Lets talk about 9mm ball ammo.

[medalguy]

Anyone ever been in combat? If a soldier is hit by a FMJ bullet in any area even slightly important, it takes 2 or more soldiers to evacuate that injured soldier. Thus a single bullet can effectively take three or more troops off the field. Even rendering first aid will take at least one additional soldier out of action.

As far as snipers are concerned, I think they use HP ammo because they are trying to take someone out completely, not just injure him. If you're shooting you want to get a one-shot kill.

 

[notamisfit6]

Anyone ever been in combat? If a soldier is hit by a FMJ bullet in any area even slightly important, it takes 2 or more soldiers to evacuate that injured soldier. Thus a single bullet can effectively take three or more troops off the field. Even rendering first aid will take at least one additional soldier out of action.

Assuming the army in question cares in the least about their wounded.
This is a common urban legend among gunstore commandos that doesn't really seem to have any basis in fact.

The real reason behind ball ammo in combat (besides general reliability) is that the terminal effect of bullets is pretty much a wash when you're firing thousands of them to kill one guy. JHP's might have better wounding effect than FMJ, but both of them keep a man's head down pretty much the same.

As far as snipers are concerned, I think they use HP ammo because they are trying to take someone out completely, not just injure him. If you're shooting you want to get a one-shot kill.

Ballistic-tip HP ammo is used for accuracy reasons having to do with complicated laws of physics, and most of them actually don't expand or act appreciably different from a ball round.

 

[44 AMP]

Heard this a lot...

Thus a single bullet can effectively take three or more troops off the field. Even rendering first aid will take at least one additional soldier out of action.

This is bean counter logic, and while sometimes accurate, overall field conditions seldom play their part correctly in accordance with the "rules".

When dealing with "civilized" armies of enemies, one wounded soldier does take three men off the field, temporarily. Two of them come right back and rejoin the fight. First aid takes one additional troop away from shooting, for a very short period of time (long enough to slap on a field dressing) if they are even able to do that. And medics, who will stay with the wounded, are not shooters (in our armies) in the first place.

That's our side. When we are fighting forces that do not put the same or similar premium on their troops lives, a wounded enemy takes out only the one wounded enemy. And not always permanently at that. Some societies teach their wounded to sell themselves as dearly as possible, because they aren't going to get cared for anyway. People who routinely use suicide bombers don't put a high priority on caring for their wounded. It is, after all, as God wills.

Ball ammo, and its requirement for use came from Europe, when warfare was still considered combat between honorable foes. Soldiers were expected to stop fighting after being shot, and peacfully wait for care, hence the idea of not using ammo that would cause "undue suffering" such as hollow points.

Reality turned out to be somewhat different than this gentlemanly ideal, particularly when fighting people with different cultural backgrounds. The "civilized" western cultures have clung to the FMJ, because while round per round it isn't as wounding as expanding bullets, it does work. And with the dominance of autoloading firearms, FMJ functions better overall than other common ammo types. FMJ does work, it feeds, and is cheaper to make than bullets with better terminal performance. When you are making billions of rounds, cost does matter.

 

[BlueTrain]

With the logic going on here, it makes no sense to take prisoners.

Square bullets for infidels.

 

[Double Impact]

I don't like to reply to these FMJ and HP threads but I just can't help myself.

I hear as usual OVER PENETRATION well what about MISSES in a sd shooting. When shooting under stress you won't make be as accurate as shooting at paper.
The percentage of misses getting a bystander are much greater than over penetration. So that could bring on a lot more ?'s like which one would you rather hit
a bystander with a FMJ or a HP?
the questions can go on and on.

I carry a 45acp not because it has the best stopping power as some might think No pistol ammo is the all.
I carry it because I shoot it the best so the chances of hitting my target under stress is much greater.
I don't want to get shot with a 22.
most SD shooting are at pretty close quarters if the bad guy ain't close don't shoot just get the hell out.

But if you are interested in the FMJ vs HP do some google searches on Misses vs thru and thru .

 

[dahermit]

...As far as snipers are concerned, I think they use HP ammo because they are trying to take someone out completely, not just injure him. If you're shooting you want to get a one-shot kill. ...

The reason snipers (U.S. military and law enforcement), use hollow points is that is the configuration of match/target ammunition, the most commonly used is Sierra match bullets in .308.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"Ballistic-tip HP ammo is used for accuracy reasons having to do with complicated laws of physics..."

I don't know anything about the laws of physics, but the logic is pretty simple.

You can still get very good accuracy with a bullet whose tip is buggered all to hell and back.

An imperfection in the base, however, can rapidly destroy a bullet's accuracy potential.

That's why match bullets (as well as those used for sniping, but I'm going to call them all match bullets for ease of typing) have solid bases.

Unlike most military FMJ bullets, in which the jacket is solid over the nose and drawn back towards the base, normally leaving a partially exposed core and imperfect base, in match bullets the jacket is drawn towards the nose to give the most perfect base possible.

On bullets so made and used for sniping, there is a small hollow at the tip of the bullet where the jacket is drawn together, but it is NOT a hollowpoint in the sense that it will expand on hitting a target. The jackets on these bullets are quite thick and act like solids when they hit a target.

 

[JohnKSa]

I have heard of many instances where the hollow points did not expand at all. With ball ammo one is dealing with a known quantity.

With decent quality modern ammunition, bullet failures (excessive bullet fragmentation and unacceptably shallow penetration or cratering) are nearly unheard of and sufficient penetration is virtually assured. With that out of the way, you're only left two likely outcomes.

Expansion or no expansion.

If it expands the virtually unanimous consensus is that you'll get improved terminal effect.

If it doesn't expand you're shooting ball ammo--which is, as you say, a known quantity.

Which means that there's really not any downside other than price to using good quality expanding ammo over ball assuming that the gun feeds both equally well.

I still think that groundhog would have exploded with a body hit from any of my fast-stepping .355" HPs.

To get that kind of terminal effect, you need a stretch cavity that significantly exceeds the size of the target. That's a pretty tall order for a bullet from a typical self-defense/service caliber handgun.

That said, I think it's safe to say that you would have gotten a better result with expanding ammunition than with the non-expanding round you used.

I hit a groundhog in its body at less than 20 ft with a 225g LTC .452" bullet. The animal did not react.

You're in good company.

From the March/April 2011 issue of American Handgunner, Article: "My First 1911"
By (Various), From J.D. Jones’ section:

“Groundhogs were plentiful and I ambushed one coming out of his hole at 10’. Lining up on his head I squeezed one off. He ducked! I couldn’t have missed—the hole in the dirt was where it should be. A few seconds later he popped out again to see what that noise was with a blood spot centered on his neck from the .45 round (identified as “G.I. hardball” from the previous paragraph). The next shot went where it was supposed to and I found the first one had penetrated his neck without hitting the spine.”​

 

[warningshot]

Good thing the army never had to go to combat with any groundhogs that could take a solid 45acp hit to the neck and then ask for more

 

[.357SIG]

Some shortened vesions of statements from Mike Ayers book "The Complete Gun Owner". "At Smoke Bomb Hill (home of the Green Berets) in the early sixties most of us seleced the Browning Hi Power over the Colt .45 for our primary personal handgun. We did so for a number of reasons. Feed back from veterans from W.W. II (up to the conflict they were engaged in) found their was little difference in the terminal effects of the two rounds. Immediate engagements told us the statements were accurate. We often had to deploy in civilian clothes.Much weight was given to the importance of the handgun. Most liked the higher capacity of the Hi Power.Medical research indicated that their was little difference in wounding power between the two. In other words caliber was a non-issue".
I was around at that time and most who carried felt that the .45 Auto or the
.357 Magnum revolver were the only handguns worth carrying. It turns out in fact this was and is a myth still being perpetuated today. To the point of stupidity. "A .45 hitting you in the thumb will spin you around and the shock will stop your heart" were the type of statements often mouthed and still repeated. In the light of reality both form experience and medical information the two do about the same thing. If you believe in Mr. Marshall's stats they both run about 60%. Or Dr. Fackler states that a doctor or medic doesn't know if someone's been hit by a 9mm or .45 until the bullet is removed.
Tissue closes rapidly over a hangun wound. The temporary stretch cavity is no enough to significantly effect wounding. The permanent cavity ends up smaller than the bullets diameter (except in certain non elastic tissue) as the tissue closes around the wound to stem blood flow. These myths that are perpeuated about any handguns stopping power get peopke to believe a certain caliber handgun will save them. No hanguns caliber can save you. Effective use of whatever caliber you have is what saves you. Are some bullets better than others? Sure. A .45 if you hit with it is better than a .22. A miss with either will do you no good.
The thing people don't understand is that if a .45 saves your life you think it's the best thing since sliced bread. All over th world peoples lives that are saved by 9mm, .38, or whatever feel the same about their gun/caliber choice. Those whose calibers (.45 or whatever) fail to save them have very little to say for obvious reasons. They are dead! I just se too many people at the range that think their .45 or their particular brand of ammo in their favorite caliber will save them. It's allot easier to believe in a caliber than actually putting in the time, money and practice it takes to get good with any weapon. Don't mean to jump on you personally. But lots of people are shocked when someone is unimpressed by their caliber/round/weapon choice when hit and keep on coming. Handguns just aren't very good at causing people to cease aggression.

One of the most well-thought posts I've seen in a long time. Might be the best ever on the subject.