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My father had told me my uncle used to file an 'X' on a FMJ pistol round. As to why? I don't know.I honestly don't know why someone would. My father is a real honest man making real honest money, so he's not into criminal activity or anything like that, lol. Just something I thought you old-timers would care to share some of your input.

T.I.A.

In the late 1800s the British created dum-dum bullets by cutting the solid lead bullets of a cartridge. There would be no reason to do in in modern times with hollow points and other defensive ammo available. Obviously, the purpose was to create a larger wound cavity than a bullet that remained whole and passed through the target.
There was a Dum Dum arsenal near Calcutta in India where the British are said to have done this. Not the most effective way to make an expanding bullet but if all you had were solid lead bullets you might do it.
It was probably more useful in cutting some of the full metal jacket off the tip of jacketed bullets when they were introduced. I am always amazed how "pointy" the full metal .303 British bullet are that are used in my Enfield rifles...

EDIT: Who you calling old whippersnapper!!!????

I had a cousin in W.Va that used to do that, but he was just putting his legal signature on the bullet

So basically they did it just to act as a JHP? Interesting.

And there was no reason to expect the bullets to be ballistically superior to the original.

A person I knew a few year back told me that he did that on every bullet he fired while he was in 'Nam. I asked him if he ever actually hit anything and if he witnessed the effects himself to see if he accomplished anything. He said he made hits at 200 yards and beyond that way, with an M16.

Made me think he probably never fired it at all.

jimlongley wrote:And there was no reason to expect the bullets to be ballistically superior to the original.

If they were, we could all save a lot of money making our own self-defense and hunting ammo from military surplus.

When I was a kid, one of my friends would carve an "X" in the tips of his .22LR to make "illegal dum-dums."

I've heard of this and always thought it was to cause the bullet to break into four segments which would result in more internal damage to the recipient.

I had an older gentleman once telling me how he used to drill and fill the tips of his bullets with a much softer material to create expanding bullets when he worked in LE as a "shooter" several decades ago.

USA1 wrote:I've heard of this and always thought it was to cause the bullet to break into four segments which would result in more internal damage to the recipient.

That may be what some people think, but it's flawed logic. That is why bullet manufacturers go through so much trouble to make sure the bullets expand and remain intact.

Here you go...

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot32.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is mostly an old wives's tale. Cutting an X in the nose of a lead bullet was thought to improve expansion this spread to FMJ ammo when it became available the problem is the FMJ is designed not to expand but to penetrate so an X will have little or no effect on expansion and a detrimental effect on accuracy. I used to work with a guy from deep East Texas who swore that by snipping the nose off of GI .308 (7.62x51 NATO) and .30-06 made them work just like "store bought" hunting ammo. Well, any pointed military FMJ from most countries will tumble in the target if they hit at a high enough velocity. This tumbling will produce a wound that to the untrained eye looks just like it was made by "store bought" ammo.

I find it interesting that even in the old days shooters realized the ammunition of the day was inadequate and the attempts, some successful some not, to improve ammunition terminal performance.

My grandfather served in the British Army in the first world war. As an underage volunteer one of the task he was given was doctoring the ammo. They had him take each round and strike it with a hammer bullet down on a brick until the point was flattened. He called this a dum-dum round. Sounds like a risky process to me but he said he never had one go off and he did this many 1000s of times.

My grandfather was later captured by the Germans, spent more than two years as a PoW and then escaped and walked to Paris from eastern Germany. He was quite a guy as you might guess!

Why would anybody do this at all, when high quality ammo with better performance is available for only a few dollars more per box? I always figured that cheap ball ammo is fine for plinking or a day at the range, but if you had a chunk of money tied up in a hunting trip, why wouldn't you be willing to spend an extra $5 on quality ammo? Penny wise is often pound foolish.

The Annoyed Man wrote:Why would anybody do this at all, when high quality ammo with better performance is available for only a few dollars more per box?

Why would some bank robbers write hold-up notes on the back of their own deposit slips?

The Annoyed Man wrote:Why would anybody do this at all, when high quality ammo with better performance is available for only a few dollars more per box? I always figured that cheap ball ammo is fine for plinking or a day at the range, but if you had a chunk of money tied up in a hunting trip, why wouldn't you be willing to spend an extra $5 on quality ammo? Penny wise is often pound foolish.

I said he was from DEEP EAST TEXAS - - - the deer couldn't see the hunter because a Q Beam was shining in it's eyes. I didn't ever say the guy was a legal or ethical hunter. If I knew for a fact he was firelighting deer I would have dropped a dime on him; suspected activity isn't admissible in court.