Will it Expand? Hornady Critical Defense vs. Flour

March 12, 2012 By Tom Leave a Comment

Why? Umm. Because we can?

In this episode, we test Hornady Critical Defense ammunition against what is arguably the cloggiest stuff known to hollowpoints – flour.

Stick with us, you never know when you might run into a real-world shootout in a bakery. Or something.

Being that we expected flour to be a tough customer, we elected to test both velocity and weight. Critical Defense .357 Sig to meet the velocity threshold and .40 S&W to meet the weight.

We thought this was a great idea that had potential not only for real world application, but entertainment value as well. And we weren’t disappointed. When you hit a bag of flour with expanding ammunition you get a gratifying ‘fleur de flour.’

Oh, in addition to a neat picture of a bag of flour exploding, we also have expansion test results. Just for fun, we tested two loads in each caliber: the Hornady Critical Defense rounds and Speer Gold Dot projectiles.

	The Hornady Critical Defense load in .357 Sig held up pretty well to the bag-o-flour. Five of the six projectiles expanded fullyand the sixth expanded partially.We would trust this load in a donut shop shootout.
	OK so we went a little trigger happywith the Speer Gold Dot loads and shot nine of them into the flour. What can we say? It made for great explosions!Out of the nine we shot, five expanded fully, two clogged up and didn’t expand at all, and two expanded just a little – although in a very non-photogenic way.
	We shot four rounds of the Critical Defense .40 S&W loads into the flour and all four expanded adequately.As the photo shows, one was exceptionally photogenic and the remaining three were less attractive, although plenty effective.
	Cloggy, cloggy, cloggy.Of the three rounds of .40 S&W Gold Dots we recovered, none of them expanded properly. One had no sign of expansion at all, one had a weak attempt, and the third must have hit a flour-based black hole. Either that or it nudged another projectile already in our high-tech bullet catcher.

So what have we learned? Before carrying into a bakery, be sure to test your carry ammo in appropriate conditions.

To see more episode of our Will it Expand series, click here.

Filed Under: Ammunition, Reviews, Will It Expand Tagged With: Ammo Tests, ammunition, Critical Defense, hollowpoints, hornady, will it expand

Review: Gargoyles Striker Protective Glasses – Safety with Style

March 9, 2012 By Tom Leave a Comment

Suggested Retail Price: $75.00 to $110.00

www.gargoyleseyewear.com

The Good

These are really crossover shooting glasses. They offer ballistic protection without looking like range gear.

The Bad

The fit is very close to my face and there can be a touch of fogging on hot and humid days.

The Ugly

We don’t look nearly as menacing as The Terminator wearing Gargoyles.

Our Rating

Three Nuns – Love the style, light weight, and comfort of these glasses, but the occasional fogging prevents a 4 nun rating.

First Impressions

There are shooting glasses and there are stylish sun glasses. And never the twain shall meet. Until now. What prompted us to check out the new line of Gargoyles Ballistic Defense sunglasses was the appeal of wearing our every day sunglasses to the range and still feeling confident that our eyes would be properly protected. Yep, we’re that lazy. Changing glasses eats into range time after all.

Toric Lenses

Boy did we get an education on optics at this years SHOT Show. And we learned that Gargoyles Eyewear founder Denis Burns invented the whole Toric thing back in 1979. Here’s the simple explanation from Wikipedia:

The greatest radius of curvature of the toric lens surface, R + r, corresponds to the smallest refractive power, S = (n – 1) / (R + r), where n is the index of refraction of the lens material. The smallest radius of curvature, r, corresponds to the greatest refractive power, s = (n – 1) / r. Since R + r > r, S < s. The lens behaves approximately like a combination of a spherical lens with optical power s and a cylindrical lens with power s – S. In ophthalmology and optometry s – S is called the cylinder power of the lens.

Got it? Good.

Toric Lenses for Dummies

In case you slept during your graduate level light refraction lab class, here’s a simpler explanation:

You can see great through flat lenses – but they don’t protect the sides of your eyes.
Bending a lens so that it covers your eye more completely makes stuff look funny.

Toric lenses play nifty tricks with thickness and shape of the lens so that, regardless of where light enters the lens (side, front, etc), it’s focused on your retina. And things don’t look funny like in those carnie houses of mirrors.

Got it? Good.

Ballistic Defense

Make no mistake: although light, comfortable, and downright sexy, these are shooting sports appropriate glasses. They’re rated as 5 to 6 times stronger in terms of impact resistance than regular polycarbonate lenses. And they exceed ISO and ANSI test standards. So leave your regular glasses in the car, and don these on the way to the range.

Subjective Stuff

The big standout feature of these glasses is comfort. They are light, light, light. Even lighter than Perez Hilton’s loafers. The other thing that stands out is the rubberized texture at the back of the frames (see photo.) This helps the Gargoyles Strikers stay put during strenuous activity like IDPA, Steel Challenge, cycling, or extreme beach sitting.

The Striker can be ordered with a variety of lens types. The green lens is optimized for outdoor activities and we will be looking at this lens type in an upcoming review of a different model. Also available is Copper. Our set came with Smoke Polarized lenses. While polarized lenses are not ideal for shotgun sports, we find them just fine for rifle and pistol shooting where targets are stationary. By the way, Gargoyes offer 100% UV protection.

The clarity of the Gargoyles Striker with the Smoke Polarized lenses is fantastic. We had no complaints about optical quality and the peripheral vision was phenomenal.

We’ve got three more pairs of Gargoyles being featured in upcoming reviews – stay tuned.

Available here: Gargoyles Striker Sunglasses

Check out other My Gun Culture product reviews here!

Filed Under: Accessories, Reviews Tagged With: eye protection, gargoyles, Gun Reviews, shooting accessories, shooting glasses

Will It Expand? Hornady Critical Defense vs. Grape Jelly

March 7, 2012 By Tom 1 Comment

All y’all have some pretty weird suggestions for our semi-serious ammo testing. Here we are, trying to be all scientific, and you keep sending suggestions for silly random things to shoot. Like you really might find yourself in a situation where you have to shoot through a large glass jar of grape jelly to protect your family. We decided to proceed with this one anyway, as this test offered exciting possibilities for lower cost wine production methods.

Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened. Just watch Jerry Springer sometime. You just might find yourself in a life or death situation where some crazed evil d00d is pelting you and yours with large jars of grape jelly. Rather than judge, we’ll just follow the Boy Scouts creed and be prepared – and find out if our carry ammo is up to the task. If we were dealing with cheap generic grape jelly, we would have tested this scenario with 9mm or .40 S&W loads. Given that it was about 1/2 gallon of genuine Knotts Berry Farm jelly, we thought it prudent to test with .357 Sig.

Loaded with a 115 grain FTX projectile, this load is rated at 1,235 feet per second and in our Glock 32, it chronographed at 1,231 feet per second from the 4” barrel. Plenty enough to stomp grapes.

In addition to providing great entertainment for our staff, there was some practical value to this test. After all, the 1/2 gallon of grape jelly was enclosed in glass. That’s roughly equivalent to the FBI glass barrier test protocol right? Right? Come on, stick with us here…

Anyway, we backed up about 15 feet, placed a high-tech bullet catcher made of wet pack (a pile of thoroughly soaked paper) behind the grape jelly, and fired…

That’s when the cops showed up. Well, not quite, but it was a close call. You see, when you shoot at a sealed glass jar, filled to the brim with gelatinous substance, with a high velocity projectile, all that energy has to go somewhere. Apparently, the latent grape jelly energy dissipated by covering every person at the range with a moderate coat of sticky, sugary, slime. Let’s just say we were more popular before we shot the jelly than after.

After apologizing profusely to shooters in all the other lanes and the good citizens of Montana, we went in search of the bullet. To see if it did in fact expand.

We’ll let you know, as soon as we find it. Apparently, shooting grape jelly creates a matter / anti-matter implosion. As best we can tell, that Hornady bullet is orbiting Saturn about 128 years in the future. Or something like that.

We’re not giving up. As soon as we can find an equally massive glass jar of grape jelly, we’re going to try it again. This time with an electro-magnetic containment vessel.

Stay tuned.

Filed Under: Ammunition, Reviews, Will It Expand Tagged With: ammo reviews, Ammo Testing, ammunition, Critical Defense, Critical Duty, hornady

Hawke Optics Sidewinder Tactical Scope – A Video Tour

March 5, 2012 By Tom Leave a Comment

A nice scope for the money!

Filed Under: Optics and Sights, Reviews, Videos Tagged With: Hawke Optics, optics, otics reviews, review, Scope reviews, scopes, tactical

Nightstand Perfection? Glock + Crimson Trace squared

March 2, 2012 By Tom Leave a Comment

The stars aligned, it was a slow day on cable and there was not another Presidential Debate scheduled for 18 more minutes. In short, we were bored and started tinkering. Coincidentally at this particular time we found ourselves reviewing a Glock 17 Gen IV, Crimson Trace Lightguard, and Crimson Trace LG-850 Lasergrips.

That moment of boredom is when it occurred to us that… you can put all these things together!

OK, actually we knew that it was a well thought out master plan for all these things to work together. What was less expected was how exceptionally handy this setup is. While we still recommend a hand held flashlight for looking around, it’s great to have light and laser aligned with your bore with no additional grip gyrations.

Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide to arming yourself, getting a light on target, acquiring a good sight picture in low light conditions and preparing to fire if necessary:

Pick up your gun

That’s about it.

You see, the new Crimson Trace LG-850 series for Glock Gen IV full and compact size guns is a rear pressure activated design. This frees up the front of the Glock grip for the Crimson Trace Lightguard activation switch. So when you pick up your Glock (or other supported model) the web of your hand activates the laser, your middle finger activates the light, and you’re ready to go.

The Lasergrip panels add a touch of circumference to the gun, so we’ve found that the smallest grip configuration of the Glock Gen IV makes the whole setup just about perfect for medium sized hands. With the Glock’s extra grip panels simply adjust as necessary to your preference.

It’s become the new nightstand configuration. For now. As we’ve been doing all sorts of ammunition testing for our Hornady Critical Defense Will It Expand series, we’ve come to be even more impressed with the performance of the .357 Sig round in all sorts of adverse conditions. We’ve had a Glock 32 for years and love it. Now we’ll have to take a close look at the Glock 31 Gen IV in .357 Sig for the nightstand gun.

Now if they could only figure out how to mount a cell phone…

Filed Under: Guns, Reviews Tagged With: crimson trace, glock, home defense, personal protection, Self-Defense

Swamp Thing: The Immersion – A ZCORR Storage Story…

February 29, 2012 By Tom Leave a Comment

Some time ago, Jason from ZCORR Zero Corrosion Products left a comment on MyGunCulture.com. Something about his corrosion-proof storage bags for guns, ammo, supplies – most anything one might need to keep intact and rust-free for long periods of time in, let’s say, less than ideal storage conditions.

We (pridefully) told Jason that if we were going to evaluate something and write about it, that we were going to do it on our terms. Surprisingly, he agreed.

We live on the edge of a swamp. Real estate brokers call refer to this as “scenic wetlands” but we all know it’s just a swamp. It’s complete with all sorts of swamp critters: deer, raccoons, fox, snakes of all varieties, and gators. We thought that a good old fashioned swamp would be the perfect place to bury one of Jason’s bags for a while.

We can think of lot’s of scenarios where one might want to bury tactical stuff. Didn’t tell your spouse about that new gun you bought? Secret weapons cache in the yard in case your house is overrun by the undead? Those handcuffs that you sawed off late one night? The list goes on and we won’t ask questions or pass judgment on things you might want to bury.

Anyway, we quickly agreed to the challenge. As Jason seemed so supremely confident about the protective capabilities of his bags, we joked that we might even bury a sandwich and eat it at a later date when the package was dug back out of the swamp. Unfortunately Jason double-dared us and now here we are – trapped into either accepting the challenge or being exposed as trash-talking wimps.

With some trepidation, we assembled our version of a survival kit to submerge in a ZCORR Vacuum Pistol Bag…

Post Apocalypse (choose your favorite type) Survival Kit

Gun: Post thermonuclear war, zombie virus outbreak, global economic collapse, or 30 straight days of cable TV downtime – it doesn’t matter. When civilization breaks down and you’re going to want a gun. We really trust Jason, but let’s be real. We’re not going to bury one of our favorite guns in a swamp just for this article. However, we found a reasonable compromise. We’ve been working on a restoration of a low cost, .25 caliber pocket pistol for a friend for, umm, a few years now. Since the frame is eternally getting polished, why not bury that? Worst case, out comes the Dremel tool once again.
Zippo Lighter: Yeah, we know, lighter fluid will be in short supply when the zombies come, but it seemed like a good idea to bury this. Will it still light? Will it explode from some freakish reaction with the ZCORR protective molecules? Will American Horror Story ever come back for season 2?
Macaroni and Cheese: Boxed macaroni and cheese takes a close second in importance to our least favorite gun. Plus you’ll want at least one more synthetic packaged meal before you enter a lifelong diet of insects and berries.
Metal Spring Puzzle from Cracker Barrel: Yeah, basic survival is important, but what are you going to do with your new-found leisure time with no X-Box, cable television, or Words With Friends? Bet you didn’t think of that did you? We’re packing hours of engaging entertainment with the puzzle. Oh, and it’s metal so we can see if it rusts in the swamp.
Black Powder Pistol Pellets: You guessed it. We packed these loose and unprotected, kind of like Paris Hilton, in the bag. And we’re going to shoot them out of a Remington Bison .44 cap and ball revolver replica post swamp-emergence. Does anyone know a good insurance agent? By the way, our policy got canceled recently with no explanation. Hmmm.
Primers: You’re gonna have to reload if you want to stand a chance against Mad Max. Until the supplies run out anyway. We packed a box of Federal Pistol Primers and we’re gonna load up some .38 Swamp Specials to see how they work. Still waiting on a referral to a good insurance agent by the way.
Official SHOT Show Media Day Notepad: We’re dedicated to this web site and fully intend to keep writing after the total breakdown of civilization. So we’re packing a notepad. Granted, we haven’t figured out how we’re going to handle worldwide distribution…

ZCORR Vacuum Seal Bags

The vacuum seal is one tough cookie (bag.) It features what we reluctantly describe as a zip-lock seal. We say reluctantly because its nothing like the sandwich, or even freezer bag type. It feels about 1/2” thick and locks together in clamp like fashion. If we had access to a fragmentation grenade, we would love to set one off inside the bag just to see if the seal held. 50/50 chance that it would.

Once you have your survival kit in the bag and have zipped the seal shut, it’s time to vacuum out the excess air. Just place most any vacuum hose over the waterproof seal and draw out the air.

That’s it.

If you’re going to do something ridiculous like bury stuff in a swamp, ZCORR recommends using an external container to prevent tears to the bag, but let us tell you, this bag is tough. We buried it in it’s birthday suit.

Check back in a few weeks. We’re going to:

Eat swamp macaroni and cheese
Make .38 Swamp Special reloads and shoot them
Fire a .44 Remington Bison with Swamp powder
Torch something with a Swamp Zippo
Play some puzzle games
And finally finish refinishing that gun…

Filed Under: Accessories, Reviews Tagged With: accessories, apocalypse, reviews, storage, zombies

Hornady Critical Defense vs. SPAM (and Spam Juice)

February 26, 2012 By Tom 2 Comments

Welcome back to our continuing series where we subject Hornady Critical Defense and Critical Duty ammo to all sorts of abusive and at times, ridiculous, tests. You see, it’s supposed to expand every time. And we’re going to find out if it does.

Our reader suggestion for this episode is… Spam. Yes, the simulated meat kind.

We thought this was a great idea.

People at our outdoor shooting range? Not so much. Mainly because they got covered with Spam. But hey, that’s why you’re supposed to wear eye protection, right? So our conscience is clean, if not our clothing.

Down here in South Cackalackee we got ourselves a problem – wild spam. It’s everywhere and we find them in all sizes – from 7 ounce cans to 12 packs. And when it’s allowed to roam free in the wild, it can reach 25 pounds – so caliber selection is a bit tricky.

Anyway, wild Spam are slimy, slippery, and basically a booger to catch, so we elected to shoot canned Spam. Both original and generic. Just in case there’s a difference. We hear that artificial spam has even less meat in it so we figured it would be interesting to see if there’s a difference in bullet expansion performance and Spam lethality. Well, obviously Spam is lethal to humans, but is Hornady Critical Defense ammo lethal to Spam?

First we tested the Hornady Critical Defense .22 Magnum round. We thought it would be a pretty good solution for Spam – not too much meat damage, no recoil, and lots of rifle and pistol options to launch it. With a 45 grain FTX bullet that included one of those cute little red flex tips to aid expansion we were hopeful for consistent expansion results. We elected to use a Ruger Single Six with a 7.5″ barrel – a portable Spam solution that would keep velocity reasonable at closer Spam hunting distances.

We originally expected the .22 WMR to leave a little something edible when all was said and done, but unless we intended to scrape Spam splatter off other nearby shooters at the range, it was not to be. The .22 WMR round was somewhat, ah, explosive against both brand name and generic spam. And we got great expansion from all rounds through both real and plastic Spam. Not bad performance considering that the round had to pass through two sides of metal skin and a big hunk of gelatinous fake meat love.

Because you never know when you might encounter an especially irritable Spam while attending to more urban chores, we tested a couple of common personal defense loads. Will a quick shot from your every day carry gun put down a Spam? Will there be any left? Will the Grocery Product Defense League of Americacome after you with abuse charges?

We aimed to find out and tried both 90 grain .380 ACP and 115 grain 9mm Critical Defense rounds.

While the .380 rounds mortally wounded all of our test Spams with a single shot, we were a tad disappointed with the expansion results. We shot them from a very short barreled Ruger LCP so velocity was at the low end of the round’s potential. We noted some mild deformation, but no actual expansion.

The 9mm rounds out of a Glock 17 Gen IVwere another story altogether.

More weight + More Velocity = Spam Juice

While juicing Spam this way is cheap and easy, not to mention fun, you’re probably better off using the Jack Lalane Power Juicer if you’re one of those that appreciates the extra nutrients available from Spam juicing.

What we learned

Shooting canned food is fun, but can be expensive
Domestic, or canned, Spam is much easier to shoot
Don’t shoot Spam when other people are at the range. Unless you have lot’s of Handi-Wipes available
Spam is NOT more edible after shooting. In fact, it’s even less palatable.

If you’re into video, check out SPAM – The Movie

Spam, spam, spam, and spam.

Filed Under: Ammunition, Reviews, Will It Expand Tagged With: ammo, Ammo Tests, ammunition, hornady, videos, will it expand

Review: Crimson Trace Lasergrips for Glock Full Size and Compact Gen 3 LG-417

February 16, 2012 By Tom Leave a Comment

Beam me Scotty…

Suggested Retail Price: $339.00

www.crimsontrace.com

The Good

Love, love, love that the newer model Lasergrips for Glocks have a positive on/off switch for the laser.

The Bad

Given the solid molded grip design of the Gen 3 Glocks, it will add a bit of circumference to your grip.

The Ugly

There are still “gun dude” know-it-alls out there who believe that lasers are a gimmick bound to get you ‘kilt’ in a real gunfight. You have to explain to them that you also know how to use sights.

Our Rating

Four Nuns! No problems with any of our holsters, no accidental activation, and rock solid mount. A nice piece of equipment.

First Impressions

The thing we like best about the Crimson Trace Lasergrip design is the instinctive activation. Grab your gun, and the laser is pointing at stuff you’re going to shoot. No levers, switches or internal parts replacements – just an instant and somewhat sexy improvement. It’s kind of like a Botox treatment for your gun, although you don’t have to replace it every six weeks.

Installation

Putting these on was a snap. We didn’t even need the instructions. Well, not at the beginning anyway. The steps are pretty simple.

Unload your gun
Now unload it again, and check the chamber this time to make sure its empty
Slide your snazzy new Crimson Trace LG-417 lasergrip over the bottom of the frame
Make sure the bright red shiny light part is facing forward
Choose the proper mounting clamp for your particular Glock (see below)
Screw it down tight using the enclosed tool
Go look exceedingly cool at the range

See? Pretty simple. No removal of pins, springs, or other itty-bitty parts from your gun.

Front activation button – Protects important things…

The LG-417 features a front activation button. This is a good thing for concealed carry guns. We’ve had lasers in the past with side activation buttons. Unfortunately, we’ve found that pressure from inside the waistband holsters can activate the laser, thereby sending a blazing hot beam of gamma mega-death laser power right at your, ummm, sensitive areas. Actually Crimson Trace assures us that their lasers are harmless in that respect, but it does tend to wear the batteries faster. And avoiding this problem altogether means that you don’t have to explain why your pants are glowing red. Yes, you could crack plenty of off-color jokes about being hot to trot or making a great addition to any city’s red light district, but we feel its better to avoid the situation entirely.

To zero or not to zero – That is the question…

The Crimson Trace Lasergrips come with adjustable windage and elevation settings that allow one to line up the laser ‘dot’ with a specific point of impact at a specific distance. The laser lens is of course not physically located in the center of the bore – generally bullets go there – and that might cause damage to your Lasergrips. So thinking back to Mrs. Finglebaum’s 9th grade Geometry class, if you set the ‘dot’ to match the point of impact at a given distance, the projectile line of flight and the laser beam converge to the specified point of aim, then continue to diverge again after that. Mrs. Finglebaum would call that an example of intersecting line segments that have different slope-intercept equations. Or would she refer to them as rays? Rays go on forever. A bullet stops traveling at some point so it’s more like a line segment. But then again it’s constantly falling, making it technically more like some type of parabolic curve. Does a Crimson Trace laser extend forever? Is it a line segment or a ray? Will it Rendezvous with Rama a few billion light years from my pistol range? Wow, geometry is hard…

Bottom line? You have two choices on ways to ‘zero’ your Crimson Trace Lasergrips:

Be precise – at a distance. Pick a distance where you want the bullet impact and the laser dot to occupy the same physical space on your target. One of the primary advantages to this method is that it feels exceptionally cool to put the laser dot on some small target, like a jobless mosquito, and blow it away. Many people at your shooting range can be impressed by this. The disadvantage is that for both longer and shorter ranges than your zero setting, the bullet will not impact exactly on the dot. It will be close, but not exact, depending on how far your actual shooting distance is from your zero distance. Dig up Mrs. Finglebaum’s book and you’ll see what we mean.
Get parallel. By our unofficial measurements on a Glock 32 Gen 3 with the LG-417 mounted, the laser beam lens is just about 1/2” below the center of the bore and about 3/4” to the right of the bore. So, if you take a whack at adjusting the laser to remain parallel to the bore, then distance becomes a non-issue. Your bullet will hit a smidgen high and a couple hair lengths to the left of where the shiny red dot is. Then you can have some extra fun at twilight trying to whack targets at 100 yards or so.

Two good options and all personal preference. Crimson Trace sets a reasonably good zero for 50 feet. So take your choice. Tinker or not.

Read those instructions!

Apparently the Gen 3 full size and compact Glocks can have some slightly different frame configurations on the beavertail right below the slide. The LG-417 laser grip kit comes with two different sized mounting clamps to account for your particular version. It’s important to identify your variant per the diagrams in the Installation Handbook because as we, umm, found out the hard way, you can get a less than secure mount using the wrong clamp. We initially used the larger clamp and installation seemed to work fine, but we quickly noticed that the laser grip would not hold a zero after holstering and un-holstering. A quick look at the instructions led us to swap out the larger clamp for the smaller, and voila, problem solved. That myth about guys not needing to read instructions? Still not true.

Positively engaging!

The newer LG-417 series features a positive on/off switch mechanism – a great improvement over the earlier Glock models. We like to do other daytime stuff that’s not so laser friendly like Steel Challenge, IDPA, and general range plinking on nice sunny days. It’s nice to be able to disengage the laser without dismounting it. This model has a deeply recessed pressure switch on the left grip panel, just above the battery compartment. A small pinky can be used to turn the laser off entirely. If you have fat fingers like we do, just use a bullet to get to that recessed switch. That method looks mucho more macho anyway.

Closing arguments

One of the most interesting findings about the LG-417 laser grips is the relatively minor impact of practical grip circumference. This sounds dirty already, but we’re going to plow ahead and hope for the best… The grip itself technically covers 3 of the 4 sides of the Glock grip, but the only finger that is fully impacted is the road rage (middle) one. For us, the ring and pinkie fingers did not come in contact with the laser grip on either the front or left side of the Glock frame – they naturally positioned just beneath. So, while the laser grips appear to add noticeable width, in actuality, only the right side impacts shooting hold.

One more thing. Just hypothetically speaking, if we had forgotten to renew our concealed carry license, and had to re-take the entire state mandated training class, we might have done that while testing the Crimson Trace Lasergrips. And while shooting the living crap (hypothetically speaking) out of the center of the huge target during the qualification stage (it is only 3-5 yards after all) the state certified instructor expert might have smugly inquired “Well hot shot what are you going to do if those laser sights don’t work?” Again, hypothetically speaking, we might have answered, somewhat sarcastically, “well that’s what the TruGlo TFO sights are for numbnuts.” Hypothetically speaking of course.

We like it. Especially because the old shooting fart thinks we don’t know what we’re talking about.

Check out other My Gun Culture product reviews here!

Filed Under: Optics and Sights, Reviews Tagged With: crimson trace, Lasergrips, optics, reviews, Self-Defense

Will Hornady Critical Defense Ammo Expand in Rocks?

February 13, 2012 By Tom 1 Comment

We’ve had great success getting Hornady’s Critical Defense ammo to expand after passing through all sorts of crazy things – plastic, old garage rags, honey bears, Wal-Mart house brand grape jelly, spam, flour, e-mail, leather boots, canned vegetables, and more. So we figured it’s time for the ultimate test.

Rocks.

Rocks are hard and as we figure, tough on ammo. And you need to know if your ammo is going to perform should you ever encounter an evil d00d wearing a protective vest made of rocks.

When it came time to head to the range, we found actual rocks to be a bit problematic as they are big and heavy and somewhat uneven. And you know how scientific we are are about these things. We need repeatable uniformity. Sounds sophisticated doesn’t it? Repeatable uniformity.

So we elected to use some stone floor tile that we had laying around in the garage. Because it offers repeatable uniformity. And because it doesn’t seem to match any of the floor in our house. Apparently we stole it from the neighbors while they were distracted by the True-Green lawn guy.

As we’ve already discussed, rocks are hard. So we went full octane – .357 Sig and .40 S&W. Out of a Glock 32 and Beretta PX4 Storm respectively.

We used our standard high tech methodology:

Take random stuff to the range
Bring lots of Hornady Critical Defense ammo
Place cameras out there
Get strange looks from people at the range
Shoot through said random stuff
Catch the bullet in our special wet pack blend (soggy newspaper and cardboard)
Dig out the bullets

Surprisingly, both the .357 Magnum and .40 S&W Critical Defense loads expanded properly after passing through, well, rock more or less.

What’s the point you may ask?

The point is… Now you know not to put stone floor tile in your ballistic vest. It won’t help you.

Filed Under: Ammunition, Reviews, Will It Expand Tagged With: ammo, ammo reviews, ammunition, Critical Defense, Hollow Point, hornady, will it expand

Hornady Critical Defense Ammo: These Boots Were Made for Shootin’

February 8, 2012 By Tom 4 Comments

This week’s episode of ‘Will It Expand’ undresses the heaviest of outerwear – leather. As we had no interest in perforating our nice leather coat, we elected to use an even tougher leather barrier – an old pair of Justin Boots.

So – stick with us here – the idea is to shoot hollow point ammunition through not one, or three, but two layers of very heavy leather and into our sophisticated special blend of ballistic testing material called wetpack which consists mostly of thoroughly soggy newspapers. Will traditional hollow point ammo expand? Will Hornady Critical Defense expand? Every time? Will we ever be able to wear these boots again? Is ammo-induced ventilation covered under warranty?

First up: Hornady Critical Defense .38 Special +P 110 grain

We shot the boot with a couple rounds of Critical Defense and a couple rounds of Cor-Bon .38 Special +P 110 grain JHP and Speer Gold Dots. We’ve found the Cor-Bon load to be excellent with sporadic observations of jacket / core separation. Gold Dots don’t separate due to their bonded construction and have an excellent record of expanding in reasonable material. Both the Cor-Bon and Gold Dot loads failed to expand properly after passing through two thick layers of foot-conditioned leather. The projectiles showed early indications of expansion but by no means blossomed to anywhere near their full potential. Kind of like Lindsay Lohan. Both Critical Defense rounds expanded, although one was far more photogenic than its sibling.

Next up: Hornady Critical Defense 9mm 115 grain

Increased velocity helped all the 9mm contestants. The combination of a hotter and heavier load and a longer barreled pistol (Beretta 92FS) made a noticeable difference. We happened to have a box of Federal Premium 9mm Luger +P+ 124 grain Hydra-Shok on hand. These are marked ‘Law Enforcement Use Only’ but we figured this was important enough work to bend the rules a bit. Let’s keep that just between us, OK?

Anyway, everybody expanded AND was photogenic. Conclusions? Beats us, but it sure was fun.

And last but not least: Hornady Critical Defense .40 S&W 165 grain

This last test makes us wonder why we bother carrying anything but a .40 caliber. Lined up next to the .38 Specials and 9mm rounds, these all looked mighty impressive. Especially since all the tested rounds expanded perfectly.

We used three. The Critical Defense .40 S&W 165 grain, a DoubleTap Ammunition .40 S&W 165 grain Gold Dot, and a Winchester .40 S&W 165 grain T Series.

All performed as intended and seemed completely unaffected by conditioned and highly-polished boot leather.

What’s next? Let us know and we’ll shoot it.

Filed Under: Ammunition, Reviews, Will It Expand Tagged With: ammunition, Critical Defense, Hollow Points, hornady, reviews, Self-Defense, will it expand

The stars aligned, it was a slow day on cable and there was not another Presidential Debate scheduled for 18 more minutes. In short, we were bored and … [Read More...]