As a firearms instructor, I am often asked for advice regarding Ammunition for practice and personal protection.  It’s a topic I take seriously because the consequences can be severe.  I also take seriously the responsibility to endorse or recommend a product to students.  They trust me making significant choices that affect their safety.

In the interest of full disclosure, for the last few years I have carried Barnes TAC-XTP in my personal defense guns.  I have also had the privilege to know the family that made Barnes the company what it is – Randy and Coni Brooks. Not only does Barnes produce a great product but the Brooks family are some of the best people I know. That being said, I have continued to explore and test other brands.

Last week, I received a few boxes of ammunition from Team Never Quit (TNQ) to test and review.  They sent me two boxes each of TNQ 380 Auto Frangible Training Ammunition and TNQ 9mm Frangible Hollow Point Ammunition. I purchased additional boxes of TNQ 9mm SCHP, .223 Training Ammunition and TNQ 7.62×51 (.308 Win) Match Ammunition.

If you aren’t familiar with Team Never Quit by Lone Survivor Marcus Luttrell it’s more than just an ammo brand – it’s a movement. A community of people who stand united in the fight to honor, support and restore our veterans and to help them overcome the struggles they face when they come home. In addition to a fantastic purpose, TNQ products are Made in the USA.  These reasons alone are enough to pique my interest in a new product.

Now, ammo in hand, I headed to the range with the help of my husband, Carol Morrell – Lead Instructor for The Women’s Shooting Academy and Ken Morrell – Retired Law Enforcement officer. Combined, I would estimate we have around 100 years of shooting experience.

I am in no way qualified to conduct ballistics test or “official testing” but I did want to see the rounds in action.

On the range I wanted to explore two different aspects: cartridge performance and bullet performance so we set up a few different target stations.  Testing a range of target hardness a soft, medium and hard, we were looking particularly to see the different behaviors of the frangible ammo against various surfaces. As I understand it, the bullet is designed to act similarly to ball ammo unless is strikes a surface harder than itself. For instance, it should pass through the soft and medium stages but virtually disintegrate when impacting steel. So let’s see how each round performed.

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.380 Auto, 75 gr Frangible Training Ammo (Product Data Sheet)

Guns Used: Sig P238 & LCP .380
Distance: 5 Yards
Station 1 (Soft): Cardboard, Particle Board and USMC Target
Station 2 (Medium): Wooden 2×4
Station 3 (Hard): Steel Silhouette
Findings:

• All fed and fired correctly and performed as expected.
• Action was clean and good casing ejection.
• No splash-back off steel

We also tested recoil levels by alternating Barnes TAC-XTP with TNQ in the magazine.  We tried this with both guns as the LCP is a much lighter gun that the P238 so recoil is more noticeable – both shooters thought Barnes has a slightly lighter recoil and it appeared to be lighter by visual observation.

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 9mm, 100 gr Frangible Hollow Point Ammo (Product Data Sheet)

Guns Used: M&P Pro, Springfield XDM competition, Springfield XDs
Distance: Starting at 5 yards and walking up to 12 inches
Station 1 (Soft): Cardboard, Particle Board and USMC Target
Station 2 (Medium): Wooden 2×4
Station 3 (Hard): Steel silhouette inside a cardboard box to capture  bullet fragmentation pattern and residue
Findings:

• No splash-back at all, bullet spray pattern visible in box sides, residue in box (see pics below)
• Comparison Ammo:

– Fired same with (non-TNQ) +P+P – huge chunks of lead and copper, large hole torn in box
– Standard (non-TNQ) ball ammo at steel from 15 yards and was hit with shrapnel

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223, 45gr Frangible Training Ammo (Product Data Sheet)

Guns Used: Two custom-built .223 carbine rifles
Distance: 21 Yards
Station 1 (Hard): Shot cinder-block set at a 45 degree angle to the cardboard
Station 2 (Medium): Shot at steel plate at angle to create ricochet into cardboard target behind
Station 3 (Medium): Pallet stood on end – shoot through both oak 4×6 boards

Findings:

Station 1:

1st Round – TNQ ammo blew a large hole in the first wall of the block but not the second wall – bullet fragmented and did not ricochet

2nd Round – TNQ ammo blew a large hole in the first wall of the block but not the second and the end panel of block was broken off from the energy- bullet fragmented and did not ricochet

3rd Round – Soft-tip .223 (non-TNQ) bullet – caused block damage and ricocheted through the cardboard target

Station 2:

1st Round – TNQ hit plate and disintegrated (see photo)

2nd Round – Soft-tip .223 (non-TNQ) bullet – ricocheted, went through carboard target and support stick then continued downrange (see photo)

Station 3:

1st Round – TNQ surprisingly went through both 4×6 oak beams, including a knot.  I suspect the higher velocity from a lighter bullet was a factor. (see photo)
2nd Round – Soft-tip .223 (non-TNQ) bullet went through 1st 4×6 and into 2nd but did not exit (see photo)

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7.62×51 (.308 Win) 175gr Match Ammunition (Product Data Sheet)

Guns Used: Howa .308 Hunting Rifle
Distance: 53 Yard (Longer not available)
Station 1 (Soft): Cardboard Zeroing Target

Note: Unfortunately this rifle was not zeroed correctly for this distance and we did not have enough ammunition to zero and test accuracy.  As a result I cannot speak to the accuracy and grouping at distance.  You can read the product data sheet here. I can say that every round fired as expected and we didn’t experience any malfunctions.

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9mm Luger, 115gr SCHP (Solid Copper Hollow Point) Ammo (Product Data Sheet)

I do not have the proper equipment to do full ballistics testing for this round but you can read the product data sheet here. I was more interested to see how the round performed in my Springfield XDs. I have had issues with some self-defense rounds in this gun because of the tight tolerances it has. I did not experience any problems with this TNQ round. Everything ramped, fired and ejected flawlessly.

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Part 2 – My Conclusions