Hornady Manufacturing recently announced a new line of personal protection ammunition: Critical Defense. The Critical Defense line of ammo is specially designed for small, compact firearms frequently carried concealed for self-defense.
The Critical Defense ammunition features a hollow point bullet the same style of “Flex Tip” polymer tip that Hornady uses in the LEVERevolution line of ammunition. The tip prevents the hollowpoint from being plugged with clothing and helps ensure expansion. Because of the Flex Tip technology, Hornady claims to achieve “100% reliable expansion every single time.”  Subsequent gel testing by independent parties seems to support this claim.
The new Hornady ammo is not designed to meet the FBI test protocols used by some law enforcement agencies when choosing ammunition. Rather, Critical Defense ammunition is designed to operate in small, concealed carry guns against clothed attackers–not through steel and glass as required by the FBI testing.  For ammo that meets FBI protocols, scroll down this page for information on the company’s new Critical Duty line of ammo.