Pow'R Ball Ammunition

[D.O.B.A]

Any thoughts on the Pow'R Ball Ammunition by Glaser? It is the Polymer-ball capped Hollowpoint ammunition, that according to the box will not get plugged up by heavy clothing, and can easily penetrate windshield glass or light sheet metal. I have run a few boxes of the 45 Auto+P 165gr through my Sig 220. It fed well and was very accurate, I just want to know if it is a good enough round for concealed carry?

[DocGKR]

9 mm Corbon 100 gr +P PowerBall 1555 f/s from G17
BG: pen=10.9”, RD=0.60”, RW=93.9gr
4LD: pen=11.4”, RD=0.58”, RW=97.5gr
The mighty 4.7” of pen after the auto windshield was not comforting…

.40 S&W Corbon 135 gr Powerball from S&W 4006
BG: vel=1362 f/s, pen=11.6”, RD=0.65”, RW=131.4gr
4LD: vel=1359 f/s, pen=12.1”, RD=0.65”, RW=131.9gr
auto windshield: vel=1365 f/s, pen=7.9”, RD=0.61”, RW=103.6gr

.45 ACP Corbon 165 gr +P Powerball from 1911
BG: vel=1230 f/s, pen=12.1”, RD=0.70”, RW=158.8gr
4LD: vel=1267 f/s, pen=11.8”, RD=0.66”, RW=159.7gr
auto windshield: vel=1251 f/s, pen=5.5”, RD=0.73”, RW=143.5gr

The frequent core-jacket separations and rounded leading edges of the PB
loads are a concern, as is their poor terminal performance after intermediate
barrier penetration. We were frankly unimpressed with these loads. If you
have to use Corbon handgun loads, stick with their DPX loadings of the
superb Barnes XPB all copper bullets.

[mpardun]

My understanding was that PowerBall was always intended for enhanced feeding in problematic weapons that would not feed Hollow Points reliable. I bought a box for a WWII GI spec 1911. While it worked as promised, I didn[t keep the weapon as I did not trust it 100%.

Since Hornady came out with the Critical Defense line this year at SHOT, the messaging for PowerBall on Corbon's www seems to have changed to poition PB directly against them.

My bottom Line: I have no use for PowerBall with a ton of better performing designs, including Corbon DPX mentioned above/Federal HST/Winchester Ranger bonded, etc...stick with Extreme Shock or Glaser Safety if you are looking for fragmenting rounds that feed reliably.

[Matt Edwards]

Of interest ONLY. A good buddy of mine has shot more the one deer with .45 power ball. It seems to work ok for that application. I am 100% tracking that in no way does this privide any real solid and usefull data. I don't remmeber if those particualar deer were driving in a car or not.

[DocGKR]

"...stick with Extreme Shock or Glaser Safety if you are looking for fragmenting rounds that feed reliably."

Uh...I'd say NEVER use Extreme Shock or Glaser Safety unless someone has a bizarre desire to use overly expensive, under performing ammunition for exterminating something like small furry rodents--I'd rather use PowerBall than Extreme Shock or Glaser...

[nsnate02]

I've not seen an independent study, whether professional or box o' truth etc., show Pow-R-ball/Glaser/Extreme Shok work well compared to other modern hollowpoints. In fact most of the new stuff; HST, Ranger-T, etc perform very well in gel and clothing as advertised.
Here's a good comparison of .45 ACP. http://stevespages.com/page8f45acp.html

[mpardun]

Uh...I'd say NEVER use Extreme Shock or Glaser Safety unless someone has a bizarre desire to use overly expensive, under performing ammunition for exterminating something like small furry rodents--I'd rather use PowerBall than Extreme Shock or Glaser...

Perhaps I should have expanded on my comment: When you live in a dense urban area and/or have small kids, I don't mind paying a little more. The point is you want to take a person out, not penetrate through sheet rock/wood walls. If a round were not to hit it's mark under stress, I'd rather not take the chance that my kids in the next room catch a stray (if a little forethought and a couple bucks could have prevented it). While firing directly at a person I have no doubt that a bonded hollow point would provide a better wound potential (esp thru clothes/barriers)...the Glaser is still throwing a 145g projectile at 1350fps/587ftlbs energy - if you hit your mark, that should slow him down long enough to follow up with another 9 rounds on target.

I load the first two rounds of ONLY my nightstand gun with Glaser Blue's, the rest of the rounds are Fed. Bonded HST's.

[Sidewinder6]

Uh...I'd say NEVER use Extreme Shock or Glaser Safety unless someone has a bizarre desire to use overly expensive, under performing ammunition for exterminating something like small furry rodents--I'd rather use PowerBall than Extreme Shock or Glaser...

Correct me if I am wrong in stating this ammo was created to be used in Protective Detail operations when it was preferreble to have ammo that didnt travel from one person to another. I thought that was a feature so to speak.

[Zhukov]

Perhaps I should have expanded on my comment: When you live in a dense urban area and/or have small kids, I don't mind paying a little more. The point is you want to take a person out, not penetrate through sheet rock/wood walls. If a round were not to hit it's mark under stress, I'd rather not take the chance that my kids in the next room catch a stray (if a little forethought and a couple bucks could have prevented it). While firing directly at a person I have no doubt that a bonded hollow point would provide a better wound potential (esp thru clothes/barriers)...the Glaser is still throwing a 145g projectile at 1350fps/587ftlbs energy - if you hit your mark, that should slow him down long enough to follow up with another 9 rounds on target.

I load the first two rounds of ONLY my nightstand gun with Glaser Blue's, the rest of the rounds are Fed. Bonded HST's.

Your understanding FAILS on many levels.

As far as being safe from overpenetration with the Glasers in concerned, you might want to read the following document and rethink that: http://www.brassfetcher.com/Brassfet...afety_Slug.pdf

You are one of many who harbor the attitude that putting in highly frangible ammo would prevent shooting innocent bystanders. As the PDF I liked to will hopefully show - that's not always the case. But the bigger problem is that you would completely rely on your ammunition to:
1) Stop the bad guy, and
2) Not overpenetrate
Such a magical animal doesn't exist. Besides - would you REALLY pull the trigger if your kid's room is in the line of fire? I know I wouldn't.

I'm not even going to touch your point about the remarkable "kinetic energy' that the Glaser possesses. Please do yourself a favor and read DocGKR stickies if you haven't done so already, and look up real-world cases of innocent bystanders getting hit by stray rounds. While the latter is a real concern, I think you'll find that not stopping the bad guy due to inadequate ammunition choice is a much bigger threat.

[ToddG]

The point is you want to take a person out, not penetrate through sheet rock/wood walls.

I'm sorry, which defense-orieted handgun round is it that you believe won't penetrate sheet rock?

if you hit your mark, that should slow him down long enough to follow up with another 9 rounds on target.

I load the first two rounds of ONLY my nightstand gun with Glaser Blue's, the rest of the rounds are Fed. Bonded HST's.

So in your "another 9 rounds" comment, the last eight would be Fed Bonded HSTs which you understand will zip right through most interior building materials. What is your logic in that? Either you think you should have bullets that bounce off of plaster, of you don't. Now all you've done is created a situation in which you have to change tactics depending on which round is in the chamber. (...assuming arguendo that your first two rounds of Glaser are actually wall-safe, which they aren't...)