Hornady Critical Duty 175 grain 10mm (any good?)
The 10mm Auto cartridge has seen a boom-bust-boom cycle which would give a Texas oil wildcatter a coronary. Introduced in the mid-1980s, it almost died on arrival. Then in 1989, the FBI embraced it with more fervor than a politician whose found a new mega-donor. No surprise the gun world elevated this powerful round to instant icon status. The 10mm’s future looked so bright it needed to wear shades, as the 80s pop song goes.
Fast forward to 1997. After a tribulation filled marriage, the FBI, like some successful, yet bored, middle-aged tycoon, dropped its high school sweetheart wife for a younger, thinner hottie–the .40 Smith & Wesson. The 10mm cratered faster than the stock market in 2008. Overnight, no one wanted anything to do with this bi-polar superstar.
10mm devotees were cast into a dark night of the soul. Destined, it seemed, to wander the wasteland without ammo on the shelf or new guns to house it.
Rise From the Ashes
Just when a Vegas bookie would have given long odds against the 80s firecracker, something wonderful happened. Someone, somewhere, in the early 2010s picked up a 10mm and realized it could stop an irate grizzly bear. Loaded to its full–and original–ballistics, the 10mm could do what the .41 or .44 Magnums could but with half the recoil, and in guns which sported twice the ammo capacity. The clouds parted, cherubim sang, and the gun gods smiled down on Col. Jeff Cooper and Norma’s orphaned love-child.
Almost overnight the coolest of the cool–Alaskan bush pilots–were seen with Glock G20s and Colt Delta-Elite 1911s strapped to their chests. Alaskan game guides soon followed and at the speed of the internet, the 10mm dazzled the public’s eye once again. Reborn and ready to flatten anything in its way.
Hornady’s 10mm Play
This rebirth has brought 10mm fans many new loads, most focused on self-defense against human predators rather than the four-footed kind. Hornady’s answer is a 175 grain load in their Critical Duty line. This round sports their FTX bullet which uses a polymer tip to initiate expansion even through hollow point-defeating barriers such as heavy clothing. Always on the look out for good 10mm loads, we decided to put this one through our exclusive, and grueling, “Frost Giant” ballistic gel test. If you carry this load, or are considering it, you must watch this video, and see for yourself how it performs under extreme conditions.
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