Every year we see several new “advances” in ammunition. These new products are invariably hailed by their makers as revolutionary. Sometimes the whole company is new. They promise something with ammunition that has never been done but they rarely deliver. You see, ammunition is a mature field. There are occasionally incremental advances in metallurgy or propellants, like the use of bonded bullets and low flash powders that began more than a quarter century ago, but more often, these “advances” provide no actual performance advantage.
Often, the claimed advance amounts to absolute snake oil such as the ARX Inceptor. The bullet is powdered copper in a polymer matrix. It supposedly takes advantage of some hydraulic alchemy to create wounds similar to those created by a rifle. That is not hyperbole, the manufacturer actually claims that pistol ammunition is capable of producing rifle-like wounds. In reality, it functions like a FMJ, at least when it doesn’t fragment.
