Fiocchi's .357 Sig load proved to be accurate and reliable—making it a terrific choice for practice ammo—but it produced way too much penetration for most defensive or law enforcement applications.

In this day and age of high ammo prices, we overlook sometimes a simple detail: You need ammo to practice with. And given the tight availability and high prices of the premier defensive stuff, you need substitutes. Those who favor cartridges off the beaten path have an even tougher time of it. Take the .357 Sig, for instance. More than one department has adopted it due to its performance. I know that the Chicago Transit Police went to it not because of its flat trajectory (they are not providing covering fire from one station platform to the next) but because of its penetration. Apparently train seats and windows are very rugged, so stout they could not be penetrated by other handgun rounds--hence the adoption of the .357 Sig.

Fiocchi is an importer and manufacturer of ammunition. It imports some from Italy, the home base, and manufactures some here in the U.S. The .357 Sig ammo we're testing comes from overseas.

The cases are gilding brass, and the bullets are 124-grain truncated cone full metal jacket. The load is a hot one. Out of my five-inch Colt Delta Elite with Bar-sto barrel, the bullets averaged 1,395 fps.

The accuracy was plenty good, as I was easily able to shoot two-inch groups at 25 yards over sandbags. As you'd imagine with a load that hot, drop at 100 yards was minimal, and as long as I was paying attention to trigger follow-through, the gong was in danger of being thumped.

The empties were not abused, the primers looked just fine, and the cases were not scuffed, dinged or mangled. They would probably reload with no problems, as all other Fiocchi brass has reloaded just fine for me.

So I proceeded to the penetration tests. Expecting a hard, jacketed little bullet like that one to deform in any way would be a fool's quest. Fully jacketed 9mm bullets typically have to be driven sideways through a railroad tie to get them to deform. Truncated-cone bullets penetrate better than those of the same weight and diameter that are round-nose. Why? I'll leave that to someone with fluid dynamics software and the need for an engineering project for a paper.

Lacking deformation, I expected the bullets to keep going through anything I had on hand. I hauled out my two blocks of ballistic gelatin and slapped them on the table. Considering the penetration depths I've seen other truncated cones bullets achieve, I added a couple of water jugs at the back end.

I really didn't expect the bullet to stop in the gelatin, nor the jugs, but I was not prepared for the authority with which the pepper popper that happened to be behind the jugs got hit. It was struck hard enough to knock it over.