Consensus on 3" 1911 .45 ACP Ammo

[bigmedicine]

About to take the plunge into the 3" 1911 arena - understand the +/- of the design as compared to the commander and full size guns (aka reliability). Just am ready for the weight savings and smaller footprint for my daily carry piece.

Question: Assuming the ability to reliably handle the ammo (which of course will be verified), I have pretty much boiled it down to two carry rounds - the light/fast choice and then the big/slow choice.

1. Corbon DPX 160 grain "short barell" load. This has a couple of reviews that suggest it may be an ideal round for the 3" barell. It makes sense that some rounds might struggle to expand without a longer barell - that is supposedly what drove the development of this load. I am very familiar with the DPX round as I have lots of experience with it in my muzzleloader (in a word, devastating!).
2. The tried and true 230 grain hollow point, probably the Remington Golden Sabre. Tons of data and general good reviews on the round. Remington site claims it can/does expand reliably at lower speeds. The other nice reality about a 230 grain round is that even if it doesn't expand, you end up with a 230 grain ball round that certainly has history on its side when considering effectiveness.

I know that there are some other choices - the critical defense load from hornady, other fast JHP designs, etc. This is one area where internet searches bring back a ton of hits and opinions are pretty darn wide. Just hoping that some of the people on this board may have spent more time thinking about this for their own situations. Appreciate any thoughts you may have.

 

[one shot]

Personaly I would prefer the heavier round but either choice would probably be effective in the event you are required to use it.

It is un forunate that in Indiana we can not hunt anthing larger than a squirrel with the .45 acp. it would be nice to try our carry rounds in a real life situation and just see if they actually perform as intended. I think if we could do that one might find that a wide meplat flat nose cast bullet is more effective at producing a complete wound channel and thereby debilitating the target as Veral Smith wrote extensively about.

 

[mospeada]

Slow and heavy for me. I don't like the recoil impulse of the light, fast rounds. I carry Speer Gold Dot 230g in my officer's models. As you note, even if expansion doesn't occur, you've got the .45 ball round which isn't anything to sneeze at.

 

[r6vr6]

In my colt defender (3" 1911) I run 230 gr fmj for practice and 230 gr gold dots for carry. The gold dots cycle well when shooting those too. I use tripp research mags now but the fatories run fine too. The trip mags give a better grip for your pinky.