why wont these XTP's expand?

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1858rem

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well they dont expand!

i loaded 20 with 8.2g AA#5 and std primer, i did not chrono the load yet but i thought for sure these would easily expand if shot through a milk jug!

this sucks, anyone else have this problem?

shot out of a 5" 1911 so i should be in the 800+fps zone with these(230grain)

i was hoping for a nice mushroom, they still look cool unexpanded but this is not cool:fire:. if i wanted paper punchers id shoot my 200g LSWC at 8 cents a round, not these at like 36 cents each!
 
I really don't know but my guess would be that water is not a dence enough substance to open them up. Try layers of wet newspaper and see what you get. Wait long enough and someone will give you the right answer. LM
 
i fired 4 rounds at 3 jugs, i missed one....at 50 feet:eek:!
i guess i kinda flinched on the first one since i thought 8.2g AA#5 was a kinda hot load. it was not a heavy load really, POI is way different than my light 200g LSWC and bullseye loads.

i think i recovered the miss, it did hit moist dirt though. i know one that hit a milkjug went into a log behind it so ill dig that out tomorrow, but i still dont think it worked the way it should, is there a minimum velocity?
 
I fire mine into a 55 gallon drum of water.

No need for those pesky jugs, once I'm done, I just dump the water out and magically in the bottom are all of my perfectly expanded bullets:neener:
 
Water isn't dense enough to properly test a JHP, and certainly not in a single milk jug's depth.

Try a stack of wet phone books, or a big ol' chuck roast from the Cash N Carry. ;)

If you get an XTP up to at least 800 FPS, it should expand just fine. I'd wager that your target medium is the issue, not the bullets.

EDIT: I think I may have said this to you already in another thread. If so, sorry for the duplicate, but the advice still stands. :D
 
i think my COL was too long also(1.255) leading to lower pressure maybe.


there is a creek by the house, if i get a good downward angle off the bank i could easily have 4 feet of water to shoot into and not need milkjugs.....
 
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Strange, I shot a 200 gr factory XTP into a row of half gallon milk jugs and it stopped in the fourth, well expanded. The XTPs are designed with hunters and FBI tests in mind. They will expand, but not a lot, because Hornady wants penetration.
 
the box said up to 1.5x expansion so i guess i could expect .675"......honestly if it hits the first jus at 800 fps and starts to expand, a lot of energy gets dumped.....so on jug #2 it might only be doing 500-600fps or less and i cant see how that aids expansion anymore than one jug. i will give it a shot with three in a row from 30 feet, but id like to test at more reasonable range since i wouldn't mind trying to hunt with these also.
 
Load the Hornady XTP at 1.235, but 1.255 did not make enough difference for them not to expand. Bump it up a couple of tenths, and try again. Wet phone books or newspaper are a great test medium.
 
i recovered the one that hit dirt only. i finally dug up the ones that hit the jugs and got a nice mushroom..... .722" from petal to petal

sorry lol... i just gotta dig up the right ones and not miss next time. i think i over anticipated and flinched. im gonna chrono them this morning and if i flinch today ill be out a hundred bucks lol!


it is odd the one that missed the jug did not expand in dirt though, it was not real dry, ir rained the day before so the dirt was a dark brown and fairly moist.
 
The XTP is a tough bullet. Mushrooming is less than others and to really open it up you need to push it. I've had no problem opening 200gr XTPs from a G30 with 9.8gr HS6. In 10mm I use the 155r at 1400, 180gr at 1300, and 200gr at 1200 and always get consistent expansion on game.
 
Yep. Across the board caliber wise, XTP's need to be moving.

As noted they are a tough slug. And since penetration and expansion are needing different criteria, they balance towards the penetration end of things:

On the low end, they don't open up. But on the high end, they hold together well. IE- I've driven .357 125 XTP's to 1600 in a 357 lever action rifle, and they still hold together, but the don't expand much at all under 1200.
 
Shot a big white tailed buck several years ago with a 44mag XTP. Sixty yards broad side an easy shot. I'm approaching 59 years old now and have hunting since I was 8. This is one of two deer in my lifetime that I never found. Only a small trace of blood, and the jacket off the XTP. I haven't used XTP in anything since and probably won't.
 
GG&G- Odd.

I've had excellent results with the XTP pistol bullets. Very accurate, and they are one of my top 2(the other being Speer Gold Dots) choices when I'm running a pistol bullet fast in a levergun specifically because I've found they DON'T shed their jackets or come apart at high speeds.

I've had excellent results with them in 357, 41, 44, 45 colt and 454. I've pushed a few to where the part in front of the crimp cannelure basically self destructs on the way in, but I've never lost one to total explosion or lost a jacket off one......

Sorry your experience with them was such a dissapointment.:(
 
I was using them out of a six inch Model 629. I would have thought they would have performed well too, but like I say, I found the jacket on the round next to where the deer was standing. Jacket never entered the deer, just separated and fell to the ground. Thing that angered me more than anything, was this was one of the largest deer I would have taken. Hunter shot a deer in the same area the year after, and it turned out to be a 13 point with 23" spread. We figured it was the same deer after finding a scare in the shoulder region.
 
Early Adopter

I've been using XTPs on whitetail since '92 or so. .45 caliber in a muzzle loader (with sabots) and .44 and .357 in pistols. Of the half dozen bullets I've recovered from game animals, all expand perfectly. Textbook. They hold together well, penetrate, and peel back and mushroom into this flower shape with multiple razor sharp petals.
 
i wander what it takes to get expansion, but just enough to keep the copper petals out also, the bullets i recovered had 5 or 6 nice points but only on the lead core, the sharp copper petals had folded all the way back to the base of the bullet.
 
Water isn't dense enough to properly test a JHP, and certainly not in a single milk jug's depth.

Try a stack of wet phone books, or a big ol' chuck roast from the Cash N Carry.

If you get an XTP up to at least 800 FPS, it should expand just fine. I'd wager that your target medium is the issue, not the bullets.
Click to expand...

Just a point...in fact, water is a very hard barrier and will expand bullets beyond that of other, "home-made" mediums. The hydraulic effect in water is a constant and unless the bullet is of substantial construction, will shed it's jacket and sometimes, fragment. (You do, of course, need more than a single jug).

I suspect that in the OP's case, he just didn't have enough zip on the XTP. They're a good bullet but unlike some of it's competitor's defensive type pills, do not have a very wide velocity performance window. On the plus side, they are excellent at the higher velocities.
 
They do have a wide window. They just have a very certain floor/minimum speed. Meaning- they are tough and will hold together at well beyond average velocities for any given caliber. But If you don't meet their minimum speed requirements, they'll just act like ball ammo.

They are a bullet design that likes speed.
 
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