westernrover
Member
- Joined
- May 4, 2018
- Messages
- 1,613
I know Lehigh handgun bullets have been discussed previously. With Bill Wilson's purchase of Lehigh, more hype is coming out about them and I'm still trying to figure them out.
Let me state up front that I've use copper monolithics (not Lehigh yet) for hunting, and I have no doubts about the performance of this type of bullet and I believe Lehigh has some outstanding expanding and fracturing rifle bullets available for various types of game. Non-expanding handgun bullets are different, and testing them for defensive purposes is not the same as or nearly as practical as hunting.
The most widely accepted defensive handgun bullet performance standard is based on expanding hollowpoints. The Xtreme Defense bullets would likely meet the penetration standard, but they don't expand. Relieving ourselves of the necessity to make a bullet both expand and penetrate is appealing if it can be done with comparable effectiveness, but nobody would just suppose ball ammo would perform as well as hollowpoints.
In the second video, we see plywood stopping hollowpoint expansion. Fair enough. A lot of things can cause hollowpoints to fail to expand. The Xtreme Defense bullet doesn't expand either. So it seems to be just as bad as an unexpanded hollowpoint, except that it doesn't over-penetrate. Wouldn't a wimp-weight 90 grain ball round also penetrate less than a 124 grain +P hollowpoint that is prevented from expanding?
What is the evidence that the supposed hydraulic effect of the flutes on these bullets add anything to terminal effectiveness? The second video above shows none and the demonstrator in the video even notes that the effect on the gel block is about the same.
This last video attempts to demonstrate the effect of the flutes. What it shows is the fluted bullet being slowed and stopped within a 20" gel block, and the non-fluted bullet of equivalent weight, design, and parameters penetrating more than 40" of gel and exiting.
The flutes apparently limit penetration. Do the fluted bullets wound more than another bullet design that penetrates an equal depth? What about a wadcutter that we loaded to a low enough velocity to achieve equal penetration? The Xtreme Defense demonstrator talked about "energy transfer." A lower velocity wadcutter would transfer less energy. Is energy transfer a meaningful theory of wound ballistics?
If the wound channel is primarily a function of meplat diameter with velocity adding a small amount, wouldn't an expanded hollowpoint have a larger wound channel? And if it failed to expand due to a barrier, wouldn't it still wound at least as well as an Xtreme bullet?
Let me state up front that I've use copper monolithics (not Lehigh yet) for hunting, and I have no doubts about the performance of this type of bullet and I believe Lehigh has some outstanding expanding and fracturing rifle bullets available for various types of game. Non-expanding handgun bullets are different, and testing them for defensive purposes is not the same as or nearly as practical as hunting.
The most widely accepted defensive handgun bullet performance standard is based on expanding hollowpoints. The Xtreme Defense bullets would likely meet the penetration standard, but they don't expand. Relieving ourselves of the necessity to make a bullet both expand and penetrate is appealing if it can be done with comparable effectiveness, but nobody would just suppose ball ammo would perform as well as hollowpoints.
In the second video, we see plywood stopping hollowpoint expansion. Fair enough. A lot of things can cause hollowpoints to fail to expand. The Xtreme Defense bullet doesn't expand either. So it seems to be just as bad as an unexpanded hollowpoint, except that it doesn't over-penetrate. Wouldn't a wimp-weight 90 grain ball round also penetrate less than a 124 grain +P hollowpoint that is prevented from expanding?
What is the evidence that the supposed hydraulic effect of the flutes on these bullets add anything to terminal effectiveness? The second video above shows none and the demonstrator in the video even notes that the effect on the gel block is about the same.
This last video attempts to demonstrate the effect of the flutes. What it shows is the fluted bullet being slowed and stopped within a 20" gel block, and the non-fluted bullet of equivalent weight, design, and parameters penetrating more than 40" of gel and exiting.
The flutes apparently limit penetration. Do the fluted bullets wound more than another bullet design that penetrates an equal depth? What about a wadcutter that we loaded to a low enough velocity to achieve equal penetration? The Xtreme Defense demonstrator talked about "energy transfer." A lower velocity wadcutter would transfer less energy. Is energy transfer a meaningful theory of wound ballistics?
If the wound channel is primarily a function of meplat diameter with velocity adding a small amount, wouldn't an expanded hollowpoint have a larger wound channel? And if it failed to expand due to a barrier, wouldn't it still wound at least as well as an Xtreme bullet?