As far as high performance, self defense ammunition, I thought I would throw this out there. This is 2,000 rounds of 9 MM +P Gold Dot I picked up bulk packaged for just $657.00. That comes to around
$16.43 for a box of 50. All that was "wrong" with it, was this particular lot chronographed 5 FPS
under Speer's minimum standard acceptable velocity. Because of that they could not sell it to law enforcement. Most high performance self defense ammo must meet strict velocity parameters, or it cannot be packaged and sold the same as the ammunition that does.
So what Speer, (and other companies), do is bulk package it, and sell it off cheaper. They recover their cost, plus a slight profit. Granted, this doesn't happen very often. But it pays to keep your eyes open by watching on line, bulk ammo outfits so when it does pop up, you can grab it. It makes for quite a big savings considering most of this stuff goes for over a buck a round.
5 FPS in a +P, 9 MM load isn't going to amount to much of anything. I bought a box of +P Gold Dot from my local Cabela's, just to compare, (I paid $23.00 for a box of 20), and there was no difference in report, recoil, or pistol operation. I've fired this stuff in all of my Glocks, Browning Hi-Powers, and CZ-75's without a single FTF or FTE. When I feel really energetic I'll run some of it over a chronograph just to see. As I mentioned, it came in sealed, labeled cardboard boxes. Visually or dimensionally you cannot tell the difference. I drove over to Dillon in Scottsdale and bought some nice 100 round boxes for it. This is where I bought it from.
https://www.unammo.com/
I haven't seen any more since then. When he had this stuff he had around 7,000 rounds of it. I wished I had bought it all. Like I say it doesn't come around very often, but it's worth keeping your eyes open for it when it does.