I used a modified de-capping die to re-swage the hollow-point cavity of the Xtreme bullets 115gr. target hollow-points.
My first attempt tended to over-expand and shed the front of the bullets in fragments, but they were arguably better than ball ammo. I modified the swaging pin slightly and tried again. This time they expanded decently and retained their weight well, but expanded asymmetrically. They did this because the copper plating (thick enough to form a jacket) would split on one side. They were adequate for self-defense, but they could be better.
I modified the pin again, and depth of the cavity. It no longer split the ‘jacket,’ and I had high hopes that these would perform better yet. I’d pretty much got as much use as I could from the Clear Gel block I had, and needed to re-cast it before I could test the new bullet. What with one thing and another it was months before I got around to that… and then the new FBI block I got on sale from Clear Ballistics arrived. Time to test the new bullet!
Designing a hollow-point is no simple thing. It has to be tailored to the caliber and a given velocity range. It needs to cycle properly too, and the shape of the interior of the cavity needs to be able to absorb fabric or such and still allow the bullet to expand. The new bullet shape has a slightly narrower but deeper cavity, but it doesn’t split the outer edge of the jacket.
The test gun for this was my Sig Sauer P6, which has a 3-3/4″ barrel. The load used is 4.9gr. of Universal and a Federal Magnum small pistol primer, which yields 1142 fps. and 334 ft./lbs with an extreme spread of 14 fps. So, time to test. I placed four layers of denim over the face of the block and fired. The results were gratifying.
The bullet penetrated 13-1/2″ and as often happens using Clear Ballistics gel the bullet bounced back around half an inch.The bullet expanded almost immediately on penetrating the block, creating a permanent wound cavity about 1-1/4″ across for the first five inches or so.
Penetration of 13-1/2″ was good, and the bullet expanded in a very satisfactory manner. It did shed one ‘petal’ but this wound up quite close to the resting place of the bullet. The bullet’s maximum expansion was .625″, and the minimum (where it shed the petal) was .508″, making for an average of .563″.
Overall the bullet mushroomed quite well. I’m very satisfied with its performance.
Retained weight, including the shed petal, was 115.4gr. So, good penetration, good expansion, good weight retention. I’m gonna call this one a win.
Michael Tinker Pearce, 15 December 2020
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The gun used in todays testing- my 1911 .45 ACP. It’s a Frankengun with a Systema Colt frame and a post-war surplus slide. It’s a great shooter nonetheless.
A lovely brand new FBI 10% Clear Ballistics ordinance gel block arrived, and I wasted no time putting it to use. I had several loads I wanted to test, including Speer’s venerable 200gr ‘Flying Ashtray’ jacketed hollow-point and the Magsafe .45 ACP +P Super Swat load.
.45 ACP Magsafe Super SWAT
Magsafe Super SWAT was designed for use by SWAT officers that might need to make a ‘hostage shot’ or to shoot where they didn’t want to risk overpenetration.
Magsafe was formed in the 1980s, and specialized in light-weight, high-velocity pre-fragmented projectiles. These were ideally not supposed to over-penetrate standard house walls or ricochet from hard surfaces with lethal force. Typically these consisted of a copper jacket filled with lead pellets in an epoxy matrix rather than a solid lead core. Being lighter than a conventional bullet they were fired at much higher velocities and greater muzzle energy than was typical for the given caliber.
There’s been a lot of discussion over this sort of round, and some controversy. I’ve discussed these at length in a previous post (https://tinkertalksguns.com/2016/06/06/glasers-and-other-pre-fragmented-projectiles/) so we won’t go into it here. But I have never seen an FBI-style gel-test of this specific bullet I decided it needed to be tried. I set up the gel block and draped it with four layers of denim; my work is messy and I go through a lot of jeans, so obtaining appropriate fabric is not a problem. The results were interesting.
Unlike Magsafe’s more typical offerings that are filled with lead shot in an epoxy matrix, the Super SWAT is filled with a yellow epoxy resin. As a consequence they weigh but 68 grains in the .45 ACP load, and as a result Magsafe claims a velocity of 2200fps. from a 5″ barrel. This gives it a spectacular 771ft./lbs of energy at the muzzle, deep in .357 Magnum territory in terms of power.
I didn’t chronograph this load, but as loud and sharp as the muzzle blast was I don’t doubt it at least approaches the velocity claim. I fired it through four layers of denim into the block, and the results were very interesting indeed.
Top view: Penetration was not good at approximately 7″, and the jacket bounced back in the massive permanent wound cavity to about two inches into the block. Expansion was instant and at about two inches into the block the permanent wound cavity expanded abruptly to a full two inches across.Side view: The permanent wound cavity is enormous, but relatively shallow.
This wound would be absolutely devastating, and at this velocity would likely produce significant hydrostatic shock and hydraulic damage. Hydrostatic shock is an unreliable ‘stopper’ in handgun calibers, but this one just might be the exception. The denim actually hit the roof of the shop and landed ten feet from the block!
The recovered bullet is a mess, but still had a small amount of epoxy in the base.
The recovered bullet weighed 42.7gr and retained some epoxy in the base.
So, the ultimate stopper? Probably not. It certainly doesn’t meet anything like the established FBI standard of 12-19″ of penetration through four layers of denim. Still, the permanent wound cavity is spectacular. I think it accomplishes it’s mission, which is for use in hostage and/or crowd situations, to not over-penetrate or ricochet. But as a general-purpose self-defense round? I’d not like to rely on it.
.45 ACP Speer 200gr. Jacketed Hollow-Point
In the 1970s the conventional wisdom was that hollow-points were only useful in lighter high-velocity bullets. Larger, slower bullets simply did not have the velocity to expand. Then Speer changed the game with the introduction of their cavernous 200gr. JHP round, which was the first commercial hollow point that would expand reliably at velocities as low as 800-900 fps.
The bullets huge hollow cavity quickly inspired nicknames like ‘The Flying Ashtray’ or ‘The Ballistic Soup-Can.’
The bullet quickly became a legend, and was my bullet of choice for carry in my .45s. I was quite curious to see how they would perform in a standard FBI-style test. The load I used was 6.5gr. Unique with a Federal Large Pistol primer, which yields 920 fps. and 376 ft./lbs with an extreme spread of 45fps. from my gun’s 5″ barrel.
Once again I fired into the gel through four layers of denim. I have to say, this test vindicated the faith I have long placed in this bullet.
From Above: 16 inches of penetration and a pretty decent permanent wound track.Side View: Expansion began about one inch of penetration. Some serious damage there. The bullet barely broke the surface at the end of the block, then bounced back approximately 1/4″
The bullet carried a significant wad of denim into the block, and expansion was impressive. Maximum expansion was .776″, minimum was .665″, yielding an average of .715″ Yikes!
The bullet carried a surprisingly large wad of denim with it.
Weight retention wasn’t bad, with the recovered bullet weighing 181.3gr.
So, mixed results. I’m a bit dubious about the Super SWAT for my uses, but I am very pleased with the performance of the 200gr. load.
I’ll have further tests coming up in the next few days, two .32-20 loads fired from my Colt Police Positive Special and a new ‘home-spun’ 115gr. JHP load from my Sig Sauer P6 9mm.
Michael Tinker Pearce, 14 December 2020
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The test guns- on top my home-made rolling-block carbine, a Western Field Model 37 .22 Rifle, my home-made .22 Target Pistol and an Iver Johnson .32 S&W Hammerless
I re-cast my block of Clear Ballistics 10% ordinance gel last night. I’d over-heated it slightly the first time I re-cast it, which caused it to yellow and become murky. I’ve got another FBI block arriving any day now, and I have plans for that block. I decided to use the current murky block to assuage my curiosity.
.22 CB Short Test
I’ve been having fun during confinement shooting CCI .22 CB Short Low-Noise ammunition for some backyard plinking, and I was curious about it’s performance. I set up to test it.
CCI makes this special low-velocity low-noise .22 Short ammunition for indoor shooting and shooting through suppressed weapons. Fired from a 24″ rifle it’s very quiet indeed; comparable to a low-powered pellet rifle. The label claims a velocity of 710 fps.
From my 24″ Western Field Model 37 it’s really quiet and doesn’t disturb the neighbors. Setting up the gel block and chronograph in my workshop I started testing with that rifle. Since these are not expanding bullets I didn’t bother firing through denim. I carefully fired five shots through the chronograph and into the gel. The results were interesting…
The five shots (at the top of the block) landed quite close together, but not so close they interfered with each other.
From the rifle’s 24″ barrel the chronograph showed an average of 624 fps. and 25 ft./lbs of energy with an extreme spread of 81 fps. Penetration into the gel averaged 8.25 inches for the five shots. The energy of these rounds is comparable to a powerful .22 air-rifle, and it’s very quiet. OK, there’s the baseline; time to move on to the pistol.
My single-shot .22 Target Pistol. It has a 5″ barrel and is a simple single-action mechanism. It’s quite accurate at 25 yards.
Once again I fired a five-shot group, being careful to spread the bullets enough that they would not hit each other and mess up the results.
You can see some of the bullets ‘bounced’ back in the gel, so I measured from the point of deepest penetration rather than the resting place of the bullet. Against all expectation the pistol actually showed higher velocities and deeper penetration than the rifle. Interesting…
The results were unexpected. Shots from the pistol’s 5″ barrel were much louder than from the rifle’s 24″ barrel (which was expected) and it yielded an average velocity of 707 fps. and 32 ft./lbs of energy with an extreme spread of only 27 fps. Penetration averaged 9 inches. OK, that’s kinda’ weird…
Having tried a 5″ barrel and a 24″ barrel I decided to split the difference and grabbed my little rolling-block carbine with a 16-1/4″ barrel. I fired five shots into the gel. I’m not sure what happened but I could not get a good read from the chronograph, so I don’t know exactly what velocity I was getting. I also could not get a good photograph of the bullets in the gel, but the average penetration was 9-1/4″.
My little rolling-block carbine. It has a 16-1/4″ barrel and Quilted Maple stocks.
As I’d hoped this made things a bit clearer; in terms of barrel length there is a ‘sweet spot’ for these cartridges, and the Model 37’s 24″ barrel is well past that length. There’s so little powder in these shells that the bullet simply runs out of power before it reaches the end of the barrel. It hits the point of diminishing returns, which is why it’s so quiet from the long barrel. The 16-1/4″ barrel of the carbine is more to its liking; we don’t know the exact velocity but since it exhibited the highest average penetration we can guess it’s somewhat higher than the pistol’s, but not so much as to indicate that this is the ideal length either. The pistol was far and away the loudest of the three, so it’s a bit shorter than ideal.
Given that it this ammo yields the same sort of power levels as a high-powered .22 air rifles which are deemed suitable for small game, these cartridges would serve that purpose admirably with careful shot placement. A shorter barrel yields fractionally more power, but under some circumstances this may be outweighed by the quiet of the longer barrel. For suburban plinking or pest control this is pretty ideal, and in some survival situations it could be very useful.
Make no mistake though; this does not make your .22 a toy! Penetration is deep enough to cause serious and possibly even lethal injuries, especially if the bullet struck a person’s throat or head. Even with these low-powered rounds all the normal strictures of firearms safety must be observed.
.32 S&W Test
This was a bit of an afterthought, but when I finished with the .22 I thought hey, why not? The test gun is an Iver Johnson Model 1 Safety Hammerless with the barrel shortened (by a previous owner) to 2″. The load is a 90gr HBWC over 1.2gr of Red Dot with a Federal Magnum Small Pistol primer.
The test load uses a 90gr Hollow-base wadcutter. The bullet stands well proud of the casing; the cartridge is so short there is simply no room for it to be seated full-length as one does for .32 S&W Long. A bit heavy for caliber, but this has been a very accurate load for me and is not too heavy for some of my top-break revolvers.
From the 2″ gun this yielded and average of 681 fps. and 93 ft./lbs of energy with an extreme spread of 23 fps. Penetration in gel was rather impressive. Taking into account the ‘bounce-back’ this load penetrated 13″. Not at all shabby!
Of the four shots fired two exited the block, and only this one showed well in a photograph, but penetration on both shots that remained in the block was virtually identical.
This is an improvement over factory ammunition, which is purposefully anemic. I think it also might not suffer from the standard round-nose bullet’s tendency to deflect off bone if it doesn’t hit squarely, but that’s just a suspicion. I would not feed any old top-break a steady diet of this load, though my little S&W hasn’t suffered from it. Still, best to err on the side of caution; I formulated this load for use in my 1849 cartridge conversion after all.
As always one should approach any load data with caution; it is prudent to start 10% under a listed load and work up to it. The author is not responsible for any use or misuse of the load data presented; use it at your own risk. Any antique firearm should be carefully inspected prior to being fired, and your guiding principle should be ‘when in doubt don’t.’
Michael Tinker Pearce, 11 December 2020
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