Hornady Zombie MAX Ammo for carry?

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snubking

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I went to go pick some hp carry rounds today and all the store had was the Zombie MAX rounds. It looks like they are the same as the Critical Defence but with a green tip. They seem like they would be great for a carry round.... except for the zombie name. I cant imagin that not coming up in court, in the unlikly event I had use it for sd. With that said, I dont really understand the goal. To expensive for practice, to Zombie for carry. Hornady FAIL.


On a side note are there issues with bullet set back in 9mm? I get worried about my carry rounds every month and get new ones. I do carry condition 1 all day, then carry condition three at home. So the top two rounds get cycled all the time?
 
I dont think its bad practice to rotate them. especially if chamber and then unchamber a round often, it can mark up/ dent the case a little. Will it function probably but after several times over and over and over would you want to bet your life on it? I dont. I usually just crab the top round from the mag every once in a while it spend it at the range.
 
Guess I'm cheap or old fashioned .. I'm pretty sure if I had to unload some rounds into someone for self defense my $10-12 for a box of 50 rounds ammo will make about the same sized holes in said bad guy.

However I did buy a box of the zombie max to keep as a novelty ..:D

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
 
jmh992003 said:
I dont think its bad practice to rotate them. especially if chamber and then unchamber a round often, it can mark up/ dent the case a little. Will it function probably but after several times over and over and over would you want to bet your life on it? I dont. I usually just crab the top round from the mag every once in a while it spend it at the range.
Click to expand...

It is not marking or denting the brass that is the issue. Think set back and pressure spikes.
 
I cant imagin that not coming up in court
Click to expand...

Did not the instructions say that this ammo was for use only on the undead and you used in on someone that was still alive? How could you be so negligent as to blatantly disregard those safety instructions.
 
True, I only put it this way because I can only verify whats going on outside the case, not inside. Basically if the outside is getting all dinged up etc.. theres a good the chance the inside is too and it may not funciton well

Fixxah said:
It is not marking or denting the brass that is the issue. Think set back and pressure spikes.
Click to expand...
 
Visualize the rest of your unspent green rounds being presented as evidence when you have to cap some thug breaking into your house, and the prosecutor reading the officer's narrative of you using "zombie" ammo on him. Not gonna score you any points.
 
jmh992003 said:
True, I only put it this way because I can only verify whats going on outside the case, not inside. Basically if the outside is getting all dinged up etc.. theres a good the chance the inside is too and it may not funciton well
Click to expand...

No, the bullet gets pushed into the case when repeatedly chambered as number one round on top. Dings and dents in and out don't mean shit.
 
I would never use that crap for actual carry. If you ever have the misfortune of having to shoot some one your choice of ammo could come back to haunt you in a criminal or jury trial. The B.S. will go something like this: the defendant didnt even think my client was human,he thought he was a zombie, thats the type amumition he used "Zombie Max" Use ammunition that has a proven track record; assuming your Police pick quality carry ammo ,carry the same stuff they use. You at least will be able to argue " I figure if my local police are using barnd X ammunition then it must be a good choice. Police test thier ammunition for safety,quality and performance etc etc.The majority of Police use ammunition that meets or exceeds the FBI protocals for Penetration, reliability etc.
 
10 fps at the muzzle is enough to make a difference? are you serious?

That green tip must not be as aerodynamic as the red one... Stay away, far, far away...
Click to expand...

Alternatively, it could simply be measurement error within a reasonable confidence interval, and not a real difference. "Is there really a difference?" sounds like a job for the Mythbusters (despite their unscientific tendency to assume a small sample set can conclusively prove a negative).

Newspapers love catchy names for cases and would just eat up the "Zombie Killer".
 
The real issue:
Bullet set-back is a REAL issue. And, if for whatever reason, you feel the need to chamber and unchamber rounds on the regular to carry in con 1 vs con 3 for whatever reason you feel warrants such a task, rotate your ammo frequently. Set-back occurs after only a few rechamberings. Easy test, take your mag out, empty all the rounds out keeping track of which came from the bottom (non-rotated rounds) and which a rotated frequently (the top two as you stated)

Now line them all up in a line and check the heights. If the top two rounds have been chambered more than 3 or 4 times, I bet you can notice a difference in the Over All Length (OAL) Better yet, now take a pair of calipers and check them all.

It's a real issue. Rotate your ammo if this is the routine you choose to practice.
 
Cuda444 said:
The real issue:
Bullet set-back is a REAL issue. And, if for whatever reason, you feel the need to chamber and unchamber rounds on the regular to carry in con 1 vs con 3 for whatever reason you feel warrants such a task, rotate your ammo frequently. Set-back occurs after only a few rechamberings. Easy test, take your mag out, empty all the rounds out keeping track of which came from the bottom (non-rotated rounds) and which a rotated frequently (the top two as you stated)

Now line them all up in a line and check the heights. If the top two rounds have been chambered more than 3 or 4 times, I bet you can notice a difference in the Over All Length (OAL) Better yet, now take a pair of calipers and check them all.

It's a real issue. Rotate your ammo if this is the routine you choose to practice.
Click to expand...

Just checked mine with a digital caliper. The cambered round has probably been chambered at least 10-15 times over the last few months. It was one tenth of a milimeter longer than the next round in the mag which has not been chambered at all, and exactly the same as 7 other rounds in the same mag which have also never been chambered. YMMV, but worth checking out to see if it's an issue with your gun & carry ammo combination.

ETA: I do always carry condition 1, but unload when putting the gun in the safe/locked case or when switching mags to mags loaded with practice/range ammo, so this may be something to look at regardless of how you tend to carry.
 
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This can happen as well. The bullet can get pulled from the case kinetically. I have seen 9mm's pulled out and .40 pushed in. But it really depends on bullet shape, OAL, angle of the presented cartridge, and angle of the feed ramp.

JakeF said:
Just checked mine with a digital caliper. The cambered round has probably been chambered at least 10-15 times over the last few months. It was one tenth of a milimeter longer than the next round in the mag which has not been chambered at all, and exactly the same as 7 other rounds in the same mag which have also never been chambered. YMMV, but worth checking out to see if it's an issue with your gun & carry ammo combination.

ETA: I do always carry condition 1, but unload when putting the gun in the safe/locked case or when switching mags to mags loaded with practice/range ammo, so this may be something to look at regardless of how you tend to carry.
Click to expand...
 
WRT setback and other assorted fun things: these are just like critical defense and not crimped, right? i actually did have a failure related to either setback or a pressure spike in my 1911 a few months ago. not cool.

otherwise only carry these if you expect to use them on zombies. regular rounds do not work on the undead.
 
It can go either way, for sure, as your rounds prove. However, set-back is far more dangerous to the user than the bullet coming OUT of the case (more vs less pressure, respectively) Both a very real issue. I have a pic of set-back rounds compared to regular somewhere. If I can find it, I'll post it here.

A quick google search turned up this:
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTCbZSvEmmq3spESAgj8EhMbHx9s2T6wRYhMR9g0-tQMGRKIfO13A

Same same, just not my pic.
 
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