I would've posted this as links, but this way you all can just read it in one consolidated place and form your own opinion. In my opinion, it's all about that search for that elusive 1% advantage over the BG's out there.
This is courtesy of FTI:
http://firearmstactical.com/index.html
Winchester Ranger Talon (Ranger SXT/Black Talon) Wound Ballistics
If you've read the FBI publication "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness", you'll recall the four components of projectile wounding:
oPenetration
oPermanent Cavity
oTemporary Cavity
oFragmentation
Generally, a handgun bullet penetrating soft tissue permanently damages only the tissue it comes into direct contact with. The bullet damages this tissue by crushing it.
A temporary cavity is formed in soft tissue by the transfer of kinetic energy between the penetrating bullet and the tissue it contacts. Soft tissue is propelled radially outward away from the wound track at a speed no greater than one-tenth the velocity of the penetrating bullet, causing temporary displacement of these tissues by stretching them.
Unless the bullet passes through non-elastic soft tissue, which has little tolerance for stretching, such as kidney, liver, pancreas and spleen during the first few inches of penetration (these inelastic tissues often tear, split and rupture), the temporary cavity does not reliably increase wounding effectiveness.
The resilient, elastic-like tissues of blood vessels, bowel, heart, lung, muscle and nerve can easily absorb the stretching and transient displacement of temporary cavitation without sustaining very much damage.
When elastic soft tissue has stretched to the point where all the energy transmitted to it by the penetrating bullet has been dissipated, the displaced tissue rebounds to its original configuration, causing the temporary cavity to collapse. The hole that remains after the bullet has passed is the permanent cavity.
Temporary cavity is comparable to the splash produced by a rock thrown into a pool of water. The water near the surface and directly in the path of the rock is pushed aside as the rock penetrates, then quickly rushes back in to fill the void after the rock has passed. Temporary cavity has been sometimes referred to as "tissue splash."
Some handgun bullets fragment as they penetrate. The detached fragments produce their own wound tracks, usually straying no farther than half an inch from the main path of the bullet. Fragmentation of hollowpoint bullets does not contribute to any substantial increase in wounding effectiveness.
With handgun bullets, penetration and permanent cavity are the only mechanisms that can be relied upon to produce rapid incapacitation of a criminal attacker. The bullet must penetrate the attacker's torso deeply enough to reach and crush a hole in critical blood bearing soft tissues, and produce rapid fatal hemorrhage.
A bullet that expands to increase its diameter is able to contact and crush a greater area of tissue as it penetrates than a bullet which does not expand. This is the concept behind hollowpoint bullets.
Hollowpoint bullets are designed to expand upon impact with flesh. Hydraulic pressure from the fluids in soft body tissues presses against the internal wall of the hollow cavity, causing the wall to peel backwards around the bullet shank, increasing bullet diameter. (The mechanics of hollowpoint bullet expansion are entirely analogous to cuffing a shirtsleeve.) Bullet expansion acts like a parachute to slow and stop the bullet as it penetrates dense soft tissue.
If a hollowpoint bullet is propelled too quickly, it will either overexpand and not penetrate deeply enough, or it will fragment. If the bullet fragments, it defeats the purpose of using an expanding bullet.
It's best to think of a hollowpoint bullet as being similar to a broadhead hunting arrow. The arrow damages only the structures its blades come into direct contact with. It has less kinetic energy than a .22 Short. A bullet that overexpands and fragments is comparable to a broadhead hunting arrow that jettisons it blades immediately after impact. The resulting permanent cavity is no greater in diameter than the diameter of the arrow shaft, resulting in decreased wounding effect.
In police action and civilian self-defense shootings, excepting disruption of the central nervous system by a hit to the brain or the cervical spinal cord of the neck, blood loss in sufficient quantity to produce unconsciousness is the only reliable mechanism to stop a determined criminal attacker.
An adversary whose heart has just been destroyed may not collapse for up to a dozen seconds afterward due to residual oxygenated blood remaining in his brain. He remains able to perform willful post-fatal injury activity until blood loss affects the ability of his central nervous system to function.
The advantage of using a bullet that expands to increase its diameter is because it might contact and rupture the wall of a major blood vessel that would have been barely missed by the smaller diameter of a nonexpanding bullet following the same penetration path.
As a bullet penetrates soft tissue, it loses velocity, and this affects its "effective diameter." When the bullet first penetrates and expands, it is moving so quickly that it crushes almost all soft tissue it comes into direct contact with. However, as velocity begins to slow, soft tissue is then able to stretch around the smooth outer edges of the mushroom-shaped lead core shoulder to move out of the way. As the bullet slows further it plows more and more tissue aside instead of crushing it.
Near the end of the wound track, the diameter of the permanent cavity might be less than 60 percent of the expanded diameter of the bullet. The last few inches of the wound track are the most important because this is where the vital cardiovascular structures are located that you're trying to damage.
This is where the police only Winchester Ranger Talon (formerly Black Talon and Ranger SXT) bullet departs from conventional expanding hollowpoint bullets. Ranger Talon adds an additional wounding mechanism: cutting.
When Ranger Talon expands, its copper jacket peels back to form six sharp claws. These claws protrude outward just slightly beyond the smooth outer edges of the mushroom-shaped lead core shoulder.
Upon impact with flesh Ranger Talon performs identical to conventional hollowpoint bullets. However, as it penetrates and slows it does not suffer a decrease in effective bullet diameter. This is because tissue that stretches and flows around the smooth shoulder of the mushroom-shaped lead core comes into contact with the sharp copper jacket claws and is lacerated.
These lacerations contribute little to overall wound severity.
However, if Ranger Talon happens to pass very close to a major cardiovascular structure, instead of merely shoving it aside as it passes by, one of the six claws might be in position to cut the wall of this structure to cause profuse bleeding.
This additional cutting mechanism gives Ranger Talon the potential to be approximately 3% to 5% more effective than other expanding bullets of the same caliber. In one out of every 20-30 shootings, Ranger Talon might make a difference.
In order for Ranger Talon's increased wounding potential to be realized, at least two conditions must be met: 1) the bullet's wound track must pass close enough to a major blood vessel to physically touch it, and 2) one of the talons must be in the right orientation to physically contact the wall of the blood vessel as the bullet rifles past. If one of these two conditions is not met, the wound will be no more severe than any other JHP expanding bullet.
This very slight advantage could be just enough to save the life of a police officer that has to shoot a psychotic, enraged or chemically intoxicated attacker who is oblivious to being shot.
The Black Talon bullet came under intense negative media scrutiny after it was criminally misused in a shooting rampage in a San Francisco office building in July 1993. Nine people were killed and six wounded by gunman Gian Luigi Ferri. The news media reported falsehoods that Black Talon's "razor sharp claws" created particularly ghastly, devastating and unsurvivable wounds.
The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsies of the fatal shooting victims gave a detailed presentation about his findings at the 1994 IWBA Wound Ballistics Conference in Sacramento: "The 101 California Shooting: The Black Talon Bullet," Boyd Stevens, M.D., Medical Examiner, San Francisco, CA. He stated that the wound trauma produced by Black Talon was unremarkable, meaning the wounds were neither different nor any more severe than wounds produced by typical JHP handgun bullets. Each of the victims incurred fatal injury because a bullet passed through a vital structure.
Winchester designed the Ranger Talon with what they call a "reverse-taper" copper jacket. What this means is that the copper jacket on the Ranger Talon is thicker at the tip than at its base, and this is the opposite of conventional hollowpoint bullet designs. This thickness is necessary to provide stiffness to the talons after expansion so they remain in ideal position to cut tissue that flows around the mushroom skirt.
Contrary to the pronouncements of gunwriter Ed Sanow, who claims that the Black Talon/Ranger SXT/Ranger Talon bullet slowly expands during its first 8 inches of penetration, the thick copper jacket requires the bullet to rapidly expand after impact when velocity is highest. Once the bullet begins to slow, the forces acting on the copper jacket and lead core which cause the bullet to deform, decrease. His absurd claim that this bullet gradually expands as it penetrates simply defies the laws of physics, and is based on fantasy.
Winchester Black Talon Revisited
There appears to be continuing confusion surrounding the different versions of the Black Talon bullet, its legality for possession by private citizens, as well as its alleged "cop-killer bullet" armor-piercing capability. Here's the lowdown:
* Black Talon SXT: The original Black Talon handgun bullet. It was introduced in 1991. The cartridge consists of a black colored bullet seated in a nickel-plated case. The black paint-like coating on the bullet is a Winchester proprietary lubricant called Lubalox. The bullet has six serrations on the rim of the hollowpoint cavity (meplat), and six talons. The talons deploy when the bullet expands. They are described by Winchester as: "six uniform, radial jacket petals with perpendicular tips." Winchester voluntarily discontinued sales of Black Talon SXT to the general public in late 1993/early 1994 due to intense negative media and political pressure. Some political activists derisively referred to it as "Black Felon" ammo. Black Talon is packaged in boxes of 20 cartridges.
* Ranger SXT: Ranger SXT is a less expensive version of the original Black Talon cartridge intended for the law enforcement market. It consists of a black Lubalox coated bullet seated in a brass case. The bullet has six serrations on its meplat, and six talons. Ranger SXT is packaged in boxes of 50 cartridges marked "Law Enforcement Ammunition."
* Supreme SXT: Redesigned "civilian" version of the original Black Talon bullet. The cartridge consists of a copper-jacketed bullet seated in a nickel-plated case. The bullet has eight serrations on its meplat, and no talons. Supreme SXT is packaged in boxes of 20 cartridges.
(According to Olin-Winchester public relations, the Supreme SXT bullet design has not been factory tested in standard ordnance gelatin because it was not designed to meet police ammunition performance specifications. As a result, there's no valid and verifiable performance data available from Winchester or the FBI.
Winchester's attitude is troubling because they're marketing a personal defense bullet (a life safety device) in which they confessed to us that they've no idea how well (or poorly) it performs. Therefore, it is advised that you not to buy and use Supreme SXT until Winchester gets its act together and coughs up performance data for this cartridge.)
* Ranger Talon: The second generation version of the original Black Talon SXT bullet. The cartridge consists of a copper-jacketed bullet seated in a nickel-plated case. The bullet has six serrations on its meplat, and six talons. Ranger Talon is packaged in boxes of 50 cartridges marked "Law Enforcement Ammunition."
There is no Federal law that prohibits a private citizen from purchasing or possessing any of the Black Talon bullet variants. Additionally, there is no Federal law, which forbids private possession and use of "law enforcement" handgun ammunition, except specifically defined armor-piercing handgun ammunition. Black Talon, Ranger SXT and Ranger Talon do not meet the criteria for armor-piercing handgun ammunition as defined by Federal law. However, there may be State or local laws that ban private possession of Black Talon and its variants.
The negative media frenzy of late 1993 produced untrue assertions that Black Talon was an armor-piercing "cop-killer" bullet. When fired, both 9mm and .40 S&W Black Talon bullets into threat level IIA soft body armor, the armor easily stopped the bullets. The "armor-piercing" myth may have originated from the markings used on certain military small-arms ammunition. U.S. military cartridges with a black painted tip indicate the bullet is armor-piercing.
(Federal Nyclad ammunition is often mistaken as armor-piercing ammunition too, due to the blue-black nylon coating on the lead bullet.)
The black Lubalox coating on the Black Talon bullet is meant to reduce in-bore friction and chamber pressure. Once the bullet leaves the muzzle, the mission of the coating is completed. Lubalox does not give the bullet any special property that allows it to blast through police soft body armor.
Recently, the newer Winchester 9mm 127 grain +P+ Ranger SXT bullet (product number RA9SXTP) has been found to penetrate some lower threat level soft body armor. Second Chance Body Armor Company recalled one of its vests in response to officer safety concerns posed by this particular bullet.
In the latest issue of the International Wound Ballistics Association's journal, Wound Ballistics Review, there's an article written by Duncan MacPherson, "A Body Armor Penetration Rumor," that explains the reason why the RA9SXTP bullet can penetrate some body armor. According to MacPherson, it's not due to any special aspect of the bullet design nor does its performance represent any new dynamics in armor penetration. He says it's due to a minor flaw in the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) body armor certification test protocol:
"There are two principal limitations in [the NIJ] rating system. The first limitation is that all armor with the same rating (e.g., passes level 2A and fails level 2) does not have identical performance; this is obvious (because there is no attempt to, or mechanism, for evaluating intermediate performance), but is often overlooked. The second limitation is that different bullet designs do not necessarily have the same relative efficiency in penetrating the quite different armor designs of different manufacturers; this whole area is not well modeled either analytically or experimentally."
Winchester tightly controls distribution of its RA9SXTP cartridge. When we last checked, Winchester did not permit its distributors to stock this load. It had to be shipped from the factory directly to a law enforcement agency address.
Finally, Winchester also produced and manufactured a line of centerfire rifle ammunition under the Black Talon name, which has since been renamed Fail-Safe. The Black Talon rifle bullet was completely different from the handgun bullet design. It did not expand to deploy talon-like claws. Instead, it had a solid copper nose (similar to a Barnes X-Bullet), with a lead core base encapsulated in a steel liner to prevent jacket rupture upon impact. This bullet had a baked on coating of molybdenum disulfide, which gave it a distinctive black colored appearance also.
Tom
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A "Miss" is the ultimate overpenetration!
[This message has been edited by Banzai (edited February 22, 2000).]
