Meplat vs. non expanding hollow point?

[paul h]

I'm curious if anyone has done a ballistic test comparing the terminal performance of a flat faced bullet vs. a hollow point that doesn't expand?

I know, you're thinking why would you got to the trouble of casting a hp if you didn't want it to expand? It's more the curiosity of if a hp doesn't expand, would it be as effective as the same bullet with no hp cavity and a flat face. My gut tells me you'd loose the slap you get from the flat face of a meplat hitting flesh and creating a wound channel much larger than the bullet dia, but I'm not sure if my gut instinct is valid or not.

[JSnover]

Back when I used to read everything I could find about terminal ballistics, most of the big names in research said it was about the same; a hollow point that did not expand would behave like a flat point or a wadcutter, if the weight and velocity were similar.

[Beagle333]

When I don't use my HP alloy so that they will expand.... they do this:

[glockky]

Whats your test media Beagle?

[MT Chambers]

Even if cast very hard, I believe that parts of the HP would shatter and have a different result, I like big flat points with a softer allow and lotsa tin.

[paul h]

Kinda like my .476" 400 gr hp when driven into glacial silt at 1200 fps.



I was looking for a media that I was sure would take the hp section off so I could see what the weight of the resulting wadcutter would be. Still haven't weighed it, but guessing around 300 gr. One of these day's I'll have to compare the penetration of the hp's to 400 gr lfn's.

[Beagle333]

Whats your test media Beagle?

Water jugs.

[longbow]

I'm with Beagle.

So far I haven't shot a hollow point into anything and not had it expand or explode. I am talking even thick walled HP's.

I suppose if you had a thick walled HP with relatively small cavity and didn't drive it very fast it might not expand but then it wouldn't be performing very well either and neither would the large meplat boolit at same velocity.

My test media is usually water but has been wet paper and "bread dough" (that's a whole other story).

Longbow

[44man]

Some calibers and velocities need some expansion, too much is not needed though. I would not want a broken boolit in any case. Alloy selection is most important. I found a hard flat meplat driven too fast will create a pressure wave from the nose and move tissue out of the boolits path and make just a hole. You can shoot it much faster so the lead will start to deform or slow it so it does more work. Seems to need dwell time in an animal to transmit energy. A very large animal provides slowing the boolit too.
Some calibers like the .44 and .475 need no expansion at all but I had trouble with my .500 JRH and my 440 gr boolit. It poked holes and deer ran 100 to 120 yards with no blood trails for a long time. My 45-70 revolver does worse with lost deer. Those I found had pink lungs.
I solved it with my JRH by making half the nose from a softer lead, both deer I shot opening day hit the ground before I was out of recoil.
Any expansion that stops or breaks a boolit is not good. I don't believe pieces of a broken boolit are worth a darn.
If a HP does not expand, it is not worth fooling with and if it breaks you are in the same boat without a paddle. You want to control the expansion so the boolit does work and still exits in one piece.
The last thing I would want is a HP in the .44 or .475 since both kill fast with a hard boolit with little meat loss. 99% of deer hit with the .475 drop at the shot.
The JRH is working with just a softer nose and I would not HP it. I don't want to grind my deer into mush.
Now a .357 needs expansion but the problem is that the boolits need weight for penetration. You can lose half the deer shot with a .357 without an exit hole. Energy dump is a myth. Energy lost after a pass through is not lost either because you control boolit work with alloy at the proper place inside the animal. Who cares what the boolit does after?
I am still learning myself on real deer. Things are coming into shape. I have had a hell of a season so far. Huge doe in early season with the .475, belly up at the shot then a huge doe and an 8 point opening day, instant drops on both with the JRH. All 175# plus. Buck must have been well over 250#. Took three of us to load them.
As you sit and hold your head at the loading bench, it is where accuracy and hunting results start.

[jonp]

"Energy dump is a myth". I do not agree

[exile]

Fascinating discussion. Beagle 333, would you be willing to share what your HP alloy consists of?

exile

[Beagle333]

That HP that shattered was just pure isotope cores from Muddy Creek Sam. I think they are 95-2.5-2.5
I don't usually use that for HPs, but it doesn't really matter on the ones that I punch paper with. That one was just fired into the jugs to see what happened.

My usual HP alloy is 96.5-1.75-1.75

[paul h]

Thanks for the interesting discussion. As to what got the gears rolling, I was debating the 360640 light mp group buy I'm in on. My plan when I got it in the gb to was to get a high quality version of the lee 125 rf for a plinker, practice and small game bullet for various 38's and 357's. Then I got to thinking (always dangerous) if I got the hp version, I'd use even less lead. And if I cast it really hard so it doesn't expand, maybe it would act like a flat nose bullets.

Looks like the experiences are that my original question really can't be answered because an hp is going to expand to one degree or another. So I guess I'll stick with the fp design and put the savings over the hp design into more lead.

[exile]

Thanks Beagle. My hope is that my Christmas present from my wife this year will be a 9mm hollow-point mold, if I can find what I want in stock.

exile

[44man]

"Energy dump is a myth". I do not agree

It is true. a boolit has energy to destroy tissue, I believe in energy but to think more is applied with a stopped boolit is false. I shot too many deer with bullets that did not exit and I seen them go down with no blood trails on the back track. In the thick, I would not find them.
You should back track deer to see what is on the ground. Go to where the deer was shot and try to track to where it fell. You might learn how sad a stopped bullet is.
Cowboy movies with a guy blown off the porch with a shotgun is not real, it will not knock a man over. No bullet will knock a man over either. A .50 BMG might explode a jerk but it is still where he stands. Shoot a creep with a mag full of nines, did you blow him back? He is still out to kill you and has not felt the hits. I do NOT want a bullet/ boolit to stop in a deer, if it does, it failed.

[StrawHat]

I side with 44man. While I do not have the experience in the number of animals taken, I have just over 5 decades of hunting behind me. From that experience, I like my boolits to pass completely through the target. Air in one side and blood out the other. Game shot through and through seems to drop faster than game shot with boolits that stay inside.

I also have come to prefer wadcutter boolits. For the type of terrain I hunt they are perfect as there are very few shots over 100 yards. I am not saying other boolits and methods don't work, they just do not work for me.

[JSnover]

Thanks for the interesting discussion. As to what got the gears rolling, I was debating the 360640 light mp group buy I'm in on. My plan when I got it in the gb to was to get a high quality version of the lee 125 rf for a plinker, practice and small game bullet for various 38's and 357's. Then I got to thinking (always dangerous) if I got the hp version, I'd use even less lead. And if I cast it really hard so it doesn't expand, maybe it would act like a flat nose bullets.

Looks like the experiences are that my original question really can't be answered because an hp is going to expand to one degree or another. So I guess I'll stick with the fp design and put the savings over the hp design into more lead.

Yeah, don't let small savings cost you big bucks (pun intended). The heavier bullet is the better choice for game animals, especially from a handgun cartridge. Rifles can make up for a lack of weight to an extent by loading to much higher velocity.

[45 2.1]

"Energy dump is a myth". I do not agree

+1.... This is an example of using a gun with enough power to kill very large game to kill a small game animal with solids shooting bone.

I was debating the 360640 light mp group buy I'm in on. My plan when I got it in the gb to was to get a high quality version of the lee 125 rf for a plinker, practice and small game bullet for various 38's and 357's. Then I got to thinking (always dangerous) if I got the hp version, I'd use even less lead. And if I cast it really hard so it doesn't expand, maybe it would act like a flat nose bullets.

Paul, you need to get the entire pin set. Using the different pins with their different depth HP's, you can tailor the results you want to get.... along with alloy selection. BTDT and it works fine. I have shot several deer (with complete penetration and expansion) with the 140 gr. HP that is the boolit in questions bigger brother. The lighter one can do the same thing with proper choices and alloy selection.

[Quiettime]

... I believe in energy but to think more is applied with a stopped boolit is false. ...

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed (Law of Conservation of Energy), so if it is not being used to exit the animal where is it going?

[blackthorn]

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed (Law of Conservation of Energy), so if it is not being used to exit the animal where is it going?

When the bullet stops --- so does the energy! If the bullet stops inside the animal so does the energy it was producing! If the bullet exits --- there was/is residual energy beyond what was required to maximize the use of the energy potential produced. After the bullet exits, any residual energy and what happens to it is immaterial!