Plus P loads??

[benny]

I have some 45 auto plus P and 9mm Plus P rounds, can these be shot in any modern semi auto or do you need a gun made to shoot them?

Benny

[westhope]

Check your owner's manual.
Generally, a few are OK. A steady diet of plus P's can cause a problem. +P+ even more so.

[grimbeaver]

What he said. Generally any modern gun can shoot them but the manufacturers say don't make it the steady diet as it's harder on the gun and you'll wear out parts faster. Personally I'll never bother with +P+ loads as that's pushing it a little too much for my comfort.

[OldmanFCSA]

If reloading +P+, be sure to check that brass is not of the "balloon" style as it will not reliably hold pressure.

[UnaStamus]

Most guns nowadays can handle a substantial amount of +P loads, despite what the manufacturer says. Many police agencies use +P loads due to them being more consistent through hard barriers like laminate glass (windshields) and sheet metal (car doors). During testing and training, there is a lot of ammo put through guns and the guns have to perform. Glock, Sig, HK, FN, etc all know that they have to have a pistol that can take a pounding and shoot the hottest duty/defense loads reliably. They may caution against excessive use, but it's likely a CYA on their part that really doesn't mean much. They never define what is the acceptable maximum amount, which I think should be a good sign that they gun is sound for a substantial amount.

9mm and .45 +P loads do wear down parts like recoil springs faster, but those are wear items anyways. My agency uses Federal Tactical Bonded 9mm 135gr +P and .45ACP 230gr +P JHPs for duty loads. The damage they do to the guns is pretty much nothing compared to the damage done to my previous agency's Glock 22 and Glock 23 duty guns by the 180gr .40S&W loads.

[Seismic Sam]

Interesting about the wear on the G22 and G23 duty guns. Could you elaborate on the kind of wear you saw, and whether it was plain 40 S&W ammo or +P or +P+??

[crbutler]

In my experience, which is kind of limited with Glocks, the is rather substantial visible wear with standard .40 ammo after a couple hundred rounds. It really looks ugly after a couple thousand rounds, but per several Glock armorers and Glock itself, it's not an issue of saftey or reliability, just cosmetic.

A Glock 22 was the second pistol I brought, and it still functions fine and reliably after about 10,000 rounds through it, but the frame looks pretty rough. The metal inserts in the frame are obvious now.

The point being, while a pistol can handle a surprising number of +P rounds ( in my equivalency, major power factor 9mm bore loads) and work just fine, there will be rapid frame wear visible (seen on lots of steel competition guns that I have) and you will have to replace parts on a regular basis like recoil springs, and some things will work loose over time, like sights. So regular use of high intensity ammo requires a much greater amount of preventive maintenance and a more knowledgeable user to maintain reliability. A number I would use which is not supported by anything but my experience would be if you shoot more than 100 rounds of +P through a gun, you need to watch it for maintenance issues. If you are a dedicated hobbyist, you can do this yourself just fine, but if you are a CCW person who looks as the gun as a pure tool and want it just to go bang when needed and all the more you do is your usual periodic range reliability checks a couple times a year, and clean it when that happens only, and have no interest in guns and their maintenance, have a gunsmith check it about every 100 rounds of +p or 500 rounds of standard ammo.

[westhope]

Interesting about the wear on the G22 and G23 duty guns. Could you elaborate on the kind of wear you saw, and whether it was plain 40 S&W ammo or +P or +P+??

Is there a SAAMI spec for 40 SW +P or +P+ loadings? Pressures on 40 SW are already high.

[Seismic Sam]

The max pressure for the 10mm is 37,500 PSI
The max pressure for the 40 is 35,000 PSI
The max pressure for the 357 Sig is 40,000 PSI

The +P designation MAY have an "official" meaning, or it may not
Check SAAMI standards to see what it is for individual cartridges.

In general, the +P+ designation has NO set meaning, so it's basically advertising that can be used by the manufacturer however they want. Obviously, caveat emptor....

One thing you can do is check the ammo for a statement on velocity. If there is none, you could be getting anything. 10mm is a particularly glaring example, and while the official Norma 10mm load (the first ammo made a long time ago...) was a smoking hot 200 grain bullet @ 1200 FPS , some of the "cheap" stuff is 1030 FPS w/180 grain bullet. By comparison, the original spec for the 40 Short & Weak is 980 FPS w/180 grain bullet!!

[goosed]

SAAMI may not have a standard for +P or +P+, but all gun must pass the proof cartridge standard(30-40% over max SAAMI pressure). I would be surprised if any +P or +P+ ammo gets anywhere near proof cartridge pressures, but i guess you never know...

Pretty easy to chrono a few rounds to be safe.

[Seismic Sam]

SAAMI may not have a standard for +P or +P+, but all gun must pass the proof cartridge standard(30-40% over max SAAMI pressure). I would be surprised if any +P or +P+ ammo gets anywhere near proof cartridge pressures, but i guess you never know...

Pretty easy to chrono a few rounds to be safe.

VERY good idea!!! (If you have a chrono, of course, but only die-hard reloaders generally do, so that's a bit of a limitation.) If nothing else, if you have a chrono and actually spend GOOD MONEY on ammo (BARF!!! Retch.... Urrrp!!!....) it would probably be good to post the data HERE rather than in reloading. (Mods: please edit this if you want to....)

[shooter115]

My only experience with +P ammo comes from when I first got my .380 LCP. This was during the gunpocelipse of 2012 and the only SD ammo I could find online was some Buffalo Bore +P++ super whammy loads at like $1.50 a round. Holy crap!!! the first time I fired the gun it felt like a stick of dynamite went of in my hand and the pistol jammed. Rinse, repeat, recycle about 4 times and I was done. Since then I've put a couple thousand 95gr ball and 90 gr Hornady XTP rounds through the gun without issue.

If anyone is looking for some .380 mega blaster rounds I have 2 boxes of them minus appx 4 rounds.

[goosed]

VERY good idea!!! (If you have a chrono, of course, but only die-hard reloaders generally do, so that's a bit of a limitation.) If nothing else, if you have a chrono and actually spend GOOD MONEY on ammo (BARF!!! Retch.... Urrrp!!!....) it would probably be good to post the data HERE rather than in reloading. (Mods: please edit this if you want to....)

Good old Sam with another cute attempt at satire...

I fail to see how your post is the least bit helpful to the OP, but as long as you're having fun by all means don't stop on my account

[Seismic Sam]

Well, it ISN'T satire. Shooters want to know how hot factory ammo is, a lot of manufacturers won't divulge that because they are selling lukewarm crap, and the only way we can find out is by chronoing rounds. A minority of us in here have chromos, but we aren't likely to buy factory stuff to begin with. I was suggesting that if we ALL sent crbutler some factory ammo, because he has the new radar chrono to test it with. {THAT'S a joke!}

Or if someone is going shooting some day, they could advertise the fact and somehow get rounds to test, they probably would.

[Ironbear]

FWIW, for revolvers, if you have to "pound" the empties out... you probably should rethink their use in a defensive handgun... Or at all...