One of the more interesting defensive rounds for the .380ACP is made by Underwood and is loaded with a machined solid copper projectile made by Lehigh. It weighs 90 grains and has an advertised velocity of 1100 FPS. Of course, YMMV. The flutes in the projectile are made to cause a level of hydrostatic shock much in excess of the .355” diameter of the projectile. It is barrier blind and does not need to expand to be effective. I load these rounds in my Colt Mustang Pocketlite, my Ruger LCR .38 SPL, and my 1911 Commander .45ACP which are my carry guns depending on my “wardrobe”. They’re expensive rounds but how much are YOU worth?
Interesting is a good word. In the various ‘tube videos on LeHigh, much is made of neat effects that happen to gel.
It’s definitely, if not ‘barrier blind,’ barrier agnostic since it’s not made to expand.
Whether it “does not need to expand to be effective” depends on whether you think the gel correlates at all to stopping a living target.
Personally I’m going with “no” as nothing short of rifle velocities causes permanent cavitation in my reading, and there isn’t a body of self-defense use to suggest otherwise. Trying to measure it by FBI spec gets a big fail as most tests I’ve seen radically overpenetrate, and there’s zero expansion (by its own design, but there it is).
That’s just an opinion of “no” but ... with no duty shops running to embrace it, I’ll stick with a known quantity. I’ll let the FBI or a large PD decide it’s a magic bullet first, not YouTubers.
(Also, there are these monthly sales on HST in boxes of 50 in the duty calibers, so actually testing the carry ammo is feasible ... and here I’m off topic. As I wrote in Part I, choosing 9/40/45 etc. means nearly all the self-defense ammo will be effective; just avoid the wierd super-light or fragmenting stuff. That’s why I’m not doing this study on those calibers; not worth the effort.)