Hollow Point Controversy

[JellyJar]

Stopping or killing a BG is not the only reasons for using hollow point ammo. Consider the recent shooting by the NYCPD in front of the Empire State building. (According to current reports ) Six of the sixteen rounds fired by the officers missed the BG and struck hard objects behind the BG. They did not ricochet like FMJ would probably do, instead they fragmented and the people hit by the fragments were not seriously injured. Had the bullets held together and ricocheted they could quite possibly have killed or seriously an innocent bystander, even one many blocks away. Bullet fragments are very much like small rounds of bird pellets, they don't travel very far and lose their velocity very quickly.

Also, way back in 1981 when Pope John Paul II was shot the assailant used FMJ 9mmP ammo. Several rounds went completely through the Pope striking people in his rear. That would be a very bad thing to happen in any self defense shooting by police or civilians. FMJ bullets, especially 9mmP, is known for through and through wounds in people.

To summarize, two good reasons to use good quality hollow point bullets that perform as advertised is to reduce the risk of innocents being killed or injured by ricocheting bullets or bullets that over penetrate the BG.

 

[918v]

Have you personally seen a 9mm break bones? I got that from the medical examiner that said that's the trend that he saw at the morgue. I personally don't know, so I can't say for sure, but it makes sense to me since the .45 weighs twice as much.

Do you understand physics?

Ate you suggesting a 9mm is too weak to break bones encountered in a human being's center of mass? You think a 9mm won't break a rib or a sternum?

Take a 9 and shoot a 2x4. See what happens. Because there is not one bone in a human being that even comes close to a 2x4 in terms of strength.

 

[hentown]

If the guy is in the hospital whatever round you used did its job, the objective is to disable the threat, death is just sometimes a side effect of being disabled.

We'll just have to disagree on this one. In my opinion, both society and I will be better off if the bad guy dies on the scene. The purpose of using deadly force is to use deadly force, not to wound.

 

[Skribs]

We'll just have to disagree on this one. In my opinion, both society and I will be better off if the bad guy dies on the scene. The purpose of using deadly force is to use deadly force, not to wound.

This kind of rhetoric isn't generally approved of here. You use force to stop the threat. Once the threat is stopped, there is no more justification for force. If you kill the threat while stopping it, then it's justified.

I will disagree with the comment that if someone is in the hospital, the round did it's job. You don't know whether he stopped immediately or if he stopped three minutes later based on the fact that he's in the hospital.

9mm goes through simulation bone material just fine, so I don't see it as a problem through real bones. Like I said, a 9 and .45 JHP are going to penetrate roughly the same, the biggest difference is the .45 is going to be slightly wider, which means slightly more likely to hit that vital organ.

 

[intercooler]

Wow. I'm just shocked these kinds of things are posted so much later in time 9mm vs .45, FMJ vs HP... Maybe it is just new people reading up and a light bulb goes off... I hope

 

[DrDeFab]

9mm JHP break bones? Well, if you like ancedotes, here's one for which I have personal knowledge:

In this incident, a 9mm 135gr Federal Hydra-Shok (PD9HS5H), fired from a 5.25" barrel, very close range, impacted the left palm and exited through the back of the left hand near the wrist.

Here's a hand diagram for reference on what follows:



The hamate, lunate, scaphoid, capitate and trapezoid bones were crushed. As in pack-of-saltines-in-your-soup crushed. An estimated 300+ fragments. While not directly impacted, the metacarpals of the index and middle fingers received compound fractures and the thumb metacarpal a simple fracture from the energy transfer.

Fortunately, the median nerve was (narrowly) missed, and only the branches leading to the thumb and index finger were damaged.

After two surgeries, the radial artery was repaired and all fingers were saved. The largest fragments of the hand bones were fused, and it was immobilized by pinning it to the radius via six screws and and an external framework of rods. After 18 months of recovery and rehab, around 90% function was recovered, with a reduced range of wrist motion and a sensation loss in the thumb and index finger the primary deficits. (This is a remarkable result, thanks to a brilliant hand surgeon.)

So, yeah, it will definitely break bones.

 

[coolluke01]

Going clear through a BG is a bad thing. You dont want to injure or kill anyone beyond your target.

This idea that the military uses FMJ makes it the best for SD is totally flawed. The military doesn't use HP because of the Geniva convention. They were considered inhumane. It's also better to wound your enemy since it takes more people to care for the wounded which takes them out of the fight.

You commen sence and logic is flawed I'm afraid. A quality 9mm HP is far superior to a FMJ .45. It's not even close.
A jagged HP will make a far more effective wound channel.

 

[Buzz9mm]

Well, it's good to know that it can break hands, but I was talking about the breast bone and ribs specifically. I don't know if I can see a 124gr bullet breaking a sternum either ... Regardless the 9mm has been around for a very long time and it's a great caliber. I'll still always have one, but I probably wont be carrying it as much as as a .40 or .45.

I still think that hollow points aren't worth it and everyone bought into this hype in the latter half of the 20th century. How many years have pistols worked effectively with just round balls of lead? How well does buckshot work in a shotgun? They're not hollow points and they seem to do just fine. I think that hollow points are safety bullets and I'm not looking for safety, I'm looking to stop the BG.

Would you rather have:

1) .70 caliber expanded 124gr 9mm hollow point that makes a nasty wound but doesn't make it to vitals.

2) .45 caliber 230gr FMJ that makes it to and through vitals and makes another hole for the BG to bleed out of.

I'll take number 2 every time. I don't have to worry about the special high tech bullet doing what I paid $1/bullet to do, I know it's going to leave a .45 caliber hole wherever I aim.

 

[BrainOnSigs]

Sounds like you need to skip the .45 ACP and go to 10mm...

 

[Skribs]

Going clear through a BG is a bad thing. You dont want to injure or kill anyone beyond your target.

Considering that most people miss more often than they hit, I'm more worried about the penetration of the bullets that miss than the ones that are slowed down by the BG. Also factor in that a load designed to penetrate at odd angles will overpenetrate on a straight shot...

 

[Bozwell]

How many years have pistols worked effectively with just round balls of lead? How well does buckshot work in a shotgun? They're not hollow points and they seem to do just fine. I think that hollow points are safety bullets and I'm not looking for safety, I'm looking to stop the BG.

Who says pistols DO work effectively with round balls of lead? Mortality rates (although not a clear evidence of "stopping power") are pretty high when it comes to people shot with handguns. In a military context, pistols are a last resort and are shot with FMJ because that's what we've bound ourselves to under the Hague convention. If a soldier has to resort to his pistol, rather than his rifle, something has gone wrong.

As another matter, buckshot has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. The ballistics of a .45acp round are not the same as a 12 gauge. A 5.56mm FMJ round will not have the same ballistics as a 9mm. Simplifying everything down to "the weight of the lead" and making faulty comparisons of "HP vs. FMJ" across platforms is just nonsense.

By all means, carry/use the gun you're comfortable with and ammo that feeds regularly. I'm not here to tell anyone that a particular caliber or brand is right/wrong. But trying to justify FMJ based on simplistic (and sometimes flat-out wrong) anecdotes and analogies is just silly.

 

[Skribs]

Bozwell, most soldiers aren't even issued pistols, because they have a carbine, which offers greater power, stability, and range.

We've already covered JHP vs. FMJ, but lets compare pistols to shotguns/rifles since it was brought up.

9mm hollowpoint will expand to roughly 0.6-0.65", give or take a twentieth of an inch. 00-buckshot out of a standard 12-gauge 2.75" shell is 9 pellets, 0.33" wide. So with a shotgun, you have 9 shots of 0.33" (much more likely they'll hit something vital), compared with a single 0.65" hit.
Rifles exceed (often greatly exceed) the velocity where cavitation trauma starts to create a larger permanent wound tract. That is why rifles, even with thinner bullets, create much more devastating wounds than pistols.

Ignoring the difference in wounding potential, a long gun is going to be more stable and more practically accurate than a handgun, barring personal inclinations towards a pistol (i.e. if you've trained 40 years with a handgun and barely touched a long gun).

So...back to the original point of "we've used FMJ rounds for a long time with great success"...yes, FMJ will work in most cases a JHP would, but it will fail in some places the JHP will succeed. Most civilians will not need barrier penetration, and armor penetration of a pistol-caliber FMJ round isn't going to be enough to warrant using FMJ over JHP for that scenario.

 

[Buzz9mm]

Who says pistols DO work effectively with round balls of lead? Mortality rates (although not a clear evidence of "stopping power") are pretty high when it comes to people shot with handguns. In a military context, pistols are a last resort and are shot with FMJ because that's what we've bound ourselves to under the Hague convention. If a soldier has to resort to his pistol, rather than his rifle, something has gone wrong.

As another matter, buckshot has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. The ballistics of a .45acp round are not the same as a 12 gauge. A 5.56mm FMJ round will not have the same ballistics as a 9mm. Simplifying everything down to "the weight of the lead" and making faulty comparisons of "HP vs. FMJ" across platforms is just nonsense.

By all means, carry/use the gun you're comfortable with and ammo that feeds regularly. I'm not here to tell anyone that a particular caliber or brand is right/wrong. But trying to justify FMJ based on simplistic (and sometimes flat-out wrong) anecdotes and analogies is just silly.

That video I was watching stated that roughly 6 out of 7 people survive being shot by a pistol.

I think the "Hague convention" is a pile of BS. What do the police do? Protect. What does the military do? Kill. Even so a .355 caliber bullet is still better than a .22 caliber bullet, etc. Since a .45 is almost a Desert Eagle, I'm not gunna get greedy. I'll just use ball ammo because almost half an inch is enough.

How do you know they're "flat out wrong?" Are you a medical examiner? I'm not so I can't say with certainty.

How are shotguns that much different? Buckshot is basically a full magazine of 9mm flying at you at once; nine .30 caliber bullets at 1300 fps. 12 gauges don't seem to have any lack of stopping power, maybe that's because they don't have penetration issues?

Also, since when do we need to "dump all of the energy into the target?" Again, just BS hype that people buy into. The "huge" amount of energy hitting the target is equal to the recoil of the pistol. You don't need to dump energy, you need to poke holes in something vital. A bb gun doesn't have much energy, but it can sure as hell kill someone if you shoot them in the eye.

 

[Bozwell]

Bozwell, most soldiers aren't even issued pistols, because they have a carbine, which offers greater power, stability, and range.

We've already covered JHP vs. FMJ, but lets compare pistols to shotguns/rifles since it was brought up.

9mm hollowpoint will expand to roughly 0.6-0.65", give or take a twentieth of an inch. 00-buckshot out of a standard 12-gauge 2.75" shell is 9 pellets, 0.33" wide. So with a shotgun, you have 9 shots of 0.33" (much more likely they'll hit something vital), compared with a single 0.65" hit.
Rifles exceed (often greatly exceed) the velocity where cavitation trauma starts to create a larger permanent wound tract. That is why rifles, even with thinner bullets, create much more devastating wounds than pistols.

Ignoring the difference in wounding potential, a long gun is going to be more stable and more practically accurate than a handgun, barring personal inclinations towards a pistol (i.e. if you've trained 40 years with a handgun and barely touched a long gun).

So...back to the original point of "we've used FMJ rounds for a long time with great success"...yes, FMJ will work in most cases a JHP would, but it will fail in some places the JHP will succeed. Most civilians will not need barrier penetration, and armor penetration of a pistol-caliber FMJ round isn't going to be enough to warrant using FMJ over JHP for that scenario.

I can't really figure out the point in your post, although I think we're in agreement. The poor analogy I spoke of was suggesting FMJ works for the military and for shotguns/rifles, so it's surely good enough for pistols. That is a poor analogy, as the ballistics of these platforms are very different. What holds true for one platform isn't necessarily true for the other, as the ballistics differ, and so suggesting otherwise by way of analogy is misleading.

I think the "Hague convention" is a pile of BS. What do the police do? Protect. What does the military do? Kill. Even so a .355 caliber bullet is still better than a .22 caliber bullet, etc. Since a .45 is almost a Desert Eagle, I'm not gunna get greedy. I'll just use ball ammo because almost half an inch is enough.

As for the Hague convention being "a pile of BS" and... nevermind, I give up. Shoot what you want, justify it however you want, and don't let logic get in your way. Obviously you're going to do that regardless.

 

[Skribs]

Bozwell, my only point to you was that the military doesn't even issue M9s unless the person is an MP or special. The rest was regarding the comment you quoted, which reinforces what you were saying (that shotguns, rifles, and handguns are all different animals).

 

[rcmodel]

I wonder how many live animals the OP has ever shot?

I'm here to tell you a FMJ bullet is pretty ineffective on any game animal.

Sure it will kill them eventually.
But you will have a very hard time tracking a blood trail that isn't there and recovering the meat.

For instance, a .45 ACP 230 FMJ-RN is almost useless on jackrabbits, or deer.
It shoots a ice-pick hole through them, and they kick it up another gear while running into the next county to eventually die.

JHP handgun ammo is known to be more effective, and safer due to a lack of over-penetration.

Thats why cops and all government agencys except the military use them.
And thats why knowledgeable civilians & hunters use them.

To try to argue otherwise is just foolishness.

rc

 

[Buzz9mm]

...but it will fail in some places the JHP will succeed...

What places?

Also, I know that the Hague convention is real, I'm just saying that I really don't think hollow points are that much deadlier than ball ammo. I think it's stupid to sacrifice penetration for possible expansion. Expansion is a plus, lack of penetration will get you killed.

 

[intercooler]

Why try to convince someone? Let them go with their decisions... it's their butts!

This is graphic but does explain many things and may be the best real video I have seen. Moderators can take it down if it is too much. IT IS GRAPHIC!
http://youtu.be/tku8YI68-JA

 

[rcmodel]

Expansion is a plus, lack of penetration will get you killed.

Then by your own admission, expansion is a plus.

But if a JHP fails to expand, it will penetrate just a far as a FMJ.

Why not take all the plus's you can get, when you can get it?

rc

 

[Certaindeaf]

I don't mean to seem mean but it seems that some people will go to no end to save a buck, no pun intended. Speaking of bucks, I'd not recommend hunting deer, or even a dog, with hardball in any pistol caliber.

 

[DrDeFab]

Well, it's good to know that it can break hands, but I was talking about the breast bone and ribs specifically.

The thickness of the human sternum is around 16-17mm. Ribs run around 12-14mm in diameter in the thicker parts. The bullet path through that wrist ran through five bones total (probably three in sequence) with the path through the bones totaling around 50-60mm. Remember, they were crushed into 300+ fragments before it exited.

Carry what you want, but I'm fine with 9mm HP or larger.

 

[TarDevil]

Why try to convince someone? Let them go with their decisions... it's their butts!

Not just theirs!!

 

[Skribs]

What places?

Also, I know that the Hague convention is real, I'm just saying that I really don't think hollow points are that much deadlier than ball ammo. I think it's stupid to sacrifice penetration for possible expansion. Expansion is a plus, lack of penetration will get you killed.

It will fail when the round misses the vital organ by a very small margin, that's pretty much it. If the 9mm unexpanded passes within about 0.25" of the heart, for example, the 9mm expanded would have at least nicked it. This is where the JHP would succeed but the FMJ would fail.

As for penetration, look at any quality ammo (i.e. not Hornady Critical Defense, they load light and fast to reduce recoil) and you'll see they meet or exceed the 12" minimum put forth by the FBI, for what you need in order to hit vital organs at odd angles. You'll also find, ironically, most JHP rounds will penetrate MORE on heavy clothing (but expand less) because they clog up, fail to expand as wide, and don't have as much surface area to slow down. I'm very confident that my JHPs will penetrate to the depth required to hit vital organs on an attacker unless said attacker is wearing body armor, and I don't think even FMJ would meet that.

 

[918v]

I still think that hollow points aren't worth it and everyone bought into this hype in the latter half of the 20th century. How many years have pistols worked effectively with just round balls of lead? How well does buckshot work in a shotgun? They're not hollow points and they seem to do just fine. I think that hollow points are safety bullets and I'm not looking for safety, I'm looking to stop the BG.

Ever heard of a 9mm failing to penetrate a sternum? I mean really?

2) .45 caliber 230gr FMJ that makes it to and through vitals and makes another hole for the BG to bleed out of.

Ever heard of a 9mm that expands to .55" and penetrates 16"+? Is 16" of human not enough for you?

 

[coolluke01]

Consider again the size of the target. A 18" chest and vitals can be effected a great deal from a object 1/36th the size of the chest. Assuming .50 projectile.

I shot a squirrel with my AR15 with 55gr FMJ. I hit him 3 times and he kept going. With a chest size of about 1.5 in that .223 round was about 1/6th the size of the target. HP .22 will take a squirrel down right now. In fact I just shot one not 5 mins ago with a .22 HP One shot COM and he fell out of the tree and never moved again.

Also keep in mind that the military used the 5.56 in many of their weapons. This round tumbles once inside. This acts very much like a HP and is more effective. Your .45 FMJ will make a clean hole not a ragged one. You choose and 20" long .45 ice pick or a 15" long .65 wide knife that someone twists inside you.
Yes a good 9mm will penetrate 15".

Carry a .45 if you want, but this FMJ stuff is ridiculous.