Hornady's Critical Duty meets the needs of those who demand superior barrier penetration and who prefer a full-size handgun for their personal protection.
August 07, 2018
By Jake Edmondson
Everyone reading this website knows that for personal-defense or home-defense, proper ammunition can mean the difference between life and death. Many factors must be weighed when choosing one's self-defense ammo, but you may want to consider that Hornady 's Critical Duty .40 S&W 175-grain loading was recently awarded a "Fixed Price Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity" agreement by the FBI. I say if it's good enough for the FBI, it's good enough for me.
The fundamental purpose of a personal-defense handgun cartridge is to incapacitate a violent attacker as quickly as possible. The bullet must be able to penetrate deeply while opening as large a wound channel as possible. For this reason, expanding hollowpoint bullets have been preferred.
The drawback to expanding hollowpoint bullets is they are more fragile than solid bullets. They are also subject to interference or damage from impact with clothing or bone. It can prevent them from expanding or cause them to expand prematurely and prevent sufficient penetration. Even the best of today's hollowpoint designs are subject to cavity plugging from fabrics and to nose collapse from oblique impact with bone and other barrier material.
Hornady's Critical Duty solves these problems. Designed to meet the needs of those who demand superior barrier penetration and who prefer a full-size handgun for their personal protection, Critical Duty is loaded with Hornady's tough FlexLock bullet that delivers "barrier blind" performance when shot through common urban barriers.
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The bullet's patented Flex Tip eliminates clogging and aids bullet expansion. Also, a large mechanical jacket-to-core InterLock band keeps the bullet and core from separating, which allows maximum weight retention, excellent expansion, and consistent penetration and terminal performance through all FBI test barriers.
Another feature of Critical Duty ammunition that makes it desirable is its nickel-plated cases, which simplify chamber checks in reduced light. They also feed and extract more reliably because nickel plating doesn't acquire the patina that can cause drag and failure to feed or extract reliably like traditional brass cases. And Critical Duty is powered by low-flash, clean-burning propellants that help preserve night vision in low-light firing.
MSRP: $22.49 (20-round box)
hornady.com
