Hollow point bullets controversial?

[ScottDLS]

I don't know too much about bullets. Do they make bullets with flat tips?

The most common flat tipped bullet may be the semi-wadcutter, the most famous version of which is the "Keith" type. (There's also the full wadcutter bullet - a few people think they're ideal for self defense.)

A couple of decades ago there was a lot of ink devoted to the Hatcher Formula, the Cooper Short Form, and other formulas based on bullet weight, diameter, shape, velocity, construction, and material which purported to quantify the difference in stopping power between different bullets. At that time, it was assumed that a semi-wadcutter bullet produced stopping power about 25% greater than a round nose bullet, and bullets with a flat point somewhere between SWC and RN produced stopping power somewhere in between, depending on the size of the flat point. But as good hollowpoints began to come onto the market, these debates just sort of faded away.

And when people started trying to submit the various formulas to more rigorous scrutiny, and challenged the assumptions, interest in them just sort of faded away . . . just like the old timers who staunchly defended them.

I always heard that "wadcutters" were developed for target shooting because their flat cylindrical front cut a clean hole in the paper...Anyone hear this too?

[Skiprr]

So the hollow point ammunition is considered by anti gun groups to be more "something" than full metal jacket bullets.

Not to derail the topic, but history has shown that anti-gun groups will twist any terminology any way they want so long as it fits their agenda. If JHP bullets are used, then hollow-points become the essence of evil. If FMJ bullets are used, then they point to the fact that these are the types of bullets used by the world's military, so they must be extra-lethal. Lead bullets or pellets are used, and they start pounding the ban-gavel because lead damages the environment...never mind that the amount in bullets is miniscule compared to other sources of lead.

Heck, just last Monday the AP syndicated a story about a whopping 17 guns and over 8,000 rounds of ammo being confiscated attempting to enter Mexico over a two-day period on the border at Brownsville.

A kicker was the story's statement that 6,000 of those rounds were machine-gun ammunition!

Wow! Machine-gun ammunition!

Yeahright. No wonder the uninformed believe that firearms from the United States may be fueling the cartel violence in Mexico. A question to the Forum: Can anybody think of any broad category of ammunition, .50 cal or smaller, that is designed only for fully-automatic fire?

But it's just another example of how almost any in-print adjective can be biased against gun owners.

My preferred carry is Winchester Ranger ammo. When it was released in the early '90s, it was called Black Talon. It quickly became a target of anti-gunners; at one point they even called it armor-piercing ammunition. Exactly the opposite was true, of course: it was a JHP round that would expand on impact rather than over-penetrating. But under pressure, Winchester retired the name Black Talon.

The Brady Bunch I understand. They have their own agenda to dismantle the Second Amendment.

The media continues to befuddle me. Yes, through acquisition and consolidation the big media outlets are owned by only a few corporations now. And yes, most of those corporations lean liltingly to the left.

But can they intentionally edit almost every news string that hits the wires to be anti-gun? Or is it a function of the fact that umpteen-percent of the reporters who write about guns have no education, information, or background about firearms whatsoever?

Not being a conspiracy theorist, I'll opt for Ockham's Razor, "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate": Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.

In general, it isn't conspiracy; it's ignorance.

Medical issues are far more complex than guns, so specifically-experienced reporters get those stories. Same thing on the political desk.

Maybe we need to figure out how to provide some basic firearms education to the news stringers who get the average gun story.

Just thinkin' out loud...

[chartreuse]

Not to derail the topic, but history has shown that anti-gun groups will twist any terminology any way they want so long as it fits their agenda. If JHP bullets are used, then hollow-points become the essence of evil. If FMJ bullets are used, then they point to the fact that these are the types of bullets used by the world's military, so they must be extra-lethal. Lead bullets or pellets are used, and they start pounding the ban-gavel because lead damages the environment...never mind that the amount in bullets is miniscule compared to other sources of lead.

Ding! We have a winner!

A question to the Forum: Can anybody think of any broad category of ammunition, .50 cal or smaller, that is designed only for fully-automatic fire?

Best I can offer is British Army Mk. VIII Ball. It was designed for the Vickers machine gun and the boat tail would apparently wreak havoc on the bores of Enfields. But that's not a broad category and it was in 1938...

But can they intentionally edit almost every news string that hits the wires to be anti-gun? Or is it a function of the fact that umpteen-percent of the reporters who write about guns have no education, information, or background about firearms whatsoever?

I think it's more that they have no education, information, or background about anything. There's a phenomenon called the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. Briefly it states that you'll be reading a newspaper article, on a subject in which you are knowledgeable. You'll spot all the errors and misunderstandings and shake your head over the incompetence of the journalist and his editors. Then you'll turn the page, to articles about subjects in which you are not expert, the amnesia kicks in and you take them at face value - though there's no reason whatsoever to expect competence to have spontaneously emerged between the first article and the rest.

[Kythas]

I don't understand why any police officers would be against hollow-points.

Hollow-points are also much less likely to penetrate vests the police wear than FMJ due to their expanding and breaking on impact, thus making a JHP much less lethal to police than FMJ.

[Purplehood]

Police are as varied in temperament as the general population. In other words, some are dummies just like the Brady bunch.

[Excaliber]

An interesting bit of history is that many lead wadcutter bullets have a hollow base. Some years ago, it was fairly common for knowledgeable handloaders to load these bullets backwards with the base even with the front opening of the case. This put the hollow cavity in front, and - wa la - they had a decent hollowpoint. This was especially popular for use in snubby revolvers.

You don't hear about this much anymore with all the highly refined hollow point rounds available commercially, but I'm sure some folks are still using this simple and inexpensive approach.

The keith bullet is properly called a "semiwadcutter bullet" because it has a flat pointed tip ahead of a full cutting shoulder. NY City PD used this bullet configuration for many years because of their allergy to the sound of "hollowpoints."

[macavity]

-removed by user-

[VMI77]

The media continues to befuddle me. Yes, through acquisition and consolidation the big media outlets are owned by only a few corporations now. And yes, most of those corporations lean liltingly to the left.

But can they intentionally edit almost every news string that hits the wires to be anti-gun? Or is it a function of the fact that umpteen-percent of the reporters who write about guns have no education, information, or background about firearms whatsoever?

Not being a conspiracy theorist, I'll opt for Ockham's Razor, "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate": Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.

In general, it isn't conspiracy; it's ignorance.

It's been very rare that I've read an article in the MSM on a subject I know something about, when it is not full of errors, and sometimes those "errors" are egregious enough they should be considered deliberate, and therefore, lies. Sometimes they are stupid or innocuous errors but many times those "errors" conveniently service a liberal agenda (ask yourself how often such "errors" service a conservative agenda?). Many "errors" in the media don't require any specific subject knowledge because they are self-contradictory within the article itself, or are such obvious omissions that they can't possibly be accidental (the favored media lying technique is the lie of omission). Yes, there is a lot of ignorance, but I don't think you have to reach for "conspiracy" to explain the media anti-gun agenda, or any of their other agendas. You think reporters and editors needed secret meetings to decide to support Obama?

There is a multi-step conditioning and filtering process that produces so called "journalists." To want to be one in the first place you have to want a career that requires you to submit to liberal indoctrination in college and then to associate with a bunch of wacky liberals --and usually to live in liberal and ultra-liberal urban areas. I highly doubt journalism departments are filled with young conservatives. Being anti-gun/anti-self-defense/pro-criminal is a fundamental tenet of modern liberalism. When it comes to the fundamentals this crowd thinks alike so there is no need for any conspiracy. Most people who tune into Rush Limbaugh do so because they already think like him, just as the people who tune into Rachel Maddow think like her, and this is the same associative impulse that fills the ranks of "journalism" --plus some other rather unattractive psychological needs I don't want to spend the time to delve into.

Then let's look at the evidence. If the results were merely the product of ignorance they couldn't possibly be so uniform --not just anti-gun, but also anti-self-defense in nature. What is being attributed to their ignorance always supports the anti-gun and anti-self-defense agenda and that is evidence of bias. With the internet I think the ignorance supposition is unsustainable. You can bet they get lots of feedback when they make an "error," research and fact checking is easier that at any time in history, and yet the same "errors" get repeated over and over. You can see it in other choices they make too --besides which words they choose to use in newspaper and magazine articles. You see it in who they choose to interview on television and the questions they ask --and what they choose to report on, and what they don't.

"Conspiracy" is often a term used to choke off debate and prevent questions people don't want to answer from even being asked. It doesn't apply here because no organization or direction, no conspiracy, is required to explain the observable results.

[HankB]

. . . There's a phenomenon called the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. Briefly it states that you'll be reading a newspaper article, on a subject in which you are knowledgeable. You'll spot all the errors and misunderstandings and shake your head over the incompetence of the journalist and his editors. Then you'll turn the page, to articles about subjects in which you are not expert, the amnesia kicks in and you take them at face value - though there's no reason whatsoever to expect competence to have spontaneously emerged between the first article and the rest.

I never heard of the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect, but I came up with pretty much the same thing independently when I was taking a modern world history class in high school back in the '70s . . . much to the dismay of the teacher, who thought we should belive everything in newspapers.

An interesting bit of history is that many lead wadcutter bullets have a hollow base. Some years ago, it was fairly common for knowledgeable handloaders to load these bullets backwards with the base even with the front opening of the case. This put the hollow cavity in front, and - wa la - they had a decent hollowpoint. This was especially popular for use in snubby revolvers.

Did this a bit myself in the past . . . saw one used to administer the coup-de-grace to a wounded whitetail. And I know for a fact that some LEOs in and around the Chicago area used to use these loads. (I also found out that the brand of HBWC made quite a difference in accuracy, leading, and terminal performance.)