Hornady Critical Duty Ammo

[WeAreLVRR]

Well, I bought a few boxes of the Critical Duty in .40. Never again! First, I needed to wipe each cartridge off before loading mags because it was just plain dirty out of the box. Second, the polymer tip gives my XDm shit fits for feeding the cartridge, rapid fire was fine but, slow fire would cause the cartridge to either not go into battery or, failure to feed. Trust me, it is not a mag issue. I will say however, that it is an accurate round. YMMV..

[throttle]

I bought one box for the 9 and decided to fire it through the XD and the S&W, both had issues with them. Plus it wasn't consistant in terms of how hot each round was. Some felt much hotter leaving then others.
Mine were dirty like ours, but the rounds that didn't fire "hot" seems to spit a lot of powder.

I had a few feed issues with both guns and packed it away. Lucky for me there was another guy that wanted to try them in his glock (didn't ask model) but he had a single feed issue and then smoke stacked one. I tore both guns down and they were DIRTY.

Won't buy that stuff again.

[WeAreLVRR]

Yeah, you pretty much nailed it Throttle! I wanted to like the Critical Duty but, this is shit ammo IMHO. I would not recommend that anybody trust their life or their families lives on this stuff unless they thoroughly test it in their carry piece. I guess it's back to Gold Dot's and Federal HST for the XDm. BTW, both of those are no bullshit rounds, top notch ammo there.

Wait! Did you actually type that you saw a Glock have a malfunction? Nah, you couldn't have seen that because guys in trench coats and black SUV's would have erased your memory by now! Glock's don't malfunction..

[jonnyseeandoh]

I am reading these and my jaw is agape really...Hornady of all people. Well, glad I didn't buy a box of this stuff!

[jonnyseeandoh]

The difference between Critical DUTYŽ & Critical DEFENSEŽ - Hornady Manufacturing, Inc

Reading this I see that Critical Duty is not optimized for short barrel concealed carry guns, and Critical Defense is so optimized. Has anyone done an A&B comparison? Given the present evidence I am not putting any CD in my XD, no sir!

[WeAreLVRR]

The difference between Critical DUTYŽ & Critical DEFENSEŽ - Hornady Manufacturing, Inc

Reading this I see that Critical Duty is not optimized for short barrel concealed carry guns, and Critical Defense is so optimized. Has anyone done an A&B comparison? Given the present evidence I am not putting any CD in my XD, no sir!

As far as I know, optimized only deals with expansion upon impact. The whole moral here is the fact that this ammo is horseshit, plain and simple. My XDm has a 3.8 in. barrel on it. In fact, heavy rounds are best for shorter barrels since by default they SHOULD expand at a lower velocity. The Critical Duty round for .40S&W is 175 Gr. That is plenty bullet weight to expand from a 3.8 in. barrel. You cannot ignore the fact that the ammo is dirty (gunk and metal chunks stuck on the cartridges) in the packaging that it comes in from the factory, you cannot ignore the fact that it will not feed properly into very reliable platforms. I will stop here because I will never recommend this round to anyone looking for reliability in a self defense pistol cartridge. Regardless of "optimization", the feed ramp is all the same between an XD Subcompact and an XD Tactical 5 in. barrel pistol, likewise the XDm line, it simply does not feed correctly in this platform.

Now to Critical Defense. I think that is a worse idea since they state that it is a low penetration round! I don't know about you guys but, I want penetration and expansion in my ammo. If it won't pass the FBI Protocol, I don't want it. However, I tried Critical Duty because they claim that it will pass the FBI Protocol. If it feeds that is..

[jonnyseeandoh]

Hmmm.....they sure did bother to make the rounds in the pictures nice and shiney. I reckon a dirty one won't feed in any gun that isn't worn to plain sloppiness. I am still befuddled how Hornady could let this sort of thing into the market....don't they sample their work for goodness sake? Well, I certainly have plenty reason to keep using what I got.....it works.

[jetboater]

I keep the CCI 200 gr GDHP +P in my KImber, works every time.

[Black Rifle]

did anyone email hornady about the condition their ammo was in upon box opening? Hornady is a top level outfit, they may even send you postage to send it in to them for inspection

[WeAreLVRR]

Mr. Rifle, I will look into that option. I was pretty pissed about the QC issues that I found with them.