kw5kw wrote:AV8R wrote:<snip>
The key, as everyone has said, is to find a reliable feeder for your pistol. If it is reliable with practice ammo, like Winchester 230-grain round-nose, move to some 230 grain hollowpoints, try them, and go from there. Make changes based on bullet lengths and shapes if you have to, until you get reliability. That said, I carry 185, 200, and 230 grain Speer loads, and they all work fine in my .45s. If you have a compact pistol, use a "short-barrel load", or a lighter bulet weight, if you can, to help compensate for the velocity loss that happens with a short barrel.
hmmm....
makes me think, and ask....
With what you just wrote that I highlighted in Bold, a 5" barrel might shoot a 230 grain better than a 4" barrel and the same... a 4" barrel would shoot a 230 grain better than 3" barrel. Interesting as I hadn't thought of that before; is that what you're stating?
So my 4" might be happier with a 180-200 grain and a 3" might be happier with a 150-180 grain.
That's a possibility, but one cannot assume that there is a linear relationship between bullet weight and barrel length for correct feeding and functioning. It's an individual thing. It all depends on magazine, breech-face angle, ramp, chamber, springs, slide weight, etc. For a variety of reasons, smaller guns cannot be made as reliable (or stated another way, cannot be designed with the latitude to accomodate as wide a range of round designs) as full-length guns. The key is to select ammo for a particular gun based on round length, ogive curvature, and mass. One combination (or range) of the above will usually feed and cycle better than the others. Brand names and FBI tests are the last things to consider.
Remember, it takes a certain threshold velocity for hollowpoints to expand. With very short barrels, lighter bullets may be necessary to get enough velocity for reliable expansion. So you have, in effect, a smaller gun, both in size and energetics. In physics, you always have to rob Peter to pay Paul somewhere.