Went to a local gun show yesterday and a guy was selling 9mm Hydra Shocks for the same price as FMJ, so I picked up a few boxes.
Is it still viable as SD ammo, or has technology moved on?
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Went to a local gun show yesterday and a guy was selling 9mm Hydra Shocks for the same price as FMJ, so I picked up a few boxes.
Is it still viable as SD ammo, or has technology moved on?
Yep, was and still is...
Technology has moved on...It's not a bad round...but the HST is the newer version. What they found was that when shot through heavy clothing (winter coats) the nose cone plugs up and it won't expand like it should. In the HST they removed the cone in the hollowpoint and cut expansion grooves which provides reliable expansion through all barriers in the FBI protocol.
I have 750 rounds of it (it's called Hydra-Shok, BTW) in .40 S&W and will not feel undergunned if I have to use it instead of my HSTs.
I picked it up when my dealer was selling it for $9.95/20.
GB, how hard is it to buy handgun ammo, particularly SD ammo in Canada? Has it eased up in recent years?
kinda sucks... the point makes it easy to clog and never expand....
No issues, there's lots of it for sale at the LGS's, gun shows, and via mail order. Wally World up here only carries limited rifle, shotgun and .22 rounds.
Not that much demand for SD ammo outside the LE community, except for the few of us that have US permits. Most of the demand is for cheap blaster and target ammo.
If the main objection is that it plugs up when going through winter clothing, then why not use it for summer duty? That is, if you can get a good deal on it, why not take advantage of it? I understand that new products come out and outshine their predecessor but the thing of it is, if it was good ammo a few years ago, then how is it no longer good ammo just because a superior product has come out? If it worked on BGs in the past, for example, it stands to reason that it will continue to work on BGs today.
I have some Hydra-Shoks right now and am going to replace them with Gold Dots because I do want the better product if its available in a reasonable fashion. At the same time, however, I wouldn't say that I didn't have adequate protection all of the times I carried Hydra-Shoks.
People are still made out of the same stuff. It will kill inflict damage as well today as it did yesterday.
It's pretty good...not quite as good as the Hornady Custom (or their new Critical Defense Ammo that was developed to not allow the tip to clog up and provide constant expansion) but it would do in a pinch. Heard a weird story few years ago about a LEO that shot a perp in the head with a Hydro-shok round and the brain was gone... Apparently that little peg had sheered off and went right through the back of the skull (little pin-hole), sucking the brain out just like a sabot round through an enemy tank will do. I personally had to put down an animal few years ago with a .45 Hydro-Shock and it wouldn't do it, even with a head shot. The rest of the .45 mag was loaded with Hornady's and you don't want to know how bad that stuff really is...needless to say, the Hornady is what I now carry.
Technology as moved on, but even so, the differences are negligible. It's fine. I use it in all my carry guns. It's been super reliable, so I feel no need to change it up for what might be a tiny difference.
Give it a few more hours. Someone will post up some some stone cold ballistics after shooting a jug of water....just give it time :tongue:
I've heard that story, too, and I am of the opinion it's just that ... a story with no facts to back it up.
You can keep the Critical Defense; I have yet to see the need for designer ammo, which is what I consider CD to be. I'll take Ranger-T (PDX-1 in the "designer 20 rd box is the same thing), HST and Gold Dot before anything from Hornady.
Like anything on ammo... you'll get lots of opinions. Go shoot some into something... examine what it did and how well it worked, and then decide if it works well enough for you.
I don't imagine anyone on the receiving end of someone using hyrdra-shok, is going to like it very much.