When it comes to the gun that you carry to save your life, you want perfect reliability. While nothing’s perfect, we work hard to minimize potential points of failure. With that in mind, we use newer magazines and keep our guns relatively clean and lubricated before carrying them out into the wild on a daily basis. We train and practice with our defensive guns to ensure they run reliably, even in less-than-optimal environments and conditions.
Some folks want greater controllability of their defensive sidearm for a host of reasons. Instead of learning better fundamentals of grip and stance, they opt for trying to buy skillsets in a box instead of learning them. They see boxes of ammo branded “Low Recoil” and their eyes light up. They crack a smile and think, “That’s the ticket!” They buy some of that, stuff it into their magazines and go on about their lives thinking they’re helping themselves by ma=king their gun more controllable. In reality, it’s quite possible they did nothing of the sort.
The folks at Ammunition to Go sent me a whole passel of ammo a while back to do some testing. For the record, the speed and efficiency in fulfilling the order from the company rivaled Amazon Prime which I consider the closest thing to the gold standard today. In fact, I was so impressed with them, I placed follow-up personal orders on my own. A couple of times I ordered from Ammunition to Go and Amazon within minutes of one another just as a bonus test. Ammo to Go beat Amazon Prime by a day. Both times. Even with the extra hoops Illinois residents have to endure to have freedom pills delivered to our doorsteps.
One of a few areas I wanted to explore was whether reduced recoil loads impact the reliability of defensive pistols. With that in mind, I selected some of Federal’s “Light Recoil” .45ACP 165gr. JHP defensive loads. Why .45? Because I was packing a 1911 at the time. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not nearly as fluent in .45 compared to my beloved 9mm.
All in all, I fired a total of about 90 of these low recoil Federal rounds on the test day. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly an exhaustive test. Especially as I fired them through three guns – mostly through a Colt Government Model .45 that I’d been carrying around for a couple of months. Mr. Colt had been slicked up by a very competent gunsmith who then did very well actually competing with it. Also in the bag on that day: a Kimber carry size .45 and a Rock Island Arms full-size 1911.
All three guns had digested ball ammo with delight and without complaint or malfunctions of any sort over hundreds of rounds. Each had also flawlessly run through about 100 hollow-points (Winchester Ranger T-Series 230gr JHP, Federal HST 230gr. JHP, and my now-favorite Speer Gold Dot G2).
I share this as a baseline of normalcy before I share results the from shooting the Federal Premium Low Recoil rounds.
Once I began with the Federal Low Recoil, the first few rounds ran great in the Colt. The lack of single-hole groupings at seven yards (below) lay at the feet of yours truly, not the gun.
Then, however, things started going south, still on the very first magazine.
Ruh roh, Shaggy.
A couple of rounds later we had another failure to go into battery.
Oh, look. In the second magazine we got a double-feed trainwreck. And then a couple of magazine later, I got this . . .
I had the ammo I’d gotten from Ammunition to Go, and I had some of the same stuff I’d inherited from someone else. After seeing the failures in the first two or three boxes (of 20), I ran through the older stuff I’d had sitting on my shelf to see if it was just a fluke. All told I had at least five malfunctions over less about seventy-some rounds fired from the Colt. Folks, a 6.6+% failure rate ranks as unacceptable for defensive applications.
The good news was that I had no malfunctions firing a single magazine of Low Recoil rounds through the Kimber or the Rock Island Armory guns.
Now, this should not serve as an indictment of every low recoil self-defense offering for semi-auto pistols from reputable ammunition companies. This is definitely one of those “your mileage may vary” type things.
At the same time, it seems reasonable and logical that if you’re going to select ammunition for defensive use, you want rounds that work as flawlessly as possible, not ammunition that introduces potential failures into your loadout.
My advice: When loading your defensive-use magazines, think long and hard before you introduce low recoil rounds into your system. And if you do decide you would like to dip your toe into the low recoil waters, spend the coin to fire a good 100 to 200 of those rounds in your carry gun to ensure they run flawlessly.
Frankly, you should always test your gun extensively with whatever personal defense ammunition you intend to carry to make sure they’re compatible. It’s always been the case that some gun/ammo combinations just don’t work reliably for whatever reason, while similar loads from other makers will run just fine.
The maximum effective range of excuses is zero meters. And in defensive applications, making excuses for poorly-functioning gun food could cost you your life.
There’s a reason the slide of a 1911 in 10mm is, all else equal, harder to rack than a slide of a 1911 in 9mm.
In most semiauto pistols, the recoil drives the action. So if you reduce the recoil, there’s a good chance the springs will need to be replaced appropriately to keep things working right. And if the gun is over sprung for the load but just able to run when clean, it’ll take only a little fouling for malfunctions to start cropping up.
To me, it sounds like that’s what’s happening here, at least in part.
Having earned an injured shooting hand thanks to my knuckles imprinting themselves into the hood of a car that hit me, I can fully emphasize with the desire for low-recoil ammunition. Folks with painful arthritis in their aging hands may feel the same way.
It seems to me there may be an answer to unreliably-cycling low-recoil ammunition, an aftermarket company could produce a low-recoil specific slide spring.
Is there any reason why that wouldn’t work?
This sucks nearly as bad as ttag. My comment vanished without any reason. I’ve quit ttag after more than 10 years. I will do the same here if it doesn’t improve.
They already do. Wolff springs already makes, for instance, a wide range of recoil spring weights for an extensive lost of handguns. In fact they offer “tuning kits” with a range of spring rates so you can get it done in a single range trip.
Problem is … From a practical standpoint of marketing a spring specifically for “low recoil” loads, what’s “low” mean? The gun is – unless you are getting it custom built – going to come with a spring set (not just the recoil spring, it all has to work together) intended to work reliably with the most common loads. Move away from those loads and you will need to experiment. Or pay a good gunsmith to figure it out for you and respring accordingly.
Having done so, you will find that going back to regular loads is less than fun, will tend to beat up the gun faster, and can also lead to malfunctions because the slide’s moving too fast for the next round to be properly presented. So I can imagine the complaints a company marketing a spring specifically for “low recoil” would wind up dealing with.
Wolff, thanks!
As to the valid issues you list, I suppose Wolff could work in concert with makers like Glock and Colt or Smith or even CZ to develop combos that work with loads like HST Low Recoil…
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“ The maximum effective range of excuses is zero meters.”
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Yeah, no thanks. Full power for anything that depends on mechanical recoil to function. Switch to a revolver if you want something you can downshift.
“Switch to a revolver if you want something you can downshift.”
I think you’re missing the POINT, Dad.
Folks choose low recoil because full-house loads fvcking HURT to shoot.
How about being a bit more considerate towards those of us who are old (Arthritis) and-or damaged bodies (my crushed hand) don’t work quite as well as yours?
Geoff,
Not sure if you’re still following the thread, but I partially agree.
There is a broad continuum of requirements, and a broad continuum of cartridges just like there’s a broad continuum of transportation needs and cars.
If you need a more powerful or more economic car, you don’t (unless you’re an expert customizer who can make all the necessary adjustments yourself) drop an F350 engine in your Civic, or a Geo Metro engine in the F350, and then fiddlefuk each part until it stops breaking down. You buy the class of car where every part is designed from the beginning to work together to serve your needs.
Same here: if 9×19 recoil is excessive (a perfectly logical observation / need in your circumstances), get a good locked-breech .380 (not a blowback .380, which will kick worse than the 9). Security .380, Bodyguard 2.0, Shield EZ, 1911-.380, etc.