[john l]

I read an article in the current SWAT mag. talking about breeching slugs being made of material that shatters and breaks locks and hinges at point blank ranges and then the slug basically disintegrates after that.

Why not use regular slugs on locks and hinges?

thanks,
john l

[KMKeller]

Because you don't know what's on the other side of the door...

[MarineTech]

Regular slugs can potentially penetrate the hinge or lock plate and then continue on to hit a hostage or innocent bystander. Say the officers are in an apartment building executing an early morning raid. To keep from alerting the suspect, the building has not been evacuated. The officer fires the slug into the top hinge of the door frame. The slug destroys the hinge, and then continues on upwards into the upstairs apartment and strikes little Sally as she sleeps peacefully in her bed. Not something terribly desirable for law enforcement.

Breeching rounds maintain enough integrity to destroy the hinge or lock plate and then disintegrate into harmless fragments.

[C.R.Sam]

And...
If door quality and angle are misjudged, a slug can come back at you or your partners, or the little ol lady across the street behind you.

Sam

[QuarterBoreGunner]

When I was still in the business, and running the LEO sales part of the gig, we sold breaching shotguns and ammunition from Royal Arms (http://www.royalarms.com). On all of their breachers they installed a breaching attachment on the end of the barrel that had a very aggresive serration on the muzzle and multiple ports in all directions (Check the site under 'tactical weapons' and you'll see what I mean). The idea being that the operator would place the muzzle in direct contact with the lock or door hinge and then fire off a round. The serrations aloud the muzzle to 'grab' the surface so that if the operator leaned into it, the muzzle would not slip around on the surface. The ports on the device were to allow the blast and debris from the round to exit without blowing off the end of the barrel.

The rounds themselves were either compressed copper dust, clay or some combo thereof. We also had some rounds that were from the UK that were compressed tungsten I believe. The round would impact and then turn to dust.