by Rich Grassi

Gunsite Instructor Charlie McNeese puts a round of Remington .380 Golden Saber into a gel block using SIG P238. The 9mm Golden Saber went almost 15" into gelatin fired from Ruger LC9. Surefire's steely-eyed Dick Williams carefully fires a .38 +P Golden Saber through the screens of a Shooting Chrony from the S&W M&P340.

During a symposium on compact pistols for defense at Gunsite Academy, we had the opportunity to conduct a ballistics lab. We used ballistic gelatin and a chronograph to give us an idea of the impact of a select line of loads actually fired from the little guns with which we trained. The ballistic gel was 'clothed;' the first with denim from old blue jeans, the second was two layers of cotton from a used concealment vest, and the third was covered with an down-insulated vest. The loads were all Remington. In 9mm, we tried the Golden Saber124 grain +P out of a Ruger LC9. The SIG P238 was fired with Golden Saber 102 grain and the .38 Special +P was fired from the M&P340 in the form of the 125 grain Golden Saber. Maximum depth of penetration was recorded with 9mm at around 15" through denim. The least was with the 102 grain .380, which yielded 9-10 inches. The .38 +P gave about one foot of penetration. The bullets all looked like they were taken for an ad campaign; the classic peeled back expansion. There was evidence of jacket loosening from the cores. These were not law enforcement bonded bullets; those things are necessary only if it's likely you need to breech auto glass to make a hit. Conversely, the slowest load was the .38 out of the 1 7/8" barrel of the M&P340, with the 125 grain +P scoring around 825 FPS. The .380 out of the short SIG P238 was around 860 fps. The 9mm, in the Ruger LCP, went over the Shooting Chrony at 1090 fps. What does this limited testing tell us? Well, for one thing clothing barriers aren't the issue we thought they could be - for the Remington Golden Saber projectiles at least. Comparing the three loads we're seeing similar performance between calibers. The issues more properly combined into this: Which gun is the most shootable? It has to be gunhandling friendly while being reliable.We'll examine characteristics of small guns next time. Table: Comparative caliber performance from small guns

Gun	Caliber	Velocity	Penetration in ballistic gelatin
S&W M&P340	.38 Spl +P	825 fps	12"
Ruger LC9	9mm +P	1,090 fps	14-15"
SIG-Sauer P238	.380 ACP	859 fps	9-10