We are primarily known for our rifle bullets, but did you know we also have a line of personal home defense handgun ammunition?
When it comes to choosing home defense ammunition, the idea is to have something that will stop the threat as soon as possible.
The last thing you want to second guess is your ammunition when a threat needs to be stopped. This is why we created our PD™ handgun Solids and PHD™ Handgun Hollow Points.
This is why we designed our PD & PHD (Personal Home Defense) ammunition to do just that; stop a threat before it escalates into a lethal situation.
PHD™ Personal Home Defense Hollow Points
The bullets loaded into our PHD™ ammunition are our HG Raptor handgun hollow point bullets. They are solid copper, lathe turned, monolithic expanding projectiles.
You can generally categorize the way defense ammunition is designed to function in two categories: mushrooming or fragmenting. But we don’t put our ammunition in either of these categories. We like to describe the way our bullets function as “fracturing”. It is vastly different from both categories.
Most would look at one of our gel block photos and say it is fragmenting, but there are some key differences. Fragmenting bullets are designed so that once contact is made with something the entire bullet blows apart in many small pieces. Ours, instead, are designed to shed 4 “blades” after 1-2” of penetration that radiate outward in a star pattern while the remaining base continues on for deep penetration.
Because they are machined precisely in a certain way, they will function this way every single time they are fired. They will not fragment into an unknown or unpredictable amount of pieces. Shedding four large blades means that these blades are much larger than fragmented pieces, therefore, they carry more energy and travel further. The base that stays in tact varies in penetration depth depending on caliber:
357 Mag +12"
.380ACP + 13”
9mm + 15”
40S&W + 18”
45ACP + 18”
To see them in action, watch a video our high speed ballistics gel test HERE.
PD™ Personal Home Defense Solids
Our PD Personal Defense Solids are designed for maximum, deep, straight line
penetration. This ammunition is perfect for your side arm when in the woods. Our #1 selling caliber is the PD 10mm 190gr as this is a very popular caliber for bear protection.
You will see that our ammunition is light for caliber in comparison to some other defense ammunition. This is due to the fact that they are all solid copper, and they have an incredibly large hollow point. The benefit of this is much less recoil, meaning even the 45ACP is significantly different to shoot. Lower recoil can be great for beginning shooters or women with smaller frames. It is also made light to control the depth of penetration.
Our ammunition is loaded to SAMMI spec, but is not loaded to +P pressures. We decided against +P pressures because we do not need the extra velocity in order for our bullets to function. They will function all the way down to 750-800fps (depending on caliber) with more than required penetration to stop a threat. Standard pressures also contribute to a significantly reduced recoil as well.
This post is meant to be an informative piece to demonstrate what makes our defense ammunition different than anything else on the market. We hope it helps you to make an educated decision on the right ammunition for you.
To shop our PHD and PD ammo, click HERE.
Over the years, there have been a variety of different tests done with our PHD ammo to confirm accuracy, as well as terminal performance. We are putting a few of our favorites from us and others below for easy access.
High speed ballistics gel video of PHD ammo in 380ACP, 9mm, 40S&W, and 45ACP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk6HVnUJCaI&t=13s
Velocity and ballistics gel test for the 9mm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0lnnHFNnSo
PHD 380 ACP ballistics gel test through 4 layers of denim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsO7es9MVnE
PHD 40S&W ballistics gel test through 4 layers of demim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jbqS9L7lsc
PHD 380 ACP ballistics gel test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSJbLSwE0n8&t=187s
Accuracy test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=847n64iLtR4
PHD 45ACP through winter coat and ballistics gel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6gWTxrAaKo&feature=youtu.be
