Your instructor was a douchebag, hollow points bullets are meant to be shot with guns, nothing else.

He was likely anti-self defense, I got some of them too, my unrestricted PAL instructor was fairly anti-gun, and totally anti-handgun.
Understand that hollow-points are your friends. Everybody should have at least one box of hollow point ammunition near a handgun, preferrably already loaded in a magazine, and the handgun in a small safe one digit away from being unlocked.
Life is serious business, dude.

Take care of yours and your familys.