How Do You Choose Your Self Defense Ammo

[Middle Age Russ]

The guns I carry have over a thousand rounds of a varying diet of FMJ, reloads and defensive loads through each of them, with no failures that are not directly attributable to the ammunition (squib loads, dead primers, and such). There have been no failures to extract or failures to feed except when heavy-for-caliber truncated cone bullets were loaded at maximum loaded cartridge length dimensions.

With all this understood, when I buy defensive ammo I measure overall cartridge length to see how close to maximum it is, then load around 50 rounds in various magazines. This 50 rounds is shot single handed (both strong and weak sides) and two handed. If I encounter no problems in this 50 rounds with different magazines, I consider it good to go.

If I had no foreknowledge of how a gun functions with different ammo, it would take a lot more than 50 rounds to feel comfortable.

[tx mountaineer]

100 rounds. I change my defensive ammo once a year.