Oyeboten - There are 2 French THV (Tres Haute Vittesse) cartridges in the photos, one is a .38spl in the multi-caliber box and is an original SFM load (not a South African, Iraqi, or otherwise copied version - there were a few), and the second is the 9mm from the 9mm oddball box. It might look like there are 2 in the 9mm box, but actually the lower one is a SFM load, and the one directly above it is a totally unrelated project from modern-day Slovakia and made by PS (Povazske Strojarne). It is a solid brass penetrator load which no doubt is inspired by the THV. This Slovakian load is experimental and even less common than the THV. The great thing about the THV projectile is that not only did it have enhanced penetration ability to penetrate body armor, vehicle bodies, and walls, it created an enhanced wound channel due to cavitation caused by its unique ogive & hollow base. The THV was actually the second major attempt at an enhanced penetrator load by inventor Andre Antoine, who had initially invented a load called the ALIA which was a pointed aluminum projectile with a pointed solid-steel core penetrator. This load is very rare as it was experimental only and it failed early on due to high cost and the fact that it essentially penetrated too well, as in, too dangerously for most police & government needs. It also didn't cause wounds as well as the THV.
Brian040 - How much time have you got, pull up a chair......
Explaining the legal stuff can get a little complicated, but once you get your brain around all the basics it's easy to understand the underlying do's & don'ts. (What I am about to post is very correct and well-researched, it comes after several years of researching and watching other people on the internet try to answer the question of pistol-caliber AP legality - mostly poor answers were given)
The first thing to explain is the federal law which is laid out in 18 U.S.C. chapter 44 §921 §922 §923 and §929a. Understand first that this law was developed from 1982 to 1985 and was born out of lies, fear & a full blown conspiracy involving NBC, a phony California police agency, and more than one US Congressman! It's a fascinating story that would take too long to explain here, but which is in my book on pistol-caliber AP ammo. Anyway, in so many words the federal law says that it is illegal to "commercially manufacture", or "commercially import" pistol-caliber armor piercing ammunition. It also says that it is illegal for a licensed FFL dealer to sell such ammunition to anyone other than law enforcement or government agency.
Those are the basic restrictions which the law lays out, and this was meant to essentially limit the mass-quantity amounts of available cartridges of this type to the general public (not that there ever really were any). The original wording of the law as championed by the likes of Ted Kennedy was far more harsh and gave the treasury department (BATF) wide-ranging powers to restrict, but the Republicans with the help of the NRA did succeed in dumbing down the law into being almost irrelevant as far as collectors are concerned. First off, the term "armor piercing" in so far as pistol calibers, means any projectile that can be fielded in a pistol. Only the projectiles are what is being referred to, not complete cartridges, and the projectiles had to be either solid monolithic metal of a hardened sort like steel, beryllium copper or hardened brass, or else had to contain a solid core with nothing more than a "trace amount" of other soft metal. There was an addition to the definition which came about around 1994 due to senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) having a cow about the potential of the Swedish M/39B to wreak havoc on the streets (a psychotic anti-gun radical notion). This addition to the definition says that any FMJ projectile which has a jacket that comprises more than 25% of the projectile's total weight is included, and this was done specifically to deal with the M/39B's construction, forget the fact that the M/39B had been around for over 30 years at that point, and the public never knew until D.P.M. made a huge deal out of it.....
Anyways, one must remember that the federal law only applies to manufacture, importation, or sale by a dealer to civilians, and so possession of existing stocks was not restricted at all. In fact, one could import or manufacture pistol caliber AP ammo to this day as long as they do not exceed "commercial" limits. The same legal section defines commercial manufacture or importation as:
"a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to manufacturing or importing ammunition as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale or distribution of the ammunition manufactured or imported".
So this will not include collectors or basement tinkerers, and oddly enough, it will not include gang members who try to make their own projectiles for personal use as long as they don't sell them for profit on a regular basis (Don't worry there really aren't any to speak of).
The federal law also spells out that committing a capital crime such as murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, etc... and using pistol caliber AP ammo in any of these endeavors is illegal and will entail enhanced punishments, but this is kind of obvious & irrelevant.
Moving right along, after getting past the essentially toothless federal law which basically means you can't buy the ammo from dealers (irrelevant today with the advent of the internet and such things as Gunbroker.com) one must consider the many state laws, again, most of which are irrelevant. Know that, first of all, there are 36 states with no laws affecting possession or sale whatsoever, so most of use are safe.
The following states have laws which totally restrict the possession of pistol caliber AP ammo: CA, IL, TX, and Washington D.C.. Those are all pretty obvious except for Texas, and I am told that although the law is on the books, it is basically ignored and enforced only in the case of other felonious use, which is basically never. I'm sure CA, IL, & D.C. go nuts on people with ammo in any case as they usually do...
The following states have near bans on pistol AP ammo: KY, NJ, RI, and FL. I say near-bans because these states' laws sort of have an ex-post-facto clause meaning that anyone who possessed the ammo before the laws went into effect can still own it. This is because these state's laws only restrict purchase, sale, transfer, or discharge, but not necessarily possession. So this means that anyone who owned the ammo before the law went into effect can continue to own it, but since inheritance and any other transaction would be a "transfer", they must either take it to their grave, take it out of state, or just violate the law. I should also point out that the laws in RI & FL apply only to "truncated" or pointed projectiles, and not round-nose or non-truncated projectiles. This is such because the lawmakers were only really aware of, and considering KTW ammo at the time, which is what the whole scandal was about originally, and which has led to a legacy of misused terms and ideas in movies about "Teflon bullets".
Anyway, next on the list are states which restrict possession or sale of Teflon-coated projectiles only, they are: AL, HI, IN, KS, NC, SC, and OK. These states have laws about Teflon-coated ammo (basically just means KTW) but not other non-Teflon AP loads. So if you want to load up some German surplus steel core 9mm - go for it I guess - no Teflon there.... Not to mention that only the early KTW loads had true Teflon-coated projectiles, and after the original owner Dr Kopsch sold the company to North American Ordnance, they started using cheaper green
Nylon stuff to coat the bullets, so as to keep up appearances, and not much else. Politicians didn't know or care about this fact when writing the laws.
There are 2 states with oddball laws about pistol-caliber AP ammo, and that is that Nevada has a law against selling only, but not possession or other transfer, and in Louisiana you must obtain a permit from the State Police to own such ammo (I have it on good authority that the Louisiana state police aren't even aware of this stipulation)...
There are a spattering of other states which have pseudo-laws regarding this ammo, that is, laws which sound as if to make the cartridges restricted to possess, but which in fact apply only to applying enhanced penalties to criminals who use such ammo during the course of other felonious crimes.
It should be pointed out that all of these state laws and the federal law are totally and completely trumped by the fact that anyone with an FFL 10 or FFL 11 license can still own the ammo in restricted states, and can commercially import & manufacture such ammo. Law enforcement, approved body armor testing & other forensic labs, as well as federal agents also get a pass in all states.
Also, one should know that some of the state laws, as well as the federal law with regard to a projectile having a "core made entirely of a hardened metal" does not apply to projectiles which have only a partial hardened core in the tip, such as the popular 5.7x28 SS190 load which has a steel inner tip, but an aluminum lower internal half.
That is essentially it, as far as laws go, and there are many more little factoids, but that stuff is in my book (currently working on getting the next version out - 260 pages with 60 full color photo pages).
The map below helps to visualize state laws:
PS. - The 7.62x39 and 7.62x51 AP loads were ridiculously added to the pistol AP federal law in around 1994, and many people wonder about this, so I'll just include the whole page from my book which explains this:
Question:
Why is 7.62x39mm and .308 steel core ammunition on the
BATF ban list of AP pistol-caliber ammo!?
Answer:
The short answer is that many of the BATFE high-up executives from the late eighties through the late nineties were a bunch of incompetent asses who had political motivations and/or were brown-nosing hacks. The long answer is that on February 2nd 1994, there was issued an ATF encyclical placing 35 importers of "7.62 X 39mm steel core ammunition" and all Federal Firearms Licensees on immediate notice that those rounds were now considered "armor piercing." Quoting ATF Director, John W. Magaw, as stating: "These bullets are designed, when used in handguns, to pose a life-threatening risk to all law enforcement officers," the notification stated: Recent production of handguns that are designed to fire 7.62x39mm steel core ammunition has resulted in the reclassification of that ammunition as armor piercing (which) can only be sold by dealers to law enforcement or governmental agencies. Prior to introduction of these handguns in the marketplace, 7.62 X 39mm ammunition was not considered armor piercing, because it was only used in rifles -- primarily SKS/AK rifles. The reason this ban came about was because of Olympic Arm's OA-93 model "pistol" (which was just a short barrel, stockless AR15), became available in 7.62x39 in late 1993 / early 1994. At this point, and even today after many years of sales later, the OA-93 and other 7.62x39 "pistols" probably only account for about .001 percent of all 7.62x39 chambered weapons, since well over 99.9% of all guns in this caliber are rifles which are either AK's, SKS's, Ruger mini-30's or otherwise similar clones of these. So yes, even though the OA-93 pistol makes up virtually no percentage of the market for this caliber, and even though there are probably just as many Thompson Center
Contender model "pistols" chambered in 30-06 or .223 which are not on the ban list, the ATF arbitrarily decided to restrict 7.62x39mm steel core ammo anyway. The ATF bureaucrat in charge of this debacle was Terry L. Cates, a politically and promotion-minded hack. The same thing, and for the same stupid reasons, basically happened to .308 AP ammunition because of Vector arms pistols in .308 caliber. Of course this only affects dealers being able to sell or import, and manufacturers being able to produce. The federal law does nothing to prevent civilians from being able to buy, sell, trade, or possess the vast remaining quantities of surplus steel core 7.62x39 ammo which remains in the U.S. today.
I should point out, that although I am mentioning some of the foibles of the BATF, I have nothing against ATF agents, I just have a problem with some of the executive figures from the past who were politically appointed liberal hacks who screwed everything up.
Speaking of the BATFE, they maintain a list of pistol-caliber AP ammo types in their Federal Firearms Regulation Reference Guide so that people can have a template of what is being talked about in 18 USC chapter 44 §921, etc.. and it reads like this:
KTW AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a green coating on the projectile)
ARCANE AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a pointed bronze or brass projectile)
THV AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a narrow / pointed brass or bronze projectile and having a headstamp containing the letters SFM and THV)
CZECHOSLOVAKIAN manufactured 9mm Parabellum (Luger) ammunition having an iron or steel core. (Identified by a cupronickel jacket and headstamp containing a triangle, star and dates 49, 50, 51, or 52. The bullet is attracted to a magnet)
GERMAN manufactured 9mm Parabellum (Luger) having an iron or steel bullet core. (Original packaging is marked Pisolenpatronen 08 m.E. May have black colored bullet. This bullet is attracted to a magnet)
PPS BRAND "MSC" AMMUNITION, Caliber .25ACP. brass bullet. (NOTE: MSC ammunition Caliber .25 identified by a hollow point copper bullet is not armor piercing)
“BLACK STEEL” 'ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION, All Calibers, as produced by National Cartridge, Atlanta, Georgia.
“BLACK STEEL” METAL PIERCING AMMUNITION, All Calibers, as produced by National Cartridge, Atlanta, Georgia.
7.62mm NATO AP (Identified by black coloring in the bullet tip. This ammunition is used by various NATO countries. The U.S. military designation is M61 AP)
7.62mm NATO SLAP (identified by projectile having a plastic sabot around a hard penetrator. The penetrator protrudes above the sabot and is similar in appearance to a Remington accelerator cartridge)
PMC ULTRAMAG .38 Special caliber, constructed entirely of a brass type material, and plastic pusher disc located at the base of the projectile. NOTE: PMC ULTRAMAG 38J late production made of copper with lead alloy projectile is not armor piercing.
OMNISHOCK, a .38spl / .357mag cartridge with a lead bullet containing a mild steel core with a flattened head resembling a wad cutter, and usually with a red nose cone. (NOTE: OMNISHOCK cartridges having a bullet with an aluminum core are not armor piercing.)
7.62x39mm with steel core. (NOTE: these projectiles have a steel core. Projectiles having a lead core with steel jacket or steel case are not armor piercing)
NOTE: THE FOLLOWING CARTRIDGES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE
DEFINITION OF ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION:
5.56MM (.223) SS109 and M855 Ammunition, Identified by a green coating on the projectile tip (for U.S. made bullets).
U.S. .30-06 M2 AP, Identified by a black coating on the projectile tip.
The above list is very incomplete, and is just a rough list of examples as provided by the BATF. A few things should not be on it at all, and several others should - oh well.
M-Cameron - you ask about the value. It's so hard to say, you can see price variations all over the place at cartridge shows from table to table, or weird prices at online auctions. Some rare cartridges are just given to me by friendly collectors, like the rare Slovakian 9mm load that looks like a THV - free to me, but it might sell for $25 to $40 - who knows? I know that my whole collection has a few thousand dollars tied up in it anyway.
