Creating a Round for Reduced Over Penetration in Urban Setting .223/9mm/.40/.45acp

um... not so much.

Ballistic gelatin is not very "hard", but bullets blow up in that medium all the time....

Same thing with shooting into water....
 
Frangible bullets don't really "frang" unless/until they hit stuff harder than they are.
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I can disprove this one pretty easy.

I can poke a loaded round, by hand, through an identical aluminum can that I posted above and it will still fire just fine.

However, if the fired bullet hits an identical object at 3000 fps, it "frags".

If speed didn't matter there would be nothing gained from it....jump up from the ground or off a building and it should all be the same.
 
44 Amp, the real reason we worry about over penetration in tactical entries is the fact that we do not want to shoot ourselves. We used Israeli clearing methods for out tactical entries. We were not slow and deliberate but balls to the wall swarming. Withing a few seconds of entry, we were in multiple rooms at the same time. We also had the perimeter people securing doors and windows from exit. The modern frangible ammo is some mean stuff. We flesh tested it and it makes a mess. It is far from being a varmint bullet. It easily penetrates deep enough.
 
Reynolds,
LE/Military entry set aside, because civilians (most users on forums) won't be doing it ever.
LE/Military have open access to weapons/ammo that the home shooter will never lay hands on.
I have the highest respect for the guys that breech!
Having said that, I won't have access to flash-bangs, a team to confront an intruder coming down the hallway at 3am, and chili-pepper printed underware doesn't double for tactical gear & body armor at 3am! ;)

FBI statics say only 3% of police fired rounds hit the intended target at more than 3 yards (9 feet).
I note here that more than 9 feet the shooting take place outdoors, and I would have to assume on a moving target... (Someone shooting at me I'd be moving!)

Since Congress has banned firearms statics, most of the data is from the 80's...

When I was working out in Whittier, CA. 25 years ago, some home contractor friends were talking about filling walls with red brick in homes down in South Central,
Red brick was the cheap way to stop bullets from drive by shootings during the 'Crack Wars'...

Guys that dismiss the idea of a round that doesn't leave an exit wound aren't thinking this through,
More & more people are living with neighbors close by, and you ARE responsible for every round fired.
It's a legitimate concern.

I just don't have an 'Easy' answer, but I'm following the conversation...
 
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You have a much better chance of over penetration in bldg materials with a handgun round than you do with a .223.5.56, provided the proper bullet is used.

Hornady TAP or similar ballistic tip (varmint) bullets would be where I would START thinking about penetration being mitigated with a rifle. Frangible would be the optimum.

Being involved in investigating shootings as an LEO, I have yet to find a handgun round (of any type, other than frangible, as I haven't seen one used yet) that didn't leave the house when such things occurred indoors. Rifles have shown LESS propensity to do such things when the rounds aren't FMJ, SP and heavy for caliber.

I always thought that a 40gr V-Max moving at over 3K fps would be a good choice. I speculate it would shatter on anything remotely hard.
 
Since Congress has banned firearms statics, most of the data is from the 80's...
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I'd be really curious if you could show me where (and when) Congress BANNED "firearms statistics".

I don't believe they have.

IF you are repeating the whining LIE from some reasearchers (particularly those with the CDC, about how there has been no "new" study for 20+ years, BECAUSE "Congress cut off the funds", I suggest you do some research into the REALITY of what Congress did, not the impact it had on the agenda driven dreams of certain supposedly impartial "researchers".

They CLAIM Congress cut off the money to do studies about guns, but Congress did NOT do that.

What Congress actually did, was forbid them to use Fed money to fund studies that promoted gun control.

This is the important part, and the part ALWAYS left out by the whiners. They CAN use federal money to study guns, and create statistics, all they want. UNLESS their conclusions promote gun control. (the underlying idea is that CDC is not supposed to be a political animal, gun control IS a POLITICIAL issue, and they should not be able to use Federal funds to promote ANY POLITICAL point of view).

The reality is that these poor, underfunded researchers (who very likely make more than I do:rolleyes:) either cannot, or willnot divorce themselves from the agenda of promoting gun control, since they won't do that, they DON'T do gun studies, and claim it is because the Govt won't fund them.

the real reason we worry about over penetration in tactical entries is the fact that we do not want to shoot ourselves.
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I can understand the concern there. However, most of us are not, and never will be in that situation.

Back in the dark days, when Federal agents in black uniforms, wearing "coal scuttle" helmets and carrying German made 9mm submachineguns raided the Branch Davidian compound, doing their level best to fulfill one of the cult's main prophesies, several agents were killed by gunfire. The Branch Davidians got the official blame, BUT, at the time, (and as far as I know, ever since) the govt refused to release the autopsies of the dead agents.

Left with no information, and no understandable reason that information was denied to us, some of the more suspicious among us decided that the only reason the Govt refused to give us the details of what killed their agents was to save themselves the embarrassment of having to admit their guys were killed by their guys (shot in the back with the special 9mm "Cyclone" rounds issued to the raiders???)

The Govt did NOT deny it.

Friendly fire accidents happen. It is the nature of combat. Anyone who has been on, or near the "sharp end" understands this, and will publically admit it happens, despite our best efforts to prevent it.

A office bound "remf" usually won't, simply because it makes them look less than omnipotently powerful and correct.

Frangible rounds are probably a good idea for a dynamic entry team, but less so, I think for the lone civilian home defender. Teams have each other, and a lot of firepower, both individually, and added together for mutual support. IF a single frangible round fails (breaks up before doing the intended job), there are lots of other rounds available to make up for that.

With a civilian self defense situation, one single round might be the critical factor, and if that is a frangible round that fails, consequences might be very bad for the defender.

Metal buttons, and metal studs on leather jackets and gear might cause a frangible bullet to break up before doing the job. Perhaps "bling" might have the same effect. Regular bullets get stopped and deflected by all sorts of things, including heavy cloth (note the recent NYC shooting where several 9mm rounds were stopped by a Carhartt jacket)

I do not see frangible rounds as being any different in that regard, perhaps even more "vulnerable" to having something "hard" prevent them from performing in the desired manner.

There is no free lunch, and if you build a bullet to do one thing well, that's what it will do well. Other things might suffer, possibly to an unacceptable degree.

What is an unacceptable degree?? THAT, each of us has to decide for ourselves, due to our differing personal situations and standards.
 
http://www.businessinsider.com/congressional-ban-on-gun-violence-research-rewnewed-2015-7

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-extends-ban-cdc-research-gun-violence

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...gress_blocked_gun_control_studies_at_cdc.html

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/6/9465649/gun-violence-research-cdc

Collages getting ALL government funding pulled for collecting gun violence statistics,
Hospitals getting all government money pulled for research on wounds, even distributing information on bullets that can punch holes in surgical gloves & cut the medical staff...
And these are all well documented cases that have happened over & over again.

Political anti-government rants aside, since they have no place in a reloading forum...

A 'Safe Bullet' doesn't exist. Period.

I've seen and tested frangible that penetrate 1/2 steel plate and NOT over penetrate a rump roast on the other side.
Frangible that penetrates car doors (precludes that 'Bling' statement) and expands in meat without over penetration.
Frangible that splatters on drywall or wall studs, but that does its job in meat...

Like I said, there will be the big, heavy bullet types that want big heavy gun to fire them from,
And there will be the rest that considers their families, neighbors, ect and at least considers the issues, even when there isn't a clear cut sloution.
 
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My .223 is currently loaded with 55 grain hp or varmageddon loaded moderate to medium . I have zero concerns as to whether or not they will penetrate sufficiently, nor what will happen should I ever be forced to fire them into a human. And since my nearest neighbor is a couple hundred yards away, and on the other side of an 8 inch concrete wall that will work for me.
 
I always thought that a 40gr V-Max moving at over 3K fps would be a good choice. I speculate it would shatter on anything remotely hard.
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But it will still go through two layers of drywall and kill your wife or kids on the other side.

http://how-i-did-it.org/drywall/results.html

You just can't count on something that won't go through a couple of layers of drywall to do much good and anything that might do good is going to go through the drywall.
 
But it will still go through two layers of drywall and kill your wife or kids on the other side.
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Maybe you mis-read, or misunderstood. Those rounds were already breaking up when they LEFT the first sheet of drywall and were mostly fragments when they got through the second sheet........... And that's just 2 sheets of drywall. No studs, no insulation, no picture frames, etc. Retained weight coupled with velocity is the problem. Fragments hitting my loved one at high speed seems less deadly than the 180 grain XTP at high speed...........

My agency ran these very tests several years ago using interior and exterior wall mock ups, complete with insulation, pictures, etc., using 55 gr. ballistic tips. I suspect 40's would be faster, therefore; break up even more on wallboard, therefore; have even less retained weight when they find an unintended target. After a couple sheets of drywall, then into water or gel, the retained weight of recovered pieces was non-existent (a few grains). I don't recall the penetration depth of the fragments in ballistic gel, but it wasn't much. I'm not saying it's guaranteed non lethal, but it sure increases an innocent's chances of survival when they are hit with only a few grains of spatter at high speed.

I will be happy to take my chances with that vs. a pistol round that won't even be deformed by the time it gets through the 3rd layer of drywall.........

You just can't count on something that won't go through a couple of layers of drywall to do much good and anything that might do good is going to go through the drywall.
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Everything is a tradeoff, but I would take my chances on a ballistic tip, high velocity bullet, literally ripping flesh from the person trying to hurt my family in my home vs. the chance that one of my missed 230gr HP handgun rounds finds my loved one.
 
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I've seen the light weight HP/varmint tests, and the above posted is true.
Hard plaster destroyed them on the first layer,
Drywall broke them up into fragments that often didnt penetrate the second layer of drywall.

Its not weight as much as cross sectional denesity,
The velocity simply shatters the bullet, and the lighter/faster the bullet the more it shatters.

Slower/heavier bullets simply don't shatter, they have to be stopped by superior mass.
No big secret here...

I'm not 'Dirty Harry', I'm not stupid enough to try and shoot through walls to hit an attacker, and game animals don't wear body armor...
*IF* a bullet will penetrate walls to hit some therotical attacker that might not ever appear,
Its going to penetrate walls in the even of an accidental discharge, or like a local police officer did here,
Hear a 'Noise', turn the corner and shoot his own reflection in a mirror...
Put a nice hole in his cruiser through the mirror & wall, then cruiser with a 10mm.

They don't make houses like they used to...
 
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