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Molon_labe wrote:

G.C.Montgomery wrote:

Molon_labe wrote:What is the failure to open rate of hollowpoints, whats the failure to open rate of ball?

Huh? Why is this even important?

Do hollowpoints penetrate 12" when fully opened?

Where would one find ballistic gel performance data of said rounds?

The general answer to your question is, "yes." Again, the FBI testing protocol that EVERY major manufacturer uses when designing new bullets calls for a MINIMUM of 12 inches of penetration through calibrated balistic gelatin. Most, if not all, modern hollowpoints will penetrate to a depth of 12-18 inches in bare gelatin and most are recovered fully expanded at those depths. Results begin to vary with events 2-8 which add various barriers to simulate shooting at threats through thick clothing, cars and the interiors of buildings.

If you really want to see hard evidence, the very best solution is to order up some gelatin mix ($2/lb) and perform the tests yourself with any ammunition you choose. It's not hard to mix up the stuff...It's just like making Jello only you are using a LOT more mix and water.

If you aren't that committed, a reliable, independent resource used to be AmmoLab.com but I believe the site is no longer available. As an alternative, you may be able to contact the founders/staff (usually posting as ammolab) on other forums such as warriortalk.com. You can also run searches through other forums such as FirearmTactical.com, TheHighRoad, etc. but these tend to provide fragmented data and one must develop a pretty good toro caca filter when lurking on on loosly moderated boards. Short of these options, the last source available would be the manufacturers. Though the "spin" is far from being unbiased, the actual data provided by manufactures from tests following FBI protocols is generally accurate.

Molon_labe wrote:What is the failure to open rate of hollowpoints, whats the failure to open rate of ball?

Huh? Why is this even important?

Mithras61 wrote:

G.C.Montgomery wrote:I do however disagree with the idea that simply hitting the brain will do. Without getting too gross, a bullet could completely bisect a man’s frontal lobes without stopping him immediately. He may not get all the jokes we tell afterward but he probably won’t die immediately and may even be able to continue fighting.

There's actually a movie that touches briefly on this called "Regarding Henry" starring Harrison Ford. HF plays a lawyer who enters a C-store in the middle of an armed robbery and ends up getting shot in the head with a .22. It does some damage but doesn't kill him (the rest of the story revolves around that little tidbit). Anyhoo, the point is that even a head shot has to pack enough wallop to seriously degrade brain function before it's a stopper. Always make sure your shots have actually stopped the threat before you take your sights or eyes off the target.

I vaguely remember that film. But you are right that it serves as an example to which people can easily relate. Being that it's a public forum and there are kids watching, I didn't want to get into the specifics of what it takes to drop a threat like a sack of potatoes with no reflex movement. It has however been discussed in detail on many other forums for those who want to know.

5111, if the ammunition works, then by all means use it. You may or may not feel or even hear any difference between hollow-point ammunition and ball. There are a number of factors that would affect your perception of recoil. While hollow-point ammunition does tend to be loaded "hotter" than most ball, that's not always the case. I am not one of those guys who is convinced that hotter is always better.

Molon_labe wrote: With this said..would low and slow hardball ammo be just as effective as a non-working hollowpoint?

If you mean "non-working" as in the bullet fails to expand, then there probably is no difference between the two.

Molon_labe wrote:FBI studies show that 12" of penetration is needed to really cut thru to the vital organs, why open up an round (hollowpoint) and make it stop before the 12" mark (I can understand a smaller caliber but much faster round needing to keep from over penetrating) but a big and slow round would it really matter?

Modern hollow-points are designed with the FBI studies in mind. They are designed to provide MINIMUM of 12 inches through eight different test events, some of which include barriers to simulate shooting through clothing, interior wall construction and automobile glass. Going back to your original question, big and slow are relative terms. It is still possible for the “big and slow� .45ACP cartridge to completely penetrate a human body and exit with enough energy to potentially kill another person. As such, we continue to recommend hollow-points to reduce this risk as well as increase the effectiveness of those rounds in stopping a threat.

Molon_labe wrote:I was taught shot placement, a .22 center mass is better that a .50 that is sailing by

It’s a little off but the overall meaning is correct. A solid hit from a small caliber is far more effective than a miss with a larger caliber. I’ll add that a miss with any caliber compounds our issues in more ways than one. First, a miss does nothing to solve our problem. Two, a miss needlessly depletes our limited ammunition reserve. Three, that bullet will connect with something and even if there is no criminal or civil liability, that errant bullet should still bother you on some level.

The articles you posted point to conclusions you will hear at most of the modern schools around the country. I do however disagree with the idea that simply hitting the brain will do. Without getting too gross, a bullet could completely bisect a man’s frontal lobes without stopping him immediately. He may not get all the jokes we tell afterward but he probably won’t die immediately and may even be able to continue fighting. The 10-15 seconds of continued voluntary movement is a well known phenomenon but it doesn’t happen all the time.

I'm going to muddy the waters a bit and tell you that every .45 caliber, hollow-point bullet out there is nothing but a third to a half ounce of lead. Some get exotic and may even be made of solid copper but they generally all work the same way. All the bullets are designed to travel down a spiral tube at speeds ranging from 750 to 1200 feet per second. All are designed to poke a hole in soft-tissue and expand to cause rapid blood loss. And all generally do this pretty well. Ideally, the bullets are designed to expand after penetrating minor but common barriers such as clothing. I'm telling you this to reinforce the point that it does not matter what bullet you use so long as it functions reliably in your gun and you have properly placed that bullet into a vital area on the threat.

There are three bullets/brands I typically carry but I’m not going to tell you what they are because I don’t want you to use them and then say I’m the reason you chose them. All I will tell you is that I’ve tested those bullets thoroughly in the guns in which I carry them and know they will function reliably. I’m not terribly worried about how well one expands over the other. I don’t worry about the terminal performance of the various bullets because in my limited experience, none has been shown to be vastly superior to another. They will all expand and cause rapid blood loss after perforating vital organs such as the heart and lungs. Well placed bullets may also break vertebrae or other bones that protect the central nervous system.

I could easily rip your favorite bullet and tell you circumstances under which it will fail and show you well known firearms in which I have seen it fail to reliably function. As a result, you might go so far as to decide to stick with “ball� and that would not be the point I’m trying to get across. What I am trying to drive home is that nearly everything on the market is of equal quality. However, your choice in ammunition is yet another piece of equipment and like all your other equipment YOU need to test it thoroughly.

My personal recommendation is to charge every magazine you own for your gun with the candidate ammunition and verify that the gun, ammunition and magazine combination runs with ZERO stoppages or failures. Now if that means you fire 50 rounds or less, you might need to repeat the test several times. The standard test cycle many of us have been told to fit within most of our budgets is to run 200 rounds of the ammunition based on the assumption that mass-produced ammunition is reasonably consistent and not likely to change even if we expand the sample to a more statistically significant 1000 -1500 rounds. With the gun itself, I don’t make a compromise and will not carry a gun until it has run 1000 – 1500 rounds, including at least 500 rounds of my chosen “carry� ammunition, with zero stoppages.