hollow points....is there a point?

[possum_128]

Fmj for shooting fun and jhp for defense. With the exception of anything below a 9mm ie, 22,25,32,380 then go fmj, otherwise hollow point always for defense.

 

[Eternal Vigilance]

Hollow points would always even with most coats be better on an asailant but would you always be defending face to face? how about if you & them' are behind walls/doors & vehicles exchanging shots,hollow points will be frustrating usually,FMJ you might be able to shoot what they are behind and eliminate the problem..Ive done tests on every kind ,performance of hollow points was very disturbing,I would never have just hollow points in any weapon.

Your reasoning here is solid; FMJs do penetrate more than HP, but what about the legal side of things? Mightn't shooting through barriers (windshields, etc) create a bit of a problem with the gentlemen in blue who might not see this as self defense? Granted, goal number one in a self defense situation is to stay alive and to do this you might have to shoot through a barrier, but this sounds like it would be legally more difficult to justify...if you both were behind cover, why didn't you disengage from the situation and leave? At any rate, I like the idea of a separate mag with FMJs (if I were going to carry them) rather than a mixed mag--there would be no surprises about how much penetration I am going to get that way.

Another thought: don't the police carry exclusively HP ammo? If anyone has a legitimate need (and the amount of opportunity) to penetrate barriers to neutralize threats, the guys in blue would. Where then does this leave civilians carrying FMJ for barrier penetration?

 

[phylodog]

We carry/issue bonded HP ammunition for our duty pistols. The bonded does not have the expansion as the HST rounds mentioned earlier but performs much better through barriers. We issue HST ammunition for our backup gun calibers as the likelihood of needing to penetrate a car door or glass in a self defense situation is reduced.

We did a ballistic seminar earlier this year. We fired a few different types of handgun ammo through clothing, drywall, steel (simulated car door) and laminated glass. We also fired one of our practice rounds through bare gelatin. It zipped through 48" of bare gelatin, exited the back of the block and continued the remaining 45 yards making a nice divot in the backstop.

You will not find me carrying FMJ ammunition in a handgun for anything but practice. If a bad guy has disappeared behind some sort of cover I'll likely be using that to get to better cover for myself or get to a rifle. I sure wouldn't be shooting it within my home not knowing for sure where the rest of my family (or pets, or neighbors) might be at the time.

 

[thompal]

No, usually hollow points have no point and instead have a hollow cavity in the bullet, hence the name "hollow point"

Why aren't they called "hollow cavity?"

 

[mrortega]

Kinetic energy is not a wounding mechanism and is an exceedingly poor proxy for the effectiveness of a cartridge/load/bullet.

Consider the following:
1. A hard punch by an athletic woman to the quadricep muscles.
2. A .22 short fired into quadricep muscles with no exit wound.
3. A 500 grain broadhead hunting arrow fired into quadricep muscles at 200 fps with the arrow staying in the leg.
4. A razor-sharp, large butcher knife used to cut across quadricep muscles.

Which "deposits" the most kinetic energy? The hard punch by the athletic woman "deposits" the most kinetic energy by far.

The razor-sharp butcher knife "deposits" the least kinetic energy by far, and the .22 short has over 50% more kinetic energy than the broadhead arrow.

Now, which does the most damage?
The punch with, by far, the largest "energy dump" does the least damage. Might be a bruise and a little soreness, but that's it

The razor-sharp butcher knife does, by far, the most damage but with minuscule "energy dump," and the broadhead arrow does much more damage than the lowly .22 short with slightly over half the kinetic energy.

Strongly suggest reading up on terminal ballistics and the reasons why kinetic energy "deposit" is both not a wounding mechanism and an exceedingly poor proxy for such.

Okey, dokey. Since I don't normally carry an athletic woman (wife had a problem with the one I used to belt-carry) or a butcher knife my options are a ball or hollow point. The hollow point will dump more energy into the target and cause more damage. Agreed, the RIGHT athletic woman could really hurt somebody. I made the mistake of calling one of them "sir" one day and it was, you might say, awkward.

 

[Rambler]

.

 

[NIFT]

A punch does not penetrate the skin, and therefore delivering a punch to the quadricep muscle cannot cause the kind of damage to internal organs that is necessary for incapacitation. Invalid comparison.

A .22 short round does not possess the energy to do much more than create a .22 caliber hole through flesh, muscle and bone. Kinetic energy of such a low powered round is irrelevant.

A broadhead arrow does not wound through a mechanism of kinetic energy, it wounds by a cutting mechanism. At any rate, it would not possess enough kinetic energy to do any damage. Invalid comparison.

Same thing for a butcher knife slicing muscle tissue. Energy is irrelevant. The wounding mechanism is cutting, not blunt force trauma.

Energy certainly IS a wounding mechanism with high velocity rifle rounds. So who is to say, definitively, that higher velocity pistol rounds do not produce some wounding mechanism due to the temporary stretch cavity that they DO produce when moving through an aqueous medium? It certainly depends on the elasticity of the tissue that the bullet moves through, of course, but there are a variety of different densities of tissue in the human body that may all be affected in significantly different ways by the passage of a higher velocity pistol bullet of 400+ ft. lbs. of energy.

The .357 magnum in particular has a reputation for creating nasty wounds, much bigger than the final diameter of the .55 to .60 caliber expanded bullet could cause by only direct contact with tissue. What is causing this damage?

I have seen, with my own eyes, a man's head blown half off by suicide with a .357 Sig, and have also seen suicide by .38 Special that simply went in one side of the victim's head and came out the other side creating a slightly larger exit wound, but not causing nearly the damage that the .357 Sig caused. The .38 and the .357 Sig are about the same diameter and weight bullet. What caused the explosive effect of the .357, vs. the simple "in and out" wound of the .38? If not the typical 450-550 ft. lbs. of energy of the .357 vs the fairly common 200-300 ft. lbs. of the .38 round, then what?

Here is documented proof of much greater damage to living animal tissue (deer) using pistol bullets at high velocity (135 grain .40 S&W bullet at 1300+ fps) vs damage from heavier, lower velocity pistol bullets (147 grain 9mm at 900+ fps). Not that much difference in diameter, but a much greater difference in tissue damage. Why? Velocity and energy. What else could it be?

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0702/0702107.pdf

I'm of the opinion, through my research and what I've seen with my own eyes, that between the pistol bullets that will successfully penetrate to the vitals and expand, the more effective bullet is the one with the most energy. Bad guys aren't ballistic gelatin wearing a 4 layer denim coat, and the .357 magnum didn't earn its reputation for effectiveness because it possessed "adequate" penetration. As long as the bullet reaches the vitals, I certainly see no downside to higher velocity and more energy.

You are right--it is tissue displacement that wounds, not kinetic energy. With handgun ammunition, permanent cavity (crushing) causes almost all the damage. Temporary cavity damage is almost non-existent with handgun bullets (but common with yawing, high-velocity rifle bullets), and with cutting--the most efficient way to damage tissue--KE is negligible. As you rightly state, kinetic energy itself does not do the damage.

In addition, although bullets must exert force on tissue, kinetic energy is a very poor predictor of tissue displacement--hence, my examples of a punch, a .22 short, a hunting arrow, and a sharp knife. The punch has the most kinetic energy but does the least tissue damage. The knife has the least kinetic energy but does the most damage. Kinetic energy, itself, does not damage tissue, and KE is a very poor predictor of tissue damage.

I also suggest you do a bit more research on Michael and Ann Courtney. You will find that their "research" has been thoroughly debunked, especially when it comes to "balliistic pressure waves."

The speed of sound in human tissue is about four times that in air at sea level; so, the sonic wave of a penetrating bullet propogates ahead of the projectile. Although this sonic wave can have pressures of 60 atmospheres, it is so short lived (about 2 microseconds) it does no damage. The damage predicted by Courtney's ballistic pressure waves, not surprisingly, has never been observed. In cases where ballistic pressure waves are credited with causing damage, the actual cause almost always turns out to be cavitation from a rifle bullet yawing at relatively high speed.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Guess I should have used purple

Sheesh. You'd think I'd have picked up on that. Was off my game... A thousand apologies to you, kind sir.

 

[nailknocker]

Excellent write up NIFT. Now if I understand this energy transfer thing, it's like the swinging steel balls that sits on many a desk, the equal and opposite transfer of energy.

What I'm saying is that when you fire your handgun the recoil felt by your hand is the same amount of energy transfered to the projectile. So when that projectile strikes a bg in the chest at short range what he feels is equalivant to the recoil of the hand gun,if not less due to the small diameter of the projectile as opposed to the size of the guns grip, hence the myth of knock down power, if it didn't knock you down when you fired, it isn't going to knock him down when it hits him. Is this a correct assumption?

So would an expanding bullet really impart more energy after it's initial impact?

 

[mrortega]

Excellent write up NIFT. Now if I understand this energy transfer thing, it's like the swinging steel balls that sits on many a desk, the equal and opposite transfer of energy.

What I'm saying is that when you fire your handgun the recoil felt by your hand is the same amount of energy transfered to the projectile. So when that projectile strikes a bg in the chest at short range what he feels is equalivant to the recoil of the hand gun,if not less due to the small diameter of the projectile as opposed to the size of the guns grip, hence the myth of knock down power, if it didn't knock you down when you fired, it isn't going to knock him down when it hits him. Is this a correct assumption?

So would an expanding bullet really impart more energy after it's initial impact?

If a hollow point stops in the target and the ball keeps going out the other side the ball obviously has some energy left so, yeah, the HP dumps more energy.

 

[Boost Lee]

I carry a mag with hollow points and a mag with fmj's.

What he said.

 

[dom1104]

When the thread went to hydrostatic shock and dutch loading, it officially went full retard.

The fact that people actually put enough thought into this to carry a mag of HPs and a mag of FMJ, just leads me to believe the only explanation for this is.....


Video Games.


"Quick, bro... switch to FMJ! He has +6 vest of resiliancy!"

<mag change>

boom, boom...

"YEAH! Next level!"

 

[octalman]

Virtualy every soldier who has died in combat from bullet wounds since the advent of smokless powder has been killed by fmj ammo, it's ability to kill cannot be questioned. Hand held combat weapons are all designed for fmj.

Jacketed hp for self defense on the street are fine for all the reasons listed, would I want them in a combat situation, absolutely not.

Military rifle ammo is FMJ and high velocity for several reasons. FMJ and high velocity to create ballistic shock and have enough velocity to penetrate clothing and possibly wound or kill another soldier in the bullet path. As many of you know, the 5.56 is designed to tumble in the body to create a larger wound channel. FMJ when it does not kill creates a wounded soldier to be treated, taking other soldiers out of the fight.

Military Pistol caliber is FMJ for reliability. How many of you have had trouble with hollow points feeding reliably in you pistols? More than a few. Soldiers don't have time fiddle with ammo feed problems!

 

[dom1104]

Military rifle ammo is FMJ and high velocity for several reasons. FMJ and high velocity to create ballistic shock and have enough velocity to penetrate clothing and possibly wound or kill another soldier in the bullet path. As many of you know, the 5.56 is designed to tumble in the body to create a larger wound channel. FMJ when it does not kill creates a wounded soldier to be treated, taking other soldiers out of the fight.

Military Pistol caliber is FMJ for reliability. How many of you have had trouble with hollow points feeding reliably in you pistols? More than a few. Soldiers don't have time fiddle with ammo feed problems!

Zero. ZERO of this is true. none of it.

This is why I dont work in a gun shop anymore.

No offense to you my friend, all we know is what we learn from others, but...

This is the reason I quit.

I have sold my last Taurus Judge.

Sorry, rant off.

 

[nailknocker]

Don't get me wrong, my carry guns are loaded with Hornady critical defense. I'm just not sure I get the energy dump thing.

I get that and expanding bullet stays in the body, and so does it's energy, but on the other side of the coin, wouldn't hardball pass on it's energy twice, a 45 throught the breast bone a half inch hole through the body and it exits through the spinal column with a lot of bone splintering in between. Seems to me it has dumped it's energy twice.

 

[Leo]

I haven't heard anything about jacketed soft points. That is what the big bore hunters use on safari.......

 

[Boost Lee]

Video Games.


"Quick, bro... switch to FMJ! He has +6 vest of resiliancy!"

<mag change>

boom, boom...

"YEAH! Next level!"

Your hypothesis would apply wonderfully if you were on a CoD or XBox forum full of teenagers... But you aren't.

I'm not sure how your assumption coincides with ones personal preference on how they carry,
But thankfully, everyone has that choice. Lets leave it that way.

I understand your intentions and reason, though... So I won't bug. I guess your rant was just well past-due. ;-)

 

[mrortega]

Don't get me wrong, my carry guns are loaded with Hornady critical defense. I'm just not sure I get the energy dump thing.

I get that and expanding bullet stays in the body, and so does it's energy, but on the other side of the coin, wouldn't hardball pass on it's energy twice, a 45 throught the breast bone a half inch hole through the body and it exits through the spinal column with a lot of bone splintering in between. Seems to me it has dumped it's energy twice.

Only if you're shooting through a hollow object where the bullet isn't in constant contact with the mass of the target-like shooting through one closed window of a house and out another. You would have some transfer at the 1st window and some more at the 2nd. But remember Ortega's 3rd law of physics: If a hollowpoint 230 gr bullet leaves Baltimore travelling west at 850ft/sec and a 230gr hard ball leaves Louisville travelling east at 850 ft/sec when they meet their energy transfer into the atmosphere will cause an earthquake in Spencer, West Virginia.

 

[Mordred]

Whew, we could go all day about this. Just some trivial facts to back up hallow points. The kid who shot up Virginia Tech and killed 32 people was using 9mm HP rounds (and .22s). Several people were killed through desk and doors blocking the way. The guy who shot up the Arizona Senator, same gun, same kind of 9mm HP bullets...killed 13 out of 30 shots fired. The crazy guy who shot up all those kids on that Norwegian island used 9mm hps on several of the people. What im telling you is, its a deadly bullet. Statistics show that no matter what the bullet caliber, If the person is shot more than once, they go down. And with that 2nd shot, fatality is around 75%.

 

[Boost Lee]

Whew, we could go all day about this. Just some trivial facts to back up hallow points. The kid who shot up Virginia Tech and killed 32 people was using 9mm HP rounds (and .22s). Several people were killed through desk and doors blocking the way. The guy who shot up the Arizona Senator, same gun, same kind of 9mm HP bullets...killed 13 out of 30 shots fired. The crazy guy who shot up all those kids on that Norwegian island used 9mm hps on several of the people. What im telling you is, its a deadly bullet. Statistics show that no matter what the bullet caliber, If the person is shot more than once, they go down. And with that 2nd shot, fatality is around 75%.

You speak the truth. I can only turn my head when someone tells me, "Oh, you're carrying a 9mm?"