That the round lacks enough KE to penetrate after hitting bone is just your theory.
It's not my "theory" -- it's my concern. I feel no certainty either way. And it's my concern in part because it's the concern of someone who has studied literally tens of thousands of real-world shootings in calibers from .22 Short on up and who is widely regarded as a qualified expert in this area. He may not be able to evaluate this exact round, but he can draw reasonable inferences based on the performance of other low-energy non-hollow point rounds in different calibers.
And yes, he's not infallible, of course, but what exactly are your qualifications? After all, I can say, "That the round has enough KE for penetration through bone not to be a concern is just your theory." And I'm all ears for your theorizing if you have significant relevant training and experience that would lend it some credibility.
Again, I ask in real world terms how can this (or any .380) round be "proven" then?
All we have are gel data on any of them (sans bone).
Did you read the last post? Why do you think there isn't any data for anything? Again, there are tens of thousands of shootings in the U.S. every year, some proportion of which involve the very popular .380 round. Ayoob has studied a large number of shootings involving the .380 round, some number of which involve bonded hollow-point rounds.
My point is you are asking for something that is likely never gonna happen (and also not clearly defining what that is) and applying a double standard to this round, requiring some sort of "proof" or bone-penetrating proof, that you don't seem to require of the other .380 HPs...that penetrate less!
That penetrate less...
in gel, which is a fair approximation of
tissue, but which says nothing at all about bone. This is widely understood as one of the factors limiting the usefulness of ballistic gelatin in evaluating
weaker rounds.
If impressive performance in ballistic gel is all you require, then maybe you should look at some of the different pre-fragmented self-defense rounds. There have been a number of pre-fragmented self-defense rounds in different calibers that create very nasty looking "wounds" in ballistic gelatin and other media. Never mind that these rounds as a class have performed wholly inadequately in actual shootings.
There's also no "double standard" here. A double standard involves applying different rules to similar things. The fact that the Lehigh round generates barely more than half the KE of standard bonded hollow-point rounds -- and less KE than a large number of .32 ACP self-defense rounds -- meaningfully differentiates it from bonded hollow-point .380 rounds of standard mass and velocity. Asking of it some evidence that it will penetrate bone as reliably as these other rounds is not unreasonable or unfair.
My theory is it won't matter, they'll zip right through just fine.
Exactly! It's your
theory! And, like I said before, if you have significant relevant qualifications that lend you some credibility as a theoretician in this area, other than your gut feeling, I'm all ears.
This round penetrates way further than pretty much any 5.56 in gel and I bet through bone as well.
Again, its performance in gel does not speak to this particular issue. What you "bet" based on that particular kind of testing doesn't really matter.
KE (by itself) is way overrated.
But not irrelevant, and
especially not when we're getting down in the very low end of the KE scale -- as with a round that generates only 121 ft.-lbs. ME.
