Post by MarkKw on Jan 29, 2005 7:38:15 GMT -5
Don't be fooled by the hollow point hype! Like many other things, these more often than not don't work as they are advertised to.
Look at 99.9% of the tests done on ammo and you'll see picture of bullets shot into bare ballistics jelly. This is fine for testing the performance of bullets if you expect all your attacker to be buck naked and have no bone structure...thus, if your sole threat is from jellyfish or squids, you should have no problems. However, if you are more concerned about real world threats, you need to check things out for yourself.
I too used to beleive what I saw in the ad pictures, HP's opening up to well over bore diameter. Fancy petals paying out like a flower creating massive damage....ya, right!
I've tired a lot of Hp bullets in both factory and handloads and none of them performed anywhere near how they were claimed to. The problem is that bullets need to be tested under actual working conditions and a bare block of ballistic jelly just does not cut it. So you're asking how does one do a real test when the price of the jelly is beyond our budget? Well, the next best thing of course is water saturated news print/phone books which are close enough to give you a good idea of what to expect. I use a thin plastic bag hold the wet newprint and place the bags in a cardboard box to keep them standing upright.
Now you need to add clothing since most attackers come dressed, some old rags laid over the end of the box works great, 2-3 layers of blue jean material will simulate a winter coat. Using this method, you'll now see a major difference in what the company ads say and what you've picked out of the newsprint.
The problem arises when the HP contacts the clothing, it will often fill with material and become a round nose and not expand at all. For those of you who think that velocity will cure the expansion problem, guess again. I've tried several brands of HP's in a .357 mag, Sierra, Hornady, Speer and cast lead. Pushing these with hot handloads, 125/130 grain ones to 1650 fps and 158/160 grain to 1400 fps, the best performer was the cast lead but only when cast from alloy that was relatively soft, in my case strait wheel weight (WW). Not a single one of the jacketed bullets expanded the nose to bore size let alone larger.
Looking for a decent big game bullet for my 45 colt...sucked in by the hype, I went with the Hornady 300 grain XTP (Extreme Terminal Performance) which was allegedly the best bullet ever made, yadda yadda yadda. Well, load after load, test after test and using a compressed charge and pushing the pressure limits to the extreme, I now have 300 grain HP's that will readily poke holes through pressure treated 6x6 lumber at 1700 fps, dange near rip my wrist off with recoil and not expand at all no matter what they hit short of steel. End result was going to a 255 cast bullet made from 20:1 lead/tin alloy tooling along at a reasonable 1100 fps which readily expands to an average of .565"
Factory loaded HP's produced the same results as the handloads above with the only exception being the Federal Hydra-Shock which was the only one that expanded to at least bore size with sufficient penetration. In the 9mm I use the 135 gr. .45ACP I use the 230 gr and in .380 only one choice of the 90 grain. No, I don't work for nor do I have any interest in Federal, these are just the best performers I have found in factory ammo and are what I have chosen to use for CCW. These also feed reliably in my semi's which is another major plus.
For self denfense you need a bullet that will make as big a hole as possible yet not over penetrate. The opposite end of this is that you need a bullet that will readily penetrate thick clothing but still do enough damage to the underlying tissue to be effective. It's a hard call to make and no one bullet is going to be a cure-all but some come close. The smaller the bore, the harder it is to find a bullet that will suffice for both needs. The only way to know how your ammo is going to perform is to test it yourself and don't just rely on sales hype.
Look at 99.9% of the tests done on ammo and you'll see picture of bullets shot into bare ballistics jelly. This is fine for testing the performance of bullets if you expect all your attacker to be buck naked and have no bone structure...thus, if your sole threat is from jellyfish or squids, you should have no problems. However, if you are more concerned about real world threats, you need to check things out for yourself.
I too used to beleive what I saw in the ad pictures, HP's opening up to well over bore diameter. Fancy petals paying out like a flower creating massive damage....ya, right!
I've tired a lot of Hp bullets in both factory and handloads and none of them performed anywhere near how they were claimed to. The problem is that bullets need to be tested under actual working conditions and a bare block of ballistic jelly just does not cut it. So you're asking how does one do a real test when the price of the jelly is beyond our budget? Well, the next best thing of course is water saturated news print/phone books which are close enough to give you a good idea of what to expect. I use a thin plastic bag hold the wet newprint and place the bags in a cardboard box to keep them standing upright.
Now you need to add clothing since most attackers come dressed, some old rags laid over the end of the box works great, 2-3 layers of blue jean material will simulate a winter coat. Using this method, you'll now see a major difference in what the company ads say and what you've picked out of the newsprint.
The problem arises when the HP contacts the clothing, it will often fill with material and become a round nose and not expand at all. For those of you who think that velocity will cure the expansion problem, guess again. I've tried several brands of HP's in a .357 mag, Sierra, Hornady, Speer and cast lead. Pushing these with hot handloads, 125/130 grain ones to 1650 fps and 158/160 grain to 1400 fps, the best performer was the cast lead but only when cast from alloy that was relatively soft, in my case strait wheel weight (WW). Not a single one of the jacketed bullets expanded the nose to bore size let alone larger.
Looking for a decent big game bullet for my 45 colt...sucked in by the hype, I went with the Hornady 300 grain XTP (Extreme Terminal Performance) which was allegedly the best bullet ever made, yadda yadda yadda. Well, load after load, test after test and using a compressed charge and pushing the pressure limits to the extreme, I now have 300 grain HP's that will readily poke holes through pressure treated 6x6 lumber at 1700 fps, dange near rip my wrist off with recoil and not expand at all no matter what they hit short of steel. End result was going to a 255 cast bullet made from 20:1 lead/tin alloy tooling along at a reasonable 1100 fps which readily expands to an average of .565"
Factory loaded HP's produced the same results as the handloads above with the only exception being the Federal Hydra-Shock which was the only one that expanded to at least bore size with sufficient penetration. In the 9mm I use the 135 gr. .45ACP I use the 230 gr and in .380 only one choice of the 90 grain. No, I don't work for nor do I have any interest in Federal, these are just the best performers I have found in factory ammo and are what I have chosen to use for CCW. These also feed reliably in my semi's which is another major plus.
For self denfense you need a bullet that will make as big a hole as possible yet not over penetrate. The opposite end of this is that you need a bullet that will readily penetrate thick clothing but still do enough damage to the underlying tissue to be effective. It's a hard call to make and no one bullet is going to be a cure-all but some come close. The smaller the bore, the harder it is to find a bullet that will suffice for both needs. The only way to know how your ammo is going to perform is to test it yourself and don't just rely on sales hype.
