New data posted: .380, 9mm Mak and 9mm Ultra.

Well, we’ve done another substantial upgrade to the BBTI site – adding in two new cartridges and greatly expanding another. In addition we’ve done some clean-up and tweaking – big kudos to my good lady wife for all her hard work!

The two new cartridges are 9mm Makarov (9×18) and 9mm Ultra (also call 9mm Police). Both of these were ‘European’ rounds, and are only available to a limited degree here in the US. This is why we only were able to test a limited variety of ammo (two for the Mak, one for the Ultra) and only used one ‘real world’ gun. I had been somewhat uninterested in both cartridges previously, but based on our tests I certainly would consider them to be viable self-defense rounds. It would be interesting to see the selection of both guns and ammo expanded.

But the bulk of our testing, and data, this time around was in revisiting the .380 ACP cartridge. We tested 8 different brands of ammo, including two we had tested previously. And we also did ‘real world’ tests of an additional 8 handguns. This was such a large increase over the previous data sets that we added a whole additional page and separate link in the “results”, and you can find it here. I had always considered .380 a marginal cartridge for self defense, though it is very popular due to the large number of very small pistols which shoot the cartridge. And it still wouldn’t be my first choice for a self-defense gun. But were I going to carry it, I’d feel very comfortable loading it with either of the Buffalo Bore ammos which we tested – they were quite impressive.

Lastly, we had a chance to do a bit of additional testing of the .327 Magnum round, this time shooting it through a Bond Arms derringer. This round still continues to impress me, and I am giving serious thought to getting one of these barrels for my own derringer.

So, check out the new data, and spread the word!

Jim Downey