Federal Expanding Point FMJ Ammo

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Just to be safe, I use the Federal EFMJ ammo in my 9mm & .40 home defense guns. I haven't tried the .45 yet, but I hope to pick some up shortly. I've fired around 500 rounds of this ammo, and am very impressed. All my autos feed it flawlessly, and accuracy is close to match grade. It may not expand as well as some top of the line personal defense hollow points, but it's sure better than FMJ.

Even if hollow points where legal in this state, I may still use the EFMJ, due to it's reliable feeding, and extreme accuracy. If the .45 feeds as well as the others do, it may be the answer to finicky 1911s.
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The NJ State Range Master and the Division of Criminal Justice Firearms Unit just completed some testing on the EFMJ ammo on their range at Ft. Dix. The results were very positive as far as expansion. Even better than some HP's.
However, one Assistant AJ sees them as coming under the classification of "dum-dums" as defined in the statute which also covers HP's.

There is no official ruling as of yet but...?

I wouldn't invest a lot of money in the EFMJ ammo in NJ just yet.
:confused:
 
The 9mm expanded fine for me in water, but I haven't tried it going through clothing first. Actually I hadn't even thought of testing it that way, so I'll have to try it and see. Water is a very tough medium, tougher than gel. Just try running through 8 feet of water.
 
Like a lot of you, I am waiting to hear more about EFMJs before committing them to a carry gun. Maybe they are better than Hydrashoks, maybe not, so I will keep the Hydrashoks for now since they have a known and good track record.

The one thing I do think is very cool about the new rounds is that they offer the potential of an expanding round for those areas or states where hollowpoints are illegal. That is something I think is really cool. I also like the fact that for some older 1911s that won't chamber hollowpoints (and were not designed to), that the EFMJ rounds should feed normally in those guns so that the owners can use ammo that has the potential to expand.

One thing I am concerned about is variation in the reliability of expansion based on environmental factors, most notably temperature. I have no doubt that when warm, such as in summertime carry, the silica filler that allows compression/expansion will allow that to happen readily, but maybe too readily of your gun and ammo have been sitting in a hot car all day long in the Texas sun. I also wonder about extreme cold temperatures. Will the cold cause the silica to harded and not let the round expand as designed? Here I am thinking about those of you who carry in states where you get blizzards.
 
I fired some 9mm 124gr EFMJs into very damp telephone books and compared them to 115gr and 124gr ProLoads.

The EFMJs would go through 5 telephone books and usually not expand evenly. Is this because they're supposed to expand only in water?
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Water doesn't support a shear force as does human soft tissue and properly prepared ordnance gelatin. I haven't tested EFMJ, but from the data I've seen, water appears to be an unreliable medium to test EFMJ expansion.

As for your damp phone book test media, without a more detailed description of your results or a photo of the recovered bullets, there's no way of judging if the performance you observed is good, bad or otherwise. Perhaps your damp phone books weren't completely soaked?
 
PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE TOO

Was gonna say something about someone who tests bullets by firing into dirt, but I decided not to.
 
Well,I ran 50 rds of the 124gr +P EFMJ through my P7 M13 yesterday. Pretty much one hole though the gun might have had something to do with it.
Ronin
 
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