, but I can’t shoot 230gr without some pain issues — and when I do, the knowledge of the oncoming pain makes me flinch.
Getting old is not for the young. (You have to be tough and battle-hardened to be able to deal with it.)
A couple alternatives …
Federal 165 gr Guard Dog
Hornady 200 gr XTP (used to be my regular carry stuff)
Speer 185 gr Gold Dot
Again, carry what you have until you decide it’s old enough to swap out. The one-shot-stop junkies can argue till the cows come home, but once you get to two, or better yet, three, well-placed shots, statistically it probably does not matter what you shoot them with. I’m betting any of the above would be a bit more comfortable to shoot but they test better than the Magtech round.
And you’re not doing long range sessions with this $1.25+ fodder are you? I unload my mags from carry ammo (rotating the chambered round to the bottom of the magazine later) to shoot range practice stuff. I shoot my carry ammo about once every year or two, then reload the carry mags from my stash. Too spendy to shoot much of it.