Stopping power & Meplat

[MikeS]

Hi All.

I've been thinking lately (never a good thing!), and many folks have said how a large flat meplat is good for hunting, so I was wondering, for self defense it would be good too. So this got me wondering if how a meplat transitions to the body of the boolit make a difference? I have a 230TC mould that has a meplat almost as large as the 452423 has, the only difference is the 452423 has a sharp edge where the nose transitions to the body, but with the truncated cone design there's a rounded edge. I've been thinking about this since seeing a drawing for the BD45 boolit, it too has a fairly sharp edge where the meplat goes into the body of the boolit, and I think the BD45 was designed for it's stopping power. So would the 230gr TC (specifically the Lee 452-230-TC) have the same stopping power? I know a hollow point might be the better choice, but with a 45ACP I'm not sure if it would have enough power to make the HP expand unless cast from a fairly soft alloy. While I don't go hunting people, the effects of the boolit basically need to be the same as a hunting boolit, that is quick stopping ability.

Now that I've determined that my Jericho 941 won't self destruct when shooting cast lead boolits (it has polygonal rifling) I've decided to load cast boolits in it for self defense, but I want to find a design that will do the job best. I can shoot 452423's from my 1911 without any problems feeding, but I haven't tested them yet in the Jericho. If they feed in it, then I think my search will be over. If not, and the TC's meplat isn't as effective as either the 452423 or the BD45, I guess I'll have to get another boolit mould. Gee, I would just HATE to have to get yet another mould! :)

But seriously, does anyone know if the TC will be as effective as the BD45 or 452423?

[44man]

It should be, the meplat does the work anyway and kind of forces a pressure wave out from it that takes tissue away from the shoulder. That is why the little shoulder on a Keith does not touch in an animal. The boolit needs to be very slow in order for the shoulder to touch.
The pressure wave is what makes the flat nose so good, wound channels are large.

[MikeS]

I was just concerned that by rounding over to the body it would be more streamlined, and not make as large a pressure wave. The meplat on the BD45 is .328, on the 452423 it's .320 (assuming it's the same size as the 452424 which I think it is), but the Lee is actually quite a bit smaller if measured from where the rounding ends, if measured from where the rounding begins it's almost as large. I was looking at Accurate Mold's catalog to see if he already has anything cataloged that's close to the BD45, and came up with 2 of his designs that are close, one weighs 230gr (the same as the BD45), is the same length, but only has a .300 meplat, the other weighs 250gr and has a .325 meplat, but is longer by .030" If I get one, I'd probably go for the heavier one, as it has the wider meplat, and the little bit of extra weight can't hurt either. I wonder if I'm picking nits when looking at the differences between boolit designs? BTW, both of Tom's designs have a very little shoulder where the nose goes into the driving bands (I don't know the name of this, if there is a name for it), where the BD45 goes right from the nose taper into the driving bands uninterrupted.I actually prefer having this shoulder, one reason why I like the H&G #34 better than the 452374.

[44man]

I use a 330 gr WLN of my design in the .44 for deer and it does extreme damage at roughly 1300 fps. I have used the WFN too and see little difference, maybe just a little more damage.
But the ogive to the body of the boolit will not affect the meplat performance. Go for the meplat, not the curve to the body, it means nothing at all. That curve will aid a straight alignment of the cylinder to cone but not change what the meplat does in a deer.
A small amount of expansion also increases the meplat.
I have killed many deer with the LBT 335 gr WLNGC boolit from my .45 Colt. I ran out of them so I can't measure the meplat for you.
OOPS, I found a few and it looks like the meplat is .360", very hard to measure.

[TCLouis]

One way I measure the "effects of impact" is 20 oz. soda bottles or 1 gallon milk jugs.

The containers must be completely full and should be shot back to back.

I think a colorant added to the water and a video would certainly improve the observational information that one can achieve.

Most violent impact seems to blow a hole thru the lid or blow it off and then whatever damage to the container. The next level down one must go with the observed water spray and damage to the container.
Video would allow one to see the effects either slowed down or just over and over to catch all the details. In my case I am shoting and observing and that limits information gathering.
Years ago I put a paint can full of water on an 8" concrete block and shot it. That little experiment gave me a lot more respect for the 44 Mag with HPs when I saw the damage to the block from the water pressure.

[1Shirt]

A big wide flat nose does produce what 44Man calls a "pressure wave", in flesh, and I guess that is as good a defination as one could ask for.

A number of years ago I remember reading an article that I thought made good sense regarding big wide flat nose blts. It used the comparison of being struck with a needle nosed bullet weighing say 158 grains at X vol. and by a flat object call it a boolit like a Ranch Dog Blt. at the same X vol. Comon sense it stated was that the needle projectile would punch a clean, penitrating wound that would exit and disperse litle energy in the flesh. Conversley, the wide flat nose blt might or might not exit, but even if it did, it would have disbersed the majority of energy in the flesh. And it if did not exit, it would leave: all the energy within the flesh.

It is kind of like the thread on this forum comparing the 9MM Lug. to the 38S and what you get result wise from the type of projectile. I side with the 38S and a nice wide flat blt. But then differences in opinion are what make a horse race.
The development of big wide flat nose projectiles with no shoulder (like on Elmers
design) has caught on big time. Think Elmer would have approved.
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[Frank]

TCLouis:

One way I measure the "effects of impact" is 20 oz. soda bottles or 1 gallon milk jugs.

Water jugs comes to mind. I need to go make a collection so I can do a test.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
You have to use what you have for a test medium, but flesh & bone do not act the same. Animals are about 70% water. So something containing water is a start.
:Fire::Fire:
The best test medium would be road kills of the animal you intend to hunt most.
That is what I did. I got permits, & picked up road kill deer for ballistic tests in the 1970's. Unfortunately I only tested 357 & 44 mag. bullets.
Bullet technology has come a long way since then, both jacked & cast.

[runfiverun]

a flat point pushes flesh going in and out.
don't discount using something like a 225 rnfp for the 45 colt.
they feed just as well as anything else does......

[MikeS]

runfive: the boolits I'm looking at (the BD45 & the 2 from Accurate Molds) ARE rnfp boolits. My original question was if the flap point of the Lee TC boolit having a fairly generous rounding of the flat point going to the 'cone' portion of the boolit would be as effective as any of the mentioned rnfp boolits, and the 452423, all of which have a sharp delineation between the meplat and the body of the boolit.

BOOM: The idea of getting road kill to test ballistics on is a good one, but I don't think any of the local ranges around here will let me stick a cadaver out on the range! Heck, most of the PC ranges around here won't even let you use a man shaped paper target!

The idea of water jugs makes some sense. The biggest problem with that idea (for me) is that the only range that allows shooting at anything other than paper targets is a private club that costs $100.00 to join, and then still charges about as much or more than other ranges to shoot! ($20.00 per person) If I still lived in TN I wouldn't have any problem finding a place to shoot, I'd just go out to my back yard! Maybe I need to take a trip back to TN to visit some of my friends that live there, and borrow their back yards while I'm there? :)

[Piedmont]

You can blow a large hole in a deer and not stop him (meaning he runs a ways before he falls over dead). Why would people be any different?

If you go chasing meplats in an auto pistol you can easily make it unreliable. A lot of savvy people carry ball ammo in their autos, especially in .45. It is the worst shape for stopping you can have, but the best for feeding.

The most important things are to have a reliable pistol with you and then place your shots. If you carry a revolver, then go ahead and chase the meplat as there is no down side to doing so.

[MikeS]

If you go chasing meplats in an auto pistol you can easily make it unreliable.

You're absolutely right. that's why if the 452423 feeds from my Jericho, I'm going to shoot a whole bunch of them (at least 500) thru it before I declare it as feeding reliably.

[Lloyd Smale]

When i first started hunting with cast bullets i bought into the bigger is better camp of thought too. I still will probably admit wfns may hold a slight advantage. But over the years ive gone more toward the swc and expesially to the lfn designs because there just easier to work with finding accurate loads at both close range and long. If there is any advantage to a wfn compared to an lfn in killing power its slight. Hit in the same spot with both and the deer shot with the lfn might take one more step but i doubt it makes more differnce then that. It sure doesnt mean the differnce in killing or wounding. Like in my rifle loading for hunting my NO. 1 priority is accuracy. I seldom use a wfn anymore. About the only time i do is with the 357 or 41 mag who i consider borderline on the small side to begin with. they can use a bit more metplat then a swc or lfn will give.

[LAH]

Well said Lloyd.

[runfiverun]

i still like a flat point instead of a pointy cone.
think about getting poked and about being punched.
you don't need full wad cutters.
and reliability is your first concern, thats where the rnfp comes into play you get the nose to ride into the chamber and the flat point to do the internal damage.

[jandbn]

MikeS,

Real world performance is not what I would call “cut and dry”. I think most everybody here will concur that results on a living critter can vary drastically from DRT to being forced to track 'dead on their feet' for long distances.

If you are interested in an engineer’s perspective of the meplat, look at this link, Mechanics of Lethal Wounding (http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/mechanics.html), and then scroll down to II.d. Mechanics of Cavitation.

[GabbyM]

I’ve a Magma 45-200-RNFP-BB that I like very much in the 45 ACP. It’s a revolver bullet with a small crimp grove. Only down side is the seater stem in my Dillon 45 acp die set does not fit the nose profile and I don’t want to modify it. I’ll just have to buy a 45 Colt stem to use on it.

[44man]

Well said Lloyd.
I agree.

[fredj338]

A flat point is always bettet choice than a RN. You can easily get expansion in the 45acp w/o going too soft though. The Lee 200grRNFP has a huge meplate & will feed in most 45acp. If I was stuck in a non HP state, then that bullet handloaded to 900fps would be a good stopper. FWIW, water jugs for testing are ok, but wetpack is a better choice if you do not have ballistic gello to test in.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/45-215gr.jpg

[jhalcott]

I often get the question about FN' or pointed for self defense. I ask WHAT distance do YOU intend to shoot at!? Then give a quick demo from 10 to 70 FEET with rn and fn bullets in the .45auto. Lots of center mass hits at 10' or less and SOME misses at longer distances. A few shots into wet pack and their decision is made! A HUNTING bullet is a bit different than a self defense bullet. I'd use a hunting bullet for self/home defense but not the other way round. MY SD bullet is a 205 H&G at 850 to 900 fps from an S&W pistol.

[BD]

I designed the BD acp after experiencing what I felt was less than stellar terminal ballistic results using both the H&G #68 and the Lee 230 TC designs. I was looking for a self defense boolit that was effective at stopping critters that bite. The other designs killed critters OK, but lacked the "smack" to STOP them.

My thoughts in the design were to obtain the largest sharp edged meplat that would feed reliably in a 1911, provide a solid straight shank section for the taper crimp at the optimum COAL, use a .10 length drive band, (IMHO the most effective length to pump lube at this pressure), while maintaining the maximum possible case volume behind the boolit. These features allow me to drive a 230 grain .328 meplat at 900 fps at reasonable pressures with unlimited case life and no need to clean the pistol more often than every 700 rounds or so. YMMV. If I had it to do over, I'd make the lube groove just as deep, but narrower. I think the design could get by on half that much lube.

In my opinion the terminal effectiveness of the BDacp is not all that much greater than the 230 TC boolit. I was just maximizing it. The Lee BD acp molds I have have a slight radius on the meplat making the difference even more slight. I was designing a boolit to suit myself, so why not go for the max possible? My real complaints about the 230 TC are that the drive band is too long, the lube groove is too wide and shallow and the boolit takes up too much room in the case. The big advantages of the 230 TC is that it casts very easily and will feed reliably through most anything. These can be significant advantages.

If you are worried about the terminal effectiveness of your shots, it's much more important that you to cast up and shoot 10,000 of either, rather than obsessing over which is the better design.
So choose whichever will get those 10,000 rounds downrange for you sooner. Worry about the design details later.

BD

[mroliver77]

If you are worried about the terminal effectiveness of your shots, it's much more important that you to cast up and shoot 10,000 of either, rather than obsessing over which is the better design.
So choose whichever will get those 10,000 rounds downrange for you sooner. Worry about the design details later.

BD

Right there is some of the best advice you will ever get!
J

[MikeS]

BD: Thanks for your input (it's always nice to get the designers input!). Personally I like a little step between the driving bands and the nose, sort of like the H&G #34 has. Tom at Accurate Molds has 2 designs that are fairly close to your boolit, the 45-230F & the 45-250A. I'm attaching copies of the designs, I hope Tom doesn't mind. (They're on his website, so available to the public, I'm just putting them here for convenience!) Which would you say would be the better choice? Thanks!


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_177914ee6f9a4348ed.png (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=2985) http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_177914ee6f9c6dfaac.png (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=2986)

And here's the BD45 drawing I have (for those that don't know what the BD45 is):

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_177914ee6fa0587195.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=2987)

[Judan_454]

You can blow a large hole in a deer and not stop him (meaning he runs a ways before he falls over dead). Why would people be any different?

Because a deer does not realize its shot. A human would realize that they are shot. But then that would depend on whether the person was cracked up on drugs or adenline.

[BD]

MikeS, either design would work. The design on the left has the drive band I like, but a slightly smaller meplat. The design on the right has the slightly larger meplat, but may be more likely to interfere with the slide stop "button" on a 1911 as it goes by. To my mind, when using a properly sized boolit in a properly throated barrel, the swc "step" in a RNFP design does nothing but provide a small lip for the ejected case to catch on.
BD

[GabbyM]

MikeS, either design would work. The design on the left has the drive band I like, but a slightly smaller meplat. The design on the right has the slightly larger meplat, but may be more likely to interfere with the slide stop "button" on a 1911 as it goes by. To my mind, when using a properly sized boolit in a properly throated barrel, the swc "step" in a RNFP design does nothing but provide a small lip for the ejected case to catch on.
BD

Those steps can be an issue in a Springfield XD or Glock with the low mount barrels as the step will catch on the magazine lip. The Magma 45-200-rnfp-bb I mentioned earlier has no step. It’s commonly sold by the commercial bullet casters as the 200 grain bullet for the pistols that will not feed an H&G #68 SWC.

The step in bullets like the H&G #34 round nose does make a defined start stop point for the grove diameter bullet body. This helps with ammo reliability over the government profile cast bullets. Where if your mould is a bit out of round or gets accidentally shimmed with lead splatter your sizer can run higher up on the bullet then cause a chambering issue. Yes that’s a quality control issue but it’s still an issue. With the Magma 200 rnfp that grove diameter separation is the crimp grove witch is right where you want it for the acp case. Gives you some slack to play with on your crimp too. I’ve a Saeco 230 grain rnfp revolver bullet that works great in 45 acp’s also.

[MikeS]

Well my Jericho loves the H&G #34, so I doubt having the same style step on a RF boolit will be a problem for me. I think I'm going to get one of the 45-250A moulds to use as my self defense load. Why tempt fate by trying to use the 452423 for SD when I can get a boolit designed just for that purpose.

[crabo]

Why not have Tom make you a BD45?

[W.R.Buchanan]

I might as well ad my .02 to this conversation.

I don't really see much difference in the two designs as far as what would happen on the receiving end.

I liken the effects of a WFN or SWC boolit to being hit with a piece of 7/16" rod. It drives thru and leaves a ragged 1/2" hole behind. Since there is a variety of different types of media to punch thru on a person or animal the hole gets torn up as stuff gets dragged along with the boolit. In other words it's worst than having a 7/16 rod driven thru as that would tend to act like a hole punch, but the speed it happens makes other stuff come along for the ride.

I tend think of it this way.. If you just hit the target, whatever boolit you launch will ruin the targets day. People tell me that a dead animal can't tell the difference. I would submit that people couldn't either.

Randy

[MikeS]

The more I think about it, the more I think the 45-250A is the boolit I want. The rear driving band being .020 wider than on the BD shouldn't make that much of a difference, while the .010 wider lube groove is nice too, I like boolits that carry enough lube with them. So basically the boolit will be .030 longer than either the 230F or BD45.

[archmaker]

I always "consider" (not the only factor) the energy side of the equation. I mean that if a boolit has 1,000fpe, and you shoot something and it does not penetrate then you have transferred that energy to whatever you were shooting, any part of the boolit that penetrates and goes on through is energy that is not transferred to the target. (BTW - I would rather have a boolit that penetrates all the way then one that doesn't. Not all shoots are broadside, with no bones hit, I want a margin of error)

It takes energy to deform a bullet, any design that is going to allow for the efficient deformation of a metal by the human body, means the human body is having to expand X amount of energy to deform the material. The more force required by flesh to deform a projectile means more damage to the flesh.

[BAGTIC]

Energy transfer is not what kills. Tissue damage kills. Shoot a man protected by a vest. He absorbs all the energy but doesn't die. Shoot a man with a bullet that barely slows down going through but which clips a major blood vessel or nerve and he does. Hoe many foot punds are deposited by a knife, arrow, or ice pick?

Compare two bullets with same impact energy that both stop in the body after yielding all their energy. One slows gradually stopping under the skin on the far side. One decelerates quickly and stops half way through. THe one that stops quickly sheds energy quickly creating a larger more voluminous wound. Which destroys more tissue? Which is most likely to enhance bleeding?

We want a bullet that penetrates deeply enough to reach the vitals. At the same time we want a bullet that creates as much tissue damage as possible whether by expansion, fragmentation, or tumbling. The problem is every target and every shot presents a different situation tha tis highly variable. There is inevitably going to be a lot of variation in the results.

There is no perfect solution. There is no one size fits all answer.

[MikeS]

I would have to say that I would want the one that goes almost all the way thru. Because there are no 2 situations that are the same, I want one that gives me the best chance. In the above scenario of the 2 boolits, one stoping half way, the other going almost all the way thru, now put a large bone or 2 in the way, and which boolit is going to kill better?

Of course all this might become moot if obama gets back in office. I fear that without having to worry about another term he would go wild, and our rights would go right out the window by executive order. Think it can't happen? They're already trying via back door methods, one agency makes pistol bullets made from anything but lead illegal as being 'Cop Killer' bullets, another agency says lead is a poisonous substance, so bullets can't be made from it. So if these 2 rules get enacted (one already is) we'll still have a right to our guns, but not to any ammo for them! And what's worse is that some gun owners would support both bans! Take the 'gun collector' that just likes collecting them, you think (s)he is going to care that they can't get ammo for them? Probably half the collection is already for obsolete ammo.

But getting back on topic, I just want to find a boolit that will give me the best chance at surviving an encounter that requires deadly force.