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Yesterday I was speaking to one of our local PD officers and he stated that he mixes Ranger bonded 180gr.with Federal HST bonded 180 in his Glock 22 mags for duty and off, does anyone else here do that ???

I was wondering does it give you advanage in a gun fight??

Interesting. Did this officer happen to mention why he does that?

He stated that it was something he read while ina Training class at Frontsight last year.

I can see no practical reason to mix ammo in a magazine. By mixing brands of ammo you may be setting yourself up for a malfunction. Both brands of ammo the officer has mixed in his magazine are highly reliable and offer similar performance I'm baffled.

I can see no reason to mix ammo in the same mag for any firearm that I carry. Consistency and reliability are too important to compromise.

My training magazines, on the other hand, usually have a variety of ammo in them. Since the specifications are different for each brand/type, you can get noticeable differences in recoil, point of impact, flash, etc... I have never experienced a malfunction, but have been suprised when one round creates no flash and the next one is very bright. It's not a distraction I'd want in a real confrontation.

This topic comes up pretty often, but it usually involves alternating hollowpoints with ball ammo. For reasons already stated, it's generally considered to be a bad idea, with the additional issue that a grasping prosecutor would certainly try to use it as sensationalist evidence against you.

I have never understood how mixing two reliable types of ammo would result in failures. I have shot mixed ammo for practice many times and never experienced a failure when using ammo that had previously proven reliable. So I really don't understand the argument that reliable + reliable = unreliable.

Having said that, why would you mix two kinds of hollowpoints? That makes no sense. Usually the argument for mixing is to increase the penetration of later rounds. Therefore some mix frangibles with hollowpoints or hollowpoints with hardball. Personally, I carry an RBCD in the pipe with another RBCD as the first round and Corbon DPX for all the other rounds in my magazine. I have shot this load in practice and have had no failures so I feel comfortable that it will work.

I use this mix because I like the big, shallow holes ( 4-6 inches deep with additional penetration by some fragments and 3-7 inches in diameter) that RBCD would produce for the first two shots. Those big holes should stop most attackers.(From reports of incidents I have read in various places with various levels of credibility, RBCD, Magsafe, and Glaser all seem to do pretty well in actually stopping attackers although no better than good hollowpoints.) More importantly RBCD is not going to overpenetrate, will splatter if it hits anything hard with a miss and given the light weight of the bullet will lose a lot of energy if I miss and it goes through any walls. Also because of the relatively shallow penetration, It seems like it should be less deadly if, God forbid, I miss and hit a bystander.

However if faced with someone on drugs, adrenaline or just plain mean who will not stop when hit, I want something that will penetrate deeper to critical organs and perhaps to the spine. DPX fills that need for me.

I may be all wet on my theories, but those are my thoughts. In the end, there is no golden bullet.

stroo wrote:I may be all wet on my theories, but those are my thoughts. In the end, there is no golden bullet.

I think that I understand your reasoning behind your choices of ammunition. However, I can not think of the scenarios that would support your theory. I do agree with your last statement. Or should that be "silver bullet"?

Should be "silver bullet"

I only do it because I only currently have 7 rounds of JHP, so I put those in and then fill in the bottom with FMJ, (though right now I'm actually fully loaded up with FMJ range ammo)

I do need to buy some JHP though for defense ammo.

Texasdoc wrote:Yesterday I was speaking to one of our local PD officers and he stated that he mixes Ranger bonded 180gr.with Federal HST bonded 180 in his Glock 22 mags for duty and off, does anyone else here do that ???

I was wondering does it give you advanage in a gun fight??

Maybe he doesn't own enough of either brand to fill up his mags

I do not see any advantage to it, but would love to learn from someone that does.

Jason

I would imagine that each brand has its own unique ballistics. Given this fact, each of the two he is using will perform in slightly different manner from the other. One could potentially work better than the other in a specific scenario. Certain clothing can actually prevent some penetration or expansion. He's essentially doubling his chances on getting the most ideal round for a scenario.

I personally feel that this is really counter-productive. If you can get proper shot placement, I don't feel you will have much to worry about. Also, the variance (while somewhat valid) is not enough of a reason to carry two ammo types in a magazine.

Just my thoughts on it.

It makes no sense to me to mix to different hollow-point bullets in the same magazine. May be, just may be, I'd alternate ball with hollow-point ammo to alternate between maximum penetration and maximum terminal performance in tissue. This is similar to alternating slugs with buckshot in a shotgun. I think that's a goofy theory but I know folks who do it. IMHO, the method gives you a 50/50 chance of using the "wrong" bullet.

I tend to carry the same ammunition in any given magazine. If I really believed I needed the extra penetration that MIGHT be afforded through the use of "ball" ammo, I'd simply carry a spare magazine with all ball ammunition in it for an emergency swap. When I carry a shotgun, I carry slugs seperate from the rest of my spare ammo for the same reason. I might just find I really need a slug so I'm setup to swap that type of ammunition in as needed. Otherwise, it's 00-Buck all the time.

Having said all this I want to point out one small problem with the theory of swapping ammunition in handguns. In general, most ball ammo is not loaded to the same velocities as ammunition intended for self-defense or duty use for law enforcement. Proof of this is written on nearly every box of ammo and can be verified with a chronograph. The difference in muzzle velocity for any given bullet weight can be as little as 50ft/sec or as much as 150ft/sec. There are some manufactures that do load ball to the same velocities as duty ammo of the same bullet weight but, you'll have to verify this with each manufacturer.

Lodge2004 wrote:I can see no reason to mix ammo in the same mag for any firearm that I carry. Consistency and reliability are too important to compromise.

My training magazines, on the other hand, usually have a variety of ammo in them. Since the specifications are different for each brand/type, you can get noticeable differences in recoil, point of impact, flash, etc... I have never experienced a malfunction, but have been suprised when one round creates no flash and the next one is very bright. It's not a distraction I'd want in a real confrontation.

I often mix ammo of similar ballistics in my training mags, and since my training mags are generally my carry mags, they wind up mixed too. In thousands of rounds downrange in IDPA matches I have never experienced a malfunction or any other problem to could be traced to such a mix, nor have I had any problems with differences in flash, recoil, or anything else.

That said I would hesitate to mix 230 hardball with 180 HP and such things, because I would expect significant difference there and that could be distracting.

My home defense shotgun is another matter, these days it has one 00 buck in the pipe, four more in the mag, followed by four rounds of Brenneke slugs.

G.C.Montgomery wrote:When I carry a shotgun, I carry slugs seperate from the rest of my spare ammo for the same reason. I might just find I really need a slug so I'm setup to swap that type of ammunition in as needed. Otherwise, it's 00-Buck all the time.

And the good thing with shotguns is you can slip in slugs without unloading the buck shot already in the tube. That's a pretty good idea. Have a side saddle with slugs in it for when it's needed.