For decades, women who carry a concealed defensive gun have had no choice but to work through a series of compromises. The conventional wisdom has always been that large calibers with the stopping power necessary to end a criminal attack will, by necessity, result in stiffer felt recoil and a lower magazine capacity. Increasing the number of rounds the gun can carry meant that, by necessity, the gun would have to be bigger and less concealable. Today, Federal Ammunition is changing the conventional wisdom with its brand-new 30 Super Carry cartridge … and early indications are that it’s also changing the game.
The first thing to know about the 30 Super Carry cartridge is that, unlike most defensive ammunition, it is not based on a previous design. It’s a truly new chambering designed to bridge the gap between the low recoil and smaller size of the .380 Auto cartridge—which has long been considered a little underpowered for self-defense—and the superior stopping power of the 9 mm Luger. Explained Federal’s JJ Reich, “While there might be some coincidental similarities, 30 Super Carry was fully developed from the ground up with no parent cartridge. Utilizing modern materials and designs, it provides vastly superior performance to seemingly similar historic cartridges.”
How does the terminal performance of 30 Super Carry compare with the historic 9 mm Luger? One of the best ways to test that is with what’s called a gel test, which measures both how deeply the round penetrates and how much it expands upon impact. The results, according to Federal, are encouraging: “Through FBI bare gel protocol, the .312-inch-diameter, 100-grain 30 Super Carry HST expands to .590 inch and penetrates 12 inches, while the 124-grain 9 mm Luger HST expands to .650 inch and penetrates 13.1 inches. In the FBI’s heavy clothing protocol, the same 30 Super Carry HST expands to .530 inch and penetrates 15 ½ inches; the 9 mm Luger expands to .570 inch and penetrates 14.5 inches,” said Reich.
At the time of this writing, reported Reich, both Smith & Wesson and Nighthawk Custom are rolling out handguns chambered in 30 Super Carry for 2022. It’s in those handguns that we’ll see another of the greatest benefits of the 30 Super Carry: Although the felt recoil and report is just about the same as 9 mm Luger, there’s room for two extra rounds in a standard magazine. “In all initially available handguns from Smith & Wesson and Nighthawk Custom, 30 Super Carry offers two additional rounds per magazine over comparable 9 mm Luger models,” confirmed Reich.
Pricing will be similar to Federal’s other offerings in .380 (when loaded with similar bullet types), although the MSRP has not been officially announced. Keep an eye on this space as we test and evaluate this exciting new CCW-perfected round! FederalPremium.com
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