In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Federal Hydro-Shok
asop
Member Posts: 9,019 ✭✭✭✭
Opinions? Marketed as a personal defense, low recoil expanding round?? They run about $1.00 or more a round!
Comments
Large hollow point bullet. With a internal "Post" in the hollow point, that is supposed to initiate rapid and positive expansion.
Nothing at all wrong with them. They have a substantial record of one shot stops. With a correct center of mass impact.
If your going to be shooting them from a semi-auto? Be sure that the big hollow point, will feed and function without hanging up. I personally have had feed problems, with large flat nosed H-P's, in some of my semi-autos.
Years ago I fired different 45 acp rounds into soaking wet newspapers. (Poor man's ballistic gel.) Other brands expanded to various sizes. However, the Hydra-Shocks could have been reloaded & used again.
There is a lot of videos on you tube, referencing bullet expansion in ballistic gel. Using the FBI protocol, of 4 layers of denim covering the gel. Probably best for the OP to check out the ones, using Federal Hydro-Shoks.
You still need to shoot enough rounds through your guns to insure proper function and accuracy.What's enough? Some say 100 - 200 rounds which can get expensive. It's your life so you get to decide.
Just remember there is no "magic bullet". Bullet placement is everything.
Opinions? Marketed as a personal defense, low recoil expanding round?? They run about $1.00 or more a round!
They're Federals' take on the "premium" personal defense round. So that's a bit more velocity than standard practice/ball ammo, and supposedly a high quality expanding bullet.
Are they any good?
I think they're better than cheap practice/ball ammo. I've carried them.
Are they better than say, 10 other similar products by similar manufacturers? I don't believe so.
Claims of "low recoil" are necessarily BS. You can't reduce recoil without reducing either bullet weight or velocity or both. IE, reducing recoil is probably going to reduce terminal performance as well. I don't want "low recoil" defense ammo. I want "normal" or even perhaps "increased" recoil defense ammo!
At the end of the day, you've got bullets of identical weight and diameter being launched at similar or identical velocities. (Some of the 'hyper-premium' +P or +P+ ammo does launch a bit faster).
Any difference in performance is going to comes down solely to bullet construction. And while I won't argue that there is "no" difference between the various ammo makers premium bullets, I'm pretty skeptical that this difference is large enough to make any real difference.
As always, 98% of it is putting the bullet in the right place to begin with. If you don't do that, no bullet is going to "work", and if you can do it, it almost doesn't matter which bullet you use.
Edit (Responding to below:
Yes, Federal calls this ammo "Hydra-Shok" TRADEMARK!
They, also, apparently, have trademarked the term "personal defense". So nobody else can use the term "personal defense" in marketing ammunition. Yes. . .seriously. . .stop laughing.
The implication here, is that Federal's ammo causes "hydrostatic shock", which is an effect where impact of a super-high velocity round causes a disproportionately large or even distant from impact-site injury due to the non-compressible nature of fluid (contained in tissue).
I believe that hydrostatic shock has been medically established as a real effect. It certainly CAN happen that a wound in one part of the chest can cause injury elsewhere. The problem is that this effect is almost always associated with high velocity RIFLE ammunition. I don't think its ever been established that ordinary handgun ammo can do it, let alone on a regular/reliable basis. I certainly wouldn't believe claims that a. Federal's "Hydra-shok" handgun ammo can do this at all b. let alone on a reliable basis , and c. better than anyone else's ballistically similar ammo.
Bottom line: Yes, I do think its a good idea to use one of the premium "personal protection" (see what I did there) ammos for self-defense. You certainly could use Federals Hydra-shok brand but Speer, Winchester, Nosler, Hornady, Barnes, Black Hills, Remington, Corbon, and at least several others all also have their own versions of this type of product and I'm skeptical that Federal's version is really much (or any) better than the others. From a pure ballistics standpoint, some of the ammo makers do put out "hotter" ammo. . .whether or not its desirable to use that is a different question, left for a different thread.
If you're like most shooters, you'll end up carrying the personal defense ammo, and practicing with it enough to establish that it works fine in your gun and to become familiar with it, then spending most of your practice time/money on cheaper ammo.
They was my 'carry ammo' for years , seen real life results ! They Work !!!
Always thought they was federal hyd"A"-shoks ??????
Thanks !!!
I Grew Old Too Fast (And Smart Too damn Slow !!!) !!!
Not saying that they are better than the Speer Deep Curl's, or the Remington Golden Saber's, or the Winchester Black Talon, or whatever it is that Winchester calls them now.
First off make sure your firearm functions with them flawlessly, and with decent accuracy, then let your wallet decide which one is best for you.