Underwood ammo

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gnystrom

New member
Anyone using this stuff? Solid copper bullet with a Phillips screwdriver tip flying 1400FPS.. The testers all rave about it's ability to continue to fly straight after passing through a variety of barriers.

My thoughts are, it may be a nice round if one may have to shoot through a car door, windshield, or an environment where there is a high probability that your opponent may be wearing an excessive amount of clothing.

I would love to know if LE is using it anywhere.
 
I just bought a few boxes to test out in my carry gun. Shoot well, no stoppages.

As I understand it, the bullets are made by Lehigh Defense, and rounds are available directly from them, but it seems like Underwood squeezes a bit more performance out of them.

I've seen enough videos of hogs taken with the rounds that I think there's something to the hype around the "tissue damage caused by fluid pressure from the flutes" thing. Certainly the damage caused to the pigs was far more than you'd expect from a non-expanding 9mm slug...
 
I don't know about institutional usage but these are an interesting application of manufacturing technology. These are solids and should get plenty of penetration on that alone. What makes them special is that sharp-edged "+" shape and the side flutes. At least in ballistic gel, that allows them to cause more disruption than traditional solids along their path through the gel.

Remember that hollow-point technology is based on expansion. When they expand properly, they cause extra disruption of the target media. They are also intended to deposit more of their kinetic energy at a particular depth of said media. (As in, they are less likely to poke through the media and keep traveling with that kinetic energy.) You'll find people who are skeptical of kinetic energy and "hydrostatic shock" with respect to handgun rounds. Still, opening up and getting bigger does impressive things when it happens the right way.

Hollow-point technology has improved over the years, even for lower-velocity projectiles. Still, bypassing the reliable expansion issue altogether is a valid idea. The marketing name might be silly and they might be expensive, but I think these Xtreme Penetrators have a lot to offer. Personally, I'm thinking about them in .357 magnum or .357 Sig as a woods round.
 
The Phillips screwdriver tip is marketing. As in it makes their bullet different from all the rest. Solids are about penetration with little or no distortion. The point makes no difference.
The "...fluid pressure from the flutes" thing." was what was said about Hydra-shok bullets(same idea as Federal's) 30 plus years ago. Those were swaged lead bullets that looked like a backwards loaded HBWC, with a central spikey thing that was supposed cause the bullet to expand dramatically. Supposedly made for air marshals and pretended they had less penetration so they wouldn't go through an aircraft skin.
Then there were the serrated HP .45 calibre bullets made for pin shooting. The serrated edge was supposed to grab the pin and alter the flight of the bullet into the pin.
 
T. O'Heir said:
The Phillips screwdriver tip is marketing. As in it makes their bullet different from all the rest. Solids are about penetration with little or no distortion. The point makes no difference.
The "...fluid pressure from the flutes" thing." was what was said about Hydra-shok bullets(same idea as Federal's) 30 plus years ago. Those were swaged lead bullets that looked like a backwards loaded HBWC, with a central spikey thing that was supposed cause the bullet to expand dramatically. Supposedly made for air marshals and pretended they had less penetration so they wouldn't go through an aircraft skin.
Then there were the serrated HP .45 calibre bullets made for pin shooting. The serrated edge was supposed to grab the pin and alter the flight of the bullet into the pin.
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It may be marketing, but there's no question that they're doing SOMETHING. The Extreme Defender rounds penetrate far less than FMJs in gel tests with a massive "wound channel" even when compared to expanding hollowpoints, and cause extreme tissue damage in hunting tests. Whatever is causing the different results, the fact is that they ARE doing something different than the FMJ's.
 
Whatever is causing the different results, the fact is that they ARE doing something different than the FMJ's.
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... in gelatin.

I actually carry the Underwood Extreme Penetrator rounds when hiking and have been impressed by the various videos of them. That being said the effectiveness of these rounds, and the defender, are theoretical in application against a live target. I hope it stays that way too.

For defensive carry where they are more likely to be used against a two-legged threat I don't want to venture into "exotic" ammunition.
 
Today I shot a few out of my P365. Dead accurate at 35'. No difference in felt recoil. I will buy a couple of boxes of these and use them for my "out of the house" carry round where more penetration may be an advantage.

NovX is a similar concept and they came to our range a number of times for extensive testing. Impressive stuff compared to ball ammo but I think I prefer the solid copper Lehigh bullet which intrigues me over the polycarbonate/copper ARX bullet NovX uses. Both promote a lighter bullet traveling mush faster as their selling point.

YouTube has a number of direct comparisons between Underwood and other top level current commercial hollow points. The difference between the two styles is interesting.
 
I’m using the Lehigh Defense bullets for my woods carry ammo in .357 Sig and 9MM. I buy the projectiles and load the ammo myself.
 
Lohman446 said:
That being said the effectiveness of these rounds, and the defender, are theoretical in application against a live target. I hope it stays that way too.
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Not if you count hogs and deer as live targets, but I understand the sentiment. That's why I put "wound channel" in quotes regarding the gel tests in the last post.

Here's the thing: JHP's were once "exotic" ammunition too. Someone had to decide to start using them, and then after decades we started getting evidence that they worked (or in the case of many of the early ones, that they didn't). For that matter, there are a great many modern JHP's for which we only have gel tests to judge. That's an interesting question, certainly: what kind of testing would allow people to feel comfortable with a new bullet design without having a bunch of people get shot?

For a while I was carrying the ARX polymer-bullet ammo (the Ruger version, for the record). My reasoning was that while I didn't think I was likely to be in a situation where I'd want to shoot through a barrier (into a car or through a door, say), I'd be much more likely to be in a situation where I wouldn't want the round to penetrate a barrier (inside an occupied building, for instance), and the "frangibility" of the polymer bullet seemed like an advantage.
 
My concern with the exotic aspect is defending the selection to a jury. Test medium aside they look odd. That’s coming from someone who likes them for some uses. I figure the penetrator can’t be bad. Any gain over FMJ for use against critters who attack is just a bonus
 
Sounds like the perfect over-priced ammo for the Operators..........they can stuff them into their 511s while playing the next level of video game.............
 
I use ARX ammo eclusively in my EDC a Ruger LCR. It's comparable to a 125 grain JHP +p in the wound channel it develops, seems to be unaffected by heavy denim, achieves FBI protocol for penetration, but doesn't over penetrate thus minimizing collateral damage. A very unique round.
 
Coming from a smaller company, I have real doubts that they are engineered and tested to the same level as a Federal round or a Winchester round.

It looks cool, but how do I know it does real tissue damage.
 
Nathan said:
It looks cool, but how do I know it does real tissue damage.
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It's frustrating, because I had several YouTube videos saved with hunters showing the results of using the Lehigh bullets on various game, but thanks to YT's anti-gun push of late, they're all gone. It's possible they've been uploaded to other sites since, but I haven't found them yet.

I will say that in every one I saw, the amount of damage was shocking for a solid, non-deforming bullet. And they definitely don't deform; several of the recovered bullets looked as though they could be loaded and fired again.
 
Iv always thought that they might be a game changer in a 9mm as a trail gun,
But the more I know the less I know
 
Coming from a smaller company, I have real doubts that they are engineered and tested to the same level as a Federal round or a Winchester round.

It looks cool, but how do I know it does real tissue damage.
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Mouse Gun Addict did an evaluation and gel test. You can see the 38 Special eval HERE or look at the 9MM eval HERE

If you still doubt the validity of the ammo you can visit the plant in your homestate of Georgia.
 
gnystrom said:
NovX is a similar concept and they came to our range a number of times for extensive testing. Impressive stuff compared to ball ammo but I think I prefer the solid copper Lehigh bullet which intrigues me over the polycarbonate/copper ARX bullet NovX uses. Both promote a lighter bullet traveling mush faster as their selling point.
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I was using Ruger's loading of the ARX rounds for a while, and had no problems with it, but when I tried the ones made by Polycase (who makes the ARX bullets for all the companies that load them), they were snapping off at the case mouth, causing jams in my Bond Bullpup. I haven't figured out why one brand would do that and another with the same type of bullet wouldn't, but I'm a little leery of the polymer bullets now (only in this specific gun, mind you; I've heard no bad reports from people using them in traditional pistols). That's why I'm interested in the rounds using the Lehigh bullets.

The advantage as I see it is that unlike JHP's, they don't need to expand in order to be fully effective, which could be useful when carrying a short-barreled micro pistol. It would prevent wondering whether your rounds are getting enough velocity to expand reliably (a lot of JHP loadings are marginal in short-barreled pistols...)
 
I can't answer your bullpup question except when they came out as the Boberg made in MN, we had a number of them in for testing at our range. Very violent recoil. Not necessarily felt recoil, all I remember is the spent cases embedding themselves in the back of our range wall 15 feet away.
I am not sure if it is an equal comparison between Polycase and the solid copper round from Lehigh. I fired a few more today and the accuracy and reliability from my P365 will make me look long and hard as to what I want for street carry.
 
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