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I laughed when I saw this: http://www.ruger.com/micros/ammo/index.html?r=y

I thought, "Why didn't I think of this marketing gimmick?"

I wonder though, the market is making a push to go green with ammo, will others follow suit?

http://www.polycaseammo.com/advantages

So who owns the technology? Ruger?

Hmmm, polymer cases?

X-ray visible?
Reloadable?

One of the arguments as to why polymer guns aren't an airport issue is that the bullet(s) would still show up on an X-ray.

So would the polymer, just doesn't show up as well. I imagine copper impregnated polymer would show up more than just polymer. Then you are still dealing with barrel and other mechanisms. Not to mention it looks like the case is still brass. Though with the TSA failing to catch 95% of stuff when DHS tested them you could probably get a standard 1911 through. Then the guy at JFK I think it was that just walked through their border security, across landing strips, and up to the terminal. They didn't catch him, he went looking for help because his jetski broke. That kid that shipped himself in a container. Illusion of security.

That ammo tested pretty good in .380 and very good in 9mm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7_C6kNfjiA

Those actually don't look too bad for carry rounds, but I'm waiting for more testing and evidence before I would ever consider carrying a polymer bullet.

The ballistic gel tests look very promising, but I'm interested to see how they would do through barriers and actual human tissue.

Beiruty wrote:So who owns the technology? Ruger?

I'm pretty sure Ruger is co-branding for marketing purposes. That or they may own Polycase, but I'm not sure.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/1 ... dgun-ammo/

From the article says they are licensing the bullet.

That overpenetration bothers me. I'll stick with hollow points. Now, for black bears in .45... sure, why not.

AJSully421 wrote:That overpenetration bothers me. I'll stick with hollow points. Now, for black bears in .45... sure, why not.

What overpenetration?

Pawpaw wrote:

AJSully421 wrote:That overpenetration bothers me. I'll stick with hollow points. Now, for black bears in .45... sure, why not.

What overpenetration?

Nevermind, I was looking at that other video that he mentioned about the Lehigh extreme penetration stuff made of lead/copper, not the polymer stuff that we are talking about here.

That other stuff was penetrating 19" of gel, then 5 water jugs. Give me some of that on my next Zion NP hike.

AndyC wrote:The gel results look fine-ish (other than veering off-course), but I would like to see what happens after it hits bone - rib-cages, skulls, etc.

My main issue, however, is with all this 'energy-dump' nonsense they keep spewing in their marketing materials:

Uniquely engineered for maximum hydraulic displacement and terminal energy transfer to targets, the non-expanding PolyCase ARX® bullet transfers energy to target through a fluid dynamic energy transfer process.........ensuring that the bullet is dumping the most energy into the target..... Because the design does not rely on expansion to transfer terminal energy, the ARX® also avoids problems....

I want to know about its physical contact wounding mechanism, not pseudo-science. If a bullet is quote 'Dumping Energy', all that means to me is that it's slowed down - but they make it sound like it's sending out a death-pulse simply because it slowed. Total nonsense - meh

I agree/

I am not running out to buy 1,000 rounds of the latest magic bullet de jour, although I'm always interested in engineering innovations. Some of them, but not all, are actually advances. In the case of bullets, these are usually incremental rather than dramatic because a lot of really smart people have been trying to improve them for a very long time. Here are a couple of observations on the ARX claims:

A conventional bullet that doesn't over penetrate dumps all its energy into the target too. The higher energy dump figures for the ARX are derived from the round's higher speed which is possible because of its lower weight. Higher speed in rifle bullets translates into greater wounding. At pistol round speeds, I haven't seen anything that convinces me that higher speed makes much wounding difference with modern hollow points as long as adequate penetration is achieved. In the past, higher speed translated into much more reliable expansion which was a consideration, but bullet manufacturers have made major advances to increase expansion reliability at normal velocities.

A conventional bullet that doesn't expand also dumps its energy into the target up to the point of over penetration if that occurs. Expansion creates a wider wound cavity (which increases wounding) and increases resistance which slows the round more quickly and reduces the chance of over penetration.

Energy that does not go into physical contact wounding generally goes into creating the temporary cavity that snaps back to original shape immediately after the projectile passes and is not a significant contributor to wounding at pistol velocities.

I too am waiting to see barrier test results for the new round, and I'm especially interested to see the results of actual encounters on the street. Unless I see something dramatic, I'll be sticking with jacketed lead or copper projectiles for the foreseeable future.

with Excalibur.

In the original article about the polymer bullets (and, I forget where I read it - I'll try to find the magazine), it was mentioned up front that one of the reasons for the creation of the bullet was the need for un-reloadable cartridges in certain applications, say where you don't want the bad guys to be able to reload your cases. That struck me as an odd circumstance, but then again...

I'll defer to you guys that were in the latest kerfluffle - in Vietnam, the VC and NVA seemed to be well supplied by the Chinese and Russians. Where do the Taliban, ISIL, and all of the other bad guys in the sandbox get their ammo. Are they reloading allied stuff (with so many AK's being used on both sides, I wouldn't doubt it) once-used brass, or being resupplied by various nation-states?

http://www.americanrifleman.org/article ... rx-bullet/

Not barrier results, but does show a couple of rounds that were fired into a vest. Thought those interested in barrier results would at least find it interesting if not really any more informative.