+ P ammo

elderboots;

Your ammo is good stuff with added power or extra velosity over and avove the normal load for the 45 acp in that bullet weight.
Nothing wrong with it at all.
The reason to check your owners manual is to see if there is a caveat telling you NOT to use +P ammo in your particular firearm.
In fact many if not most guns have this disclaimer. It does not mean you cannot use them, it means the gun is not designed for a steady diet of them. In other words you could shoot your regular loads to practice amd keep +P rounds loaded for SD only.

Many people do and I have never seen or heard of anyone having a problem with shooting them on occassion.

My wife has a S&W .357 revolver and her manual says not to use +P ammo. She uses 38 spcl for practice and only shoots the .357 ammo sparingly whether it is standard loads or +P and has never had a problem. It is just that the .357 loads are so unpleasant to shoot from a recoil and noise point of view.

Hope this helps a little

UF

Nearly all of the major manuf have a +P and some even have +P+.
Federals ar among the most popular and are used by a LOT of LE agencies.

Also Win SXT, and Gold Dot and are also excellent.

There are several others but I don't have the stuff at home to give names and my memory isn't as good as it once was.

I have personally tested all of these rounds in +P and +P+ on my rnage with the lights out and filmed the tests just to do comparisons for muzzle flash.

I want to give my students as much information as I can regarding the best of the pistol ammo for SD.

I will try to get more of my info in the next few days if anyone is interested, but suffice to say that it is very difficult to go wrong with Federal ammo in any gun.

UF

Pistolero;
You are right and MY BAD.
I was reading one thing and seeing another.
No< I have not seen +P in the 357 either.

Only in the 38 as you say. I sell most of the top brands of ammo and I do not remember seeing the +P in 357.

However the muzzle flash tests ai spoke of are valid and done with several calibers and manuf. to see what would blank out your vision in a night shooting situtation.

Sorry for the bad lead. For that, I will not shoot for two days.
Now what do I do?

Have a good one.

UF

Not to change the subject, but to take it to the next level. There is some intresting reading about "signs of excessive pressure" on page 102 and 103 of Lees modern reloading 1st edition. It goes on to dicuss the signs of your getting in the danger zone,when you see the primer flatening out.
Differcult extraction of the shell after being fired. Head enlargment, bit this has to be checked before and after firing, usaually more for the wildcat expiermentors.
using a loop and good light, look to see where the bolt is milled out for the ejector to pass can be seen embossed on the cartridge
Loose primers is another sign, if seeing this reduce your charge by 15%.
It goes on to the pressures that will blow the gun apart.these are pressures in the +60,000 pound range. If you are using a gun designed to operate in the 15,000 pound range (older guns) you most likely never find a loose primer because the gun would have blown up and spread the primer and gun parts over a wide area. and when you see a primer protruding this is a sign of reduced pressure, the load was so light thatthe case was notstreched back to the breach face.
Heres what i found intresting, according to the "Machinery's Handbook" the average minimum tensile strength of cartridge brass is 85,000 pounds. 85,000 times .027 is 2307 pounds pull to stretch the brass head to the bolt face after it has been driven foward by the firing pin.
In case your wondering why it simply does'nt simply push back much the same as the bullet pushes out, it is because it is tightly clamped against the chamber wall by the internal pressure.
They then point out that the average case is stronger. the minimum stength of the average brass case is 85,000 pounds. So the average case can hold more pressure before stretching the case head to the breach.
After doing thier calculations as to relating pounds to square inch, they come up with 28,134 pounds per square inch to be the least ammount of pressure to push the cartridge head against the bolt face.
28,000 pounds per square inch is not to be taken lightly.You sure wouldn't want to try and hold it back with your thumbover the muzzle. Thats twice the pressure of most handgun loads and three times the pressure of many shotshell loads. :shock: