You may have seen it around, whether at Wal-Mart, Sportsman’s Warehouse, or at other gun stores.
My understanding is that this is ammo that was a contract overrun or was for some reason or another rejected by ICE/CBP. Now they appear to be liquidating it through retail outlets.
Initial inspection and comparison of the round would leave you to believe that this is the same bullet design as the HST.
The 135gr JHP is shown on the left with a brass case compared to a 180gr HST with the nickel plated case on the right.
There is no data on this load from Federal’s website and it is believed that this will not be a load we’ll be seeing from them on a regular basis. However, there appears to be enough interest from people on the gun boards that I want to test it out and see how it performs.
I have my doubts about it’s performance given the lightweight of this round for the caliber.
The .40 is known for being a better performer in the 165-180gr range. I hope to test these out soon alongside some 180gr HST’s.