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Sorry to hear the Silver Bear does not run in your Mak. I've had 2 Russians for a long time and they've both ran fine with everything we've fed 'em.

Most folks avoid the pre-fragmented loads except for very specialized purposes. Like you said, they are quite expensive to test in quanity for reliability - and they are far more likely to underpenetrate than anything in Mak weights and velocities is to overpenetrate.
And the possibility of overpenetration is typically overblown anyway. In reality, the far, far greater probability of damaging something unwanted on the other side is misses. I'd suggest not getting hung up on anybody's hype, just keep shooting various brands of "self defense" loads until you find one that's 100% reliable out the muzzle, then practice regularly.