Ammo Review: Hornady Critical Duty vs. A Huge Pile of B.S.

Today we hope to answer many pressing questions:

We got the big guns out to shoot a huge pile of B.S.

What happens when you shoot a bullet at a huge pile of B.S.?If the B.S. is laid on really thick, will it clog up a hollowpoint bullet and prevent it from expanding?

Is shooting at a pile of B.S. kind of like squashing a pregnant spider? Does it just create millions of little piles of B.S.?

You guessed it! It’s time for another episode of Will It Expand, featuring Hornady Critical Defense and Critical Duty ammunition. If you haven’t figured it out already, the goal this week is to shoot a huge pile of B.S. To find some suitable B.S., we didn’t have to go far as our corner grocery store carries The New York Times.

Is this the first time that The New York Times has been to a shooting range?

What more appropriate pile of B.S. is there than The New York Times?

Once a bastion of journalistic integrity, The New York Times is currently out-subscribed by The National Enquirer – although that may be more of a reflection on today’s readers and the popularity of “The Kardashian Kapers” than the quality of either publication.

Back to the important stuff. What happens when you shoot B.S.? Given the formidable amounts of B.S. in even a weekday issue of The New York Times, we elected to go with the heavy stuff – Hornady Critical Duty. The Critical Duty line features a heavier projectile and a separate InterLock crimp band that helps prevent bullet jacket and core separation when tough barriers – like huge piles of B.S. – are encountered.

The Critical Duty 9mm loads cut through B.S. like butter

For our test, we donned heavy duty eye protection – in this case the ESS CrossBow Eyeshields. Who knows what happens when a high velocity projectile, fired from a southern state, hit’s a huge pile of B.S. from New York City? It could be like some ballistic matter / anti-matter reaction that would cause the earth to wobble on its axis and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to issue concealed carry permits free with every library card. Or worse.

We tried the B.S. Bang Theory with two different loads: Hornady Critical Duty 9mm +P 135 grain and Hornady Critical Duty .40 S&W 175 grain. For maximum velocity, we used full size guns – a Glock 17 Gen 4 and a Beretta PX4 Storm.

What did we learn?

The Critical Duty .40 S&W loads struggled with so much B.S.

As you can see, the Hornady 9mm Critical Duty load performed better. We think that the extra velocity (clocked around 1,172 feet per second on our Shooting Chrony) helped cut through the B.S.

The .40 S&W load struggled a little more. Perhaps the extra diameter of the .40 caliber projectile caused more surface area to impact the B.S. and slow down expansion?

B.S. is a tough target – as shown by the abuse these bullets took going through it.

This may be the very first time that The New York Times has been to a shooting range.

What’s next? Stay tuned and find out.

You can buy Hornady Critical Defense and Critical Duty Ammunition here.