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Ammunition comes in many different forms and can be classified in a variety of ways. Deciding what to go with can therefore be challenging for newcomers to gun ownership. To quash your concerns about what choices to make, here are a few categories of ammunition and some common terms to keep in mind.
Shells
Also known as shotshells, shells are used as ammunition for shotguns. There are three kinds:
Birdshot shells hold a high number of tiny metallic pellets.
Buckshot shells are similar to birdshot, although they are larger. As both names imply, these two types of shells are often used to hunt the animals they’re named after.
Slugs are solid, single pieces.
Cartridges
Cartridges are the ammunition for pistols and tactical rifles. They come in two main groups: centerfire and rimfire. This is another case where the name of the ammo relates to the way it works. With rimfire cartridges, a gun’s firing pin makes contact with the rim of the cartridge’s case. With centerfire, the pin hits the case in its center and sends it out of the gun’s chamber.
Bullets can be divided into three categories: full metal jackets, hollow points, and soft points.
Full metal jacket bullets, or FMJs, consist of a soft lead core surrounded by a harder case also made of metal. Their durability allows them to maintain their accuracy and velocity after being fired. This leads to greater bullet penetration, which may or may not be what you want.
Hollow point bullets have open and indented tips to allow bullets to flatten and expand upon impact with a target. These dynamics also cause hollow points to remain within a target pass instead through it as often as FMJ.
Soft point bullets combine traits from both FMJ and hollow points. In some examples, they resemble thick colored pencils. Soft points flatten and expand even more than hollow points do, but they also have decent penetrative ability.
Ballistic Tips
This ammunition is essentially an FMJ, but its tip is made of plastic or a polymer. Like soft points, ballistic tips have multiple benefits. Bullets with ballistic tips keep their speed and accuracy like FMJs do, but since their plastic doesn’t remain intact up contact with a target like the rest of the bullet does, the round still flattens out.
What you buy revolves around what you need. For general self-protection, various different ammunition can work well, and for hunting, buckshots and shotgun shells work nicely. For home protection, hollow points are ideal.
