[Chassist]

I saw that there's a Speer Gold Dot round (in .40 S&W) supposedly formulated especially for "short barrel compact guns." Can anyone attest whether this actually matters in an M&P Compact, and whether CCI Speer is offering something that the others don't? Or is just a load of hooey?

 

[choochboost]

How short of a barrel are we talking about? If its the 3.5" barrel of the compact, I wouldn't worry about it. .40 loads are developed for 4" barrels so a .5" is not a significant loss. The concern with short barrels is whether or not there is enough velocity to make the projectile expand. The 3.5" barrel of the compact will not significantly that. Now if you go from 5" to 3" in a .45, that's another story.

 

[sholling]

I saw that there's a Speer Gold Dot round (in .40 S&W) supposedly formulated especially for "short barrel compact guns." Can anyone attest whether this actually matters in an M&P Compact, and whether CCI Speer is offering something that the others don't? Or is just a load of hooey?

The Speer 180gr Gold Dot Short Barrel round is optimized for a 3.5 inch barrel vs the standard 4" for a 40S&W. They claim it's supposed to expand at slightly lower velocities and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't sneak in a slightly faster burning power. While I suspect that choochboost is correct when he says a half inch doesn't make a huge difference, I'll take every edge I can get if somebody is a threat to me. The Speer short barrel load is what I keep in my 3". Why not? The standard Gold Dot is already an excellent round. Quite possibly the best of what is still easily available to the general public. Just be sure to put a box of them through your pistol to be sure that they feed reliably before staking your life on them - or any round for that matter.



FYI: My second choices for a 3.5" pistol would be one the Federal 180gr +P LE only rounds. Either the bonded or the HST depending on your requirements, or perhaps the Ranger-T.

 

[coltman1985]

My thoughts have always been on a well placed bullet = > than the latest fad in so called bullet technology. JMHO.

 

[sholling]

My thoughts have always been on a well placed bullet = > than the latest fad in so called bullet technology. JMHO.

I agree completely. But circumstances may not always allow for a perfectly placed bullet. For example I suspect that if someone were shooting at me I might be a bit distracted from taking careful aim. :wink: Diving for cover while trying to gnaw the buttons off of your shirt so that you can get that much lower to the ground can throw your aim off just a bit. And even well placed light weight high velocity projectiles can deflect off bone or even change course while traveling through soft tissue. It happens. Perfect shot placement is an awesome thing but I'll take every little edge I can get to help it along.

 

[raz-0]

It's likely more about the powder used than the bullet. A bullets effectiveness is dependantt on velocity. If you are using a powder that half of it is burning outside the barrel, fads aside, iti is going to decrease the effectiveness of that round.



From my 4.75" barreled gun (polygonal rifling), I had a 9 load that went 1177fps.



From my 3.5" barreled gun (cut rifling), the same load went 1011fps.



And that was using a nice fast powder like titegroup with something slower burning, it would have been even greater.

 

[sholling]

It's likely more about the powder used than the bullet.

I'm guessing it's a little of both. Speer is claiming that the short barrel round has a bit softer lead formulation.



BTW: I wouldn't feel underarmed with the Federal LE only Tactical Bonded +P or HST +P rounds, and they are half the price of the Speers. Gold Dots are notoriously difficult to feed and at what they cost I was only able to put one 20rd box through for testing purposes. I'll be picking up more soon and will put one more box through it. That's about all my hand will take of firing full boat SD rounds from the baby Kahr in a single session.