Post by Jäger on Jun 12, 2017 12:27:05 GMT -5
Well said Chuck, what I find interesting is the ammo tech in bullet design recent years and the move toward hydrostatic (I think that is the right term) tech. Example the underwood defender, penetration and retention of a fmj but creating a massive wound channel, or the DRT going through bone/muscle but basically exploding when hitting the soft stuff.
Doesn't happen; never has, still doesn't. At least one of the SMEs who is willing to go outside his paid work and discuss terminal ballistics in public has invited them to come demonstrate their stuff in a controlled lab - which is about as close as it gets to lining up people as test subjects. So far, none have taken him up on it. FWIW, OIS, autopsy, and medical reports show that most recovered bullets from unwilling test subjects show bullets that bear a remarkably identical appearance to the 4LD testing format. Which would make sense, as probably very few of these people were shot in scenarios similar to other testing formats i.e. through auto sheet metal, through wallboard, through auto glass.
I won't repeat the analytical tear down of the Leland, ARX, etc designs - they can be easily found on the web, complete with all the surrounding minutia and discussion about it. One thing is for sure - very few businesses ever suffered from offering potential customers "more", in this case whether more velocity or whatever. As far as I'm aware, the only situation with defensive handguns where mo' = better, is when you're using heavy non-expanding WFN hard cast bullets for big critter defense. The rest is just promises of unicorn eggs e.g. from ARX: "A 9mm ARX® bullet traveling at 1,500 fps will result in fluid flowing through the ARX® flutes at nearly 3,000 fps, resulting in a wound cavity in soft tissue that has been compared by some to be similar to that of a .223 75 gr BTHP." And to quote Dr. Gary Roberts (that would be Dr. Fackler's partner in terminal ballistics research and testing) response: "This is ABSURD."
The other approach is to take existing designs like Gold Dots and other law enforcement designed service bullets and load them to maximum velocities - the Underwood/Double Tap marketing plan. Once again, 'mo = better, supposedly. However, if you look at all the police service ammunition on the market today, aside from the 357 Sig, pretty much all of it across the calibers is loaded to somewhere around 980 fps to about 1200 fps. So... are the OEM manufacturers incapable of loading their ammunition any faster than that, unlike the boutique manufacturers who use their bullets when they can get their hands on them? Or perhaps after spending a few million dollars in development and testing, they determined that was the optimal velocity envelope for reliable, consistent terminal ballistics performance. You don't get something for nothing - increase velocity and you increase expansion by some amount while decreasing penetration by some amount. Along with increased muzzle blast, recoil, etc. of course...
In my opinion, this too shall pass, regardless of who they find to shill for them. To be replaced by The Next Great Thing, I should hasten to add. I don't know what The Next Great Thing in defensive ammunition will be, but I do know that some enterprising spirit will think of something.
Somewhere around here I have a partially used box of one of the first of the wonder ammunition breed - the nuclear Glaser Safety Slug. And I have the copy of American Handgunner from back then, where Massad Ayoob was telling all of us coppers about the incredible lethality/stopping power of this round. Stories of scrots stopped in their tracks, simply by firing a bullet into the pavement near their feet, with the ricocheting lead shot putting an end to their evil intent. So I bought a box like so many others and headed out feeling much more invincible than I had before. However, I was posted in a place where a lot of deer got smacked by vehicles and it was our crappy job to go kill them to end the suffering. I only had to shoot one or two deer broadside in the ribcage to quickly find out that the Glaser Safety Slug was not the nuclear Scrot Stopper it was being sold as. Police departments who were sold on it dropped it almost as fast - this was all before the current testing regimes and protocols existed, but there were still OIS, autopsy, and medical reports in those days.
Fast forward 35 years or so, we currently have Patrick Sweeney lauding the return of Super Vel ammunition in a G&A article, while sneering at the testing/analysis regimes used by law enforcement and military agencies today. 'Mo = better. I suspect he was a pretty hot IPSC competitor, a better than average gunsmith, and a pretty good wordsmith. But what he isn't, is somebody who reviews, participates in, interviews etc more OIS reports, medical examiner reports, trauma ward recovered bullets and reports in one week than the average internet commando watches CSI Miami episodes in a year. It's just part of writers like Sweeney doing what they have to do in order to churn out articles and keep the paycheques coming in - like Massad Ayoob over 30 years ago with Glasers.
Not just regarding ammunition. For example, a few years ago Sweeny wrote an article about how he was trying to do an article on what it took to destroy a HP. He dragged it around with him, along with a heavy diet of +P ammunition, and invited all and sundry to shoot the hell out of it. Don Williams at The Other HP Forum posted that he talked to Sweeny at the SHOT Show or somewhere similar about it, and Sweeny told him he was at over 30,000 rounds and the HP was still boringly reliable with nothing done to it other than cleaning. Fast forward to last year when Nighthawk released their new and improved High Power. Sweeney reviewed it, and said Nighthawk had worked hard to eliminate all the reliability problems with the HP and had done a good job of doing that. Huh?
In short, a lot of what is being sold is marketing, not improved terminal ballistic performance. However, we each must follow our own muse, and for those who believe exotic designs, the same bullets at much higher velocities, etc actually does improve performance, there are lots of companies that will offer you a solution that identifies with that belief: Super Vel, Underwood, Double Tap, etc.
I went to one of ATK's ballistics seminars and I've seen and read all the data provided when the last ammunition review was done for our Close Protection Teams. I've saw nothing to make me buy into the boutique ammunition claims, and equally as importantly, I haven't seen any of them even try to win any government/agency contracts for their obviously superior ammo. Apparently they have no interest in getting a cut of the millions of taxpayer dollars these agencies spend on stuff like ammo.
So... Federal standard pressure 147 gr HST goes in the High Power, Barnes 115 gr TAC-XP goes in the Shield. Both have a proven track record both under testing and in OIS incidents. I wouldn't lose any sleep if I was told I had to use standard pressure Gold Dots of any weight. Or Golden Saber. Or Ranger-T. Proven works for me.