Between the FMJ round nose, high penetration with little “collateral” damage, and the expanding JHP - impressive wound channel, unreliable penetration, unreliable performance with barriers, there should be something that has the advantages of both, without the inconvenients...
This has been the holy grail of big game hunters, because they usually have one round to get the job done.
What is of interest to the handgun community are the bullets designed to stop large dangerous animals, because they need penetration, and quick lethality.
In recent years, a number of bullet makers and experimenters have come up with designs that actually work on living things in ways that were not well understood as recently as twenty years ago.
The most comprehensive study on the effects of bullet shape on terminal ballistics has been done by Michael McCourry of B & M Rifles. He spent years experimenting and accumulating data, and his results show that a big flat meplat creates a much larger wound channel than a round nose, while insuring straight penetration. Elmer Keith said so, Mike put the tape to it...
There is a veeeeery long thread on this topic here:
http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4711043/m/2861098911
It contains an invaluable trove of experiments, reports, datas, and field tests. These are not handgun bullets, but the principles apply.
Having personally tested several wide meplat designs, I can attest that they create wound channels far larger than round nosed bullets, while having much better and deeper penetration than expanding bullets, especially if there is bone in the way.
The picture below is the ENTRY wound, in the shoulder muscles, from a solid bullet. The bullet was a Woodleigh Hydro, not the one pictured with the wound (put there for scale). Yes, that hole was made by a bullet of same caliber as the one pictured, a non-expanding bullet.
Again, these are rifle bullets, but the principles apply.
Therefore, I’d be extremely interested in testing solid bullets like those from Lehigh Defense, and I expect that they would out-perform both round nose FMJ and expanding JHP in real life situation, i.e. they’ll provide deep penetration, large wound channels, good performance with barriers, and good performance when hitting bone.