...to make the cavity you will have to remove metal and that will change the weight.
It's understood that I will be decresing the weight some by removing the center of the tip of the JSP rounds, but it's not enough weight to matter IMO. The JSP's weigh 125 grains. At the end of this process, at most, I'm probably removing 1-2 grains of weight, and simply redistributing the rest of the bullet weight - not removing it. Not very much IMO, but I do understand that a very tiny amount of weight will be removed. That's okay for what I'm doing. The most that comes out of these is a few shavings of lead the size of a grain of sand. I also chose JSP rounds to do this with because they expand anyway... Might as well see if adding a hollow point type cavity will add to the performance of the round, IMO. I'm not turning 125's into 110's though. There is VERY little lead actually being removed. Ideally, there's virtually none.
The JHP's I'm working with, I doubt I am removing more than a single grain of weight, if any. I'm simply re-shaping the existing cavity. Besides, the JHP's I have are 158gr. weight. I don't know if a 1 grain loss on a reshaped cavity is going to be detrimental to performance. I plan on testing these rounds in wet phonebooks to see if they work in the same way as a name-brand JHP round. One poster said there's more to making a bullet expand than cutting a cavity in the tip of a round. I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out through experimenting.
Looks are not exactly an aspect of a cartridge that really matters is it?
As for the looks of the rounds, I refer to looks as a testament to how I think they will function. I was wondering when someone was going to ask me that.
Nah, I really don't care how they look flying through the air, as you are correct... I won't see them anyway. But - when I compare the rounds I've made to some of the JHP rounds I already have here for PD, these look as if they would function just as well, if not better.
Because of the information I've been given here, I don't think I'm brave or knowledgeable enough to experiment with true FMJ hangun rounds, nor do I have tools that I think would work well for that.
And for the last time, I am NOT making these out of necessity, or to save a few bucks. Gee whiz! Don't any of you people ever do anything for fun?!
Don't you ever think,
"Hey... maybe I can do this just as well as the pro's!" ?
My guns are my absolute favorite posessions. I wouldn't experiment w/ anything that I considered dangerous to their function - I'm not experimenting with Federal Hydrashok's, or Speer Gold Dots, or serious quality rounds that I think I can improve on. These are just crappy soft-point and hollowpoint, $9 for a 50-box rounds that I bought for target shooting, and simply haven't had the chance to shoot yet.
I keep quality, name brand JHP's for all of my guns. This is simply for fun, and to answer a question I have. I will compare these home-made hollowpoint rounds to name brand hollow point rounds of a similar design, and see if mine work like regular JHP's. The idea is to use these in comparison with premium JHP ammo, then take some pics, and show the good folks here the results when my little experiment is done.
No one ever learned or improved anything by leaving it all to the pro's, you know
Edit: You know what? Now that I think about it, you guys should be thanking me! LOL!
You wouldn't even have your precious store-bought premiuim ammo if some crazy bastard, somewhere, didn't dig a hole in the end of a bullet and experiment... I wonder how many people told him that was a stupid idea