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Originally posted by fredj338:

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Originally posted by SubSolar:

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Originally posted by fredj338:

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Originally posted by scobun:
Just out of curiosity, why would some of you recommend the Gold Dot over the Ranger 230gr? I'm debating between buying a half case of one of the two loads.

Thanks.

There is no reason to choose one over the other. Anyone that tells you there is a huge diff. just doesn't get it. Buy 50rds of each, shoo tthem in your pistol & go w/ the most accurate & always, most reliable. In fact, you could throw in HST, Rem.GS, even Hornady XTP, they will all do the job if you can. Anything else is just BS.

http://le.atk.com/pdf/LosAngelesWBW.pdf
Seems like a big difference to me.

WHERE?
Really, there is not enough diff. to justify one over the other. You are talking 10ths of an inch in many cases. THe human body is not calibrated bal.gel. It really doesn't matter that much & if you think one bullet over another is going to save your bacon, I only hope you can shoot well enough to take advantage of the bullets/ammo used.

Let's do a little math here. We'll convert to millimeters to make things simpler. The Federal HST expanded to 1.19" or 30.226 mm. The Winchester SXT expanded to 0.781" or 19.3874 mm. If we use pi*r^2 to get the surface area of the hole we come up with HST = 717.55 mm and SXT = 295.21 mm. In other words, the HST surface area is over twice as large! If you think that's insignificant, that's fine, but I'll take the extra wound volume and chance of knicking something vital like a spinal cord or heart any day. By the way, this isn't just one biased test, in many many tests by members in other forums, HST's and Ranger T's expand to over an inch while all the rest get to about 0.7" to 0.8".

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Let's do a little math here. We'll convert to millimeters to make things simpler. The Federal HST expanded to 1.19" or 30.226 mm. The Winchester SXT expanded to 0.781" or 19.3874 mm. If we use pi*r^2 to get the surface area of the hole we come up with HST = 717.55 mm and SXT = 295.21 mm. In other words, the HST surface area is over twice as large!

This is exactly right. When you're dealing with the actual hole sizes, small increases really add up.

Out of curiosity has anyone seen results on the HST using the IWBA four layer denim standard?

stickman and all,

I wouldn't worry about which bullet weight is better. Today's hollow points are no longer dependent on velocity to expand. We are in the age of "designer" bullets and the ammo companies seem to have broken the code needed to design good bullets.
The 185 gr loads will recoil a bit less, but not enough to make a difference. If you're that recoil sensitive I'd look at another caliber that recoils less.
All of the knowledgable LE trainers and others are specifying a 230 grain bullet.
You can't go wrong with that bullet weight and Gold Dot, Hydra-shock, or Winchester SXT LE loads.
You didn't specify barrel length so I'm assuming a 4 1/4 to 5 inch barrel. Shorter barrels may see some performance advantage from the 185 grain bullets higher velocity and lessened recoil.
All this assumes that we hit what we are aiming at...

Wes