At the end of this summer I will be buying eather a Kimber Pro carry or an ultra carry.  How much velocity is lost from the 3 inch barrel.  How does this effect the overall preformance the bullet (expansion and penetration).  If I decide to get the ultra carry should I use light weight +p ammo or will the short barrel rob the +p load because of the shorter barrel and not give any significant increase in velocity?  What ammo do you recomend with the shorter barrel?  

The difference between my 5” and 3” is 125-150 FPS.  

After agonizing over the same question and doing some informal penetration / expansion tests I settled on 230gr Remington Golden Sabers.  I’ll be the first to admit that my choice was based more on the fact that they ran flawlessly through my gun than on any “performance” data that I was able to find.

I’m going to watch this thread with interest, I’m sure SOMEBODY has some other ideas.

Ed    

Use a lighter weight bullet and definately NOT a +P load... otherwise you are looking at an absolute MONSTER to shoot and that will bring your target reacquisition time too high.