Effectiveness of flat-point bullets?

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Buck13

Buck13

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It's funny that many revolver guys LOVE flat point bullets and think that SWCs or the flat point designs from LBT are excellent at creating wounds, but there seems to be less interest in that among auto shooters. It's a little hard to believe that the copper plating and the slightly less-square edge of a flat-point auto pistol bullet completely destroys the magic. Obviously the meplat of a .355" FP is not to be compared with that of a .452" WFN, and the revolver bullets are often faster (although plenty of people like the SWC in non-magnums as well), but still...is there value to FP bullets, or not?

My first hit in looking for side-by-side comparisons of RN and FP bullets was this:

Weird. The Winchesters FPs had the lowest velocity but greatest penetration. How'd that happen?

Yet I thought the FPs did shake up the gel block more. Am I imagining that?

This makes me think the idea may not be entirely wrong, at least for a marginal caliber like the 9 x 17, but it's not dramatic and n = 1. If you have any other links to FP and RN gel tests, please post them.
 
Buck13 said:
Weird. The Winchesters FPs had the lowest velocity but greatest penetration. How'd that happen?
Click to expand...
I didn't catch if all the rounds were the same weight. A heavier bullet will penetrate better, so maybe that's it.
Buck13 said:
Yet I thought the FPs did shake up the gel block more. Am I imagining that?
Click to expand...
Didn't look much different to me, but even if it was, I don't see that it makes any real difference in a gel test of a marginal cartridge. Yes lethal, but any cartridge can fail. I take gel tests with a grain of salt. If there was any minor difference you saw, it would be minimal enough not to matter IMO.

FP and FMJs penetrate deeper, but do not crush as much tissue as a JHP or a WC, or some other bullet with a flat and wide meplate. Temporary gel cavitation or "gel block shake" doesn't mean much to me.
 
After a lot of thought and understanding my shot may have to penetrate through lots of clothing and strike large bones or I may have the need to shoot through my windshield or something similar, I opted for using Underwood Extreme Defender as my carry round or choice.
 
I think the reason auto shooters are not enamored of FP bullets has nothing to do with terminal performance. Around 1990 Hornady introduced their wide-nosed truncated cone FMJ bullets in .45 caliber, citing better terminal performance on steel and human targets. Back then almost all .45s were 1911s or clones, and that platform would feed almost anything. Those Hornady bullets worked great.

Fast forward to today and you find a plethora of .45 handguns besides the 1911s, and some are rather picky in what they feed reliably. Hornady found that their original TC bullets didn’t feed well in some, so they dropped them and reprofiled their current offerings with smaller flat points.

Bottom line, revolvers will feed any bullet shape, autos don’t. Single shot autos have little appeal.....


.
 
I'm not sure I'm buying your theory. There are lots of flat point rounds available for auto-loaders. Nearly every .40 S&W "ball" round is a flat nose truncated cone bullet.

I also question the feed reliability issue with non-1911 .45 ACP guns. I'm primarily a 1911 shooter (OK, just about all I shoot is a 1911), and while I really appreciate the good points of the 1911, there are very few modern pistols that are as picky of ammunition types as the 1911. Noted 1911 expert and devotee, Ken Hackathorn, refers to the 1911 as the "king of the feed-way stoppage".
 
Weird. The Winchesters FPs had the lowest velocity but greatest penetration. How'd that happen?
Click to expand...

That is very common, at least to a point. More speed means more resistance to penetration.

The 40 S&W rounds need to have flat points, especially in heavier weights or they will be too long to fit in the magazine. That is the reason.

Wad cutter ammo was initially meant to cut crisp edges in paper targets so it was easier to score hits in target. Shooting RN bullets leaves a ragged hole and it is harder to determine exactly where to score shots close to a line. But even in revolvers true wadcutters were difficult to load and very unreliable in semi-autos. When used for SD many shooters found they performed better than expected and the Semi-Wadcutter was designed as a compromise. They are much easier to load in revolvers and will still work in MOST modern semi-autos. Early 1911's would not always feed them. Newer 1911's are better, but not 100 %. Most other semi-auto designs will feed semi-wadcutters pretty reliably.

A semi-wadcutter made with hardcast lead will provide the best straight line penetration in any cartridge and would be the best choice for most handgun defense against larger 4 legged predators

Back then almost all .45s were 1911s or clones, and that platform would feed almost anything. Those Hornady bullets worked great.
Click to expand...
Fast forward to today and you find a plethora of .45 handguns besides the 1911s, and some are rather picky in what they feed reliably.
Click to expand...

You've got it backwards. It is the older 1911's that were picky. Most modern designs are much more reliable with a wider range of ammo. Modern 1911's are a little better than years ago, but I'd not trust any 1911 with anything other than a RN bullet in either FMJ or a HP with a similar shape.
 
Got them 5% bonus on Hatcher Stopping Factor, too.

The Hornady truncated cone flat point was developed in 9mm for the USAF to give a little improvement in terminal performance with FJM Hague bullets. As the Army got interested and it became obvious that we would have a 9mm service pistol for "interoperability" with European NATO, they had to back down. There was an intermediate "round nose flat point" design but we ended up with the WWI roundnose to be sure we could give ammo to our allies.

Cooper and friends found that the .45 version penetrated straighter and deeper than roundnose.
 
I put almost 100 of those Winchester FPs through my new .380 without a hitch this week. They do make nice holes in paper, anyway. I will probably buy another 200-pack to continue breaking in the gun, and may carry them until/unless I shoot enough Gold Dots to trust the HPs. Maybe even after that, since with a .380, if you had to shoot a fat guy or they got a forearm in the way of the bullet, HPs might not work.
 
Buck,

The flat point ammo you are talking about is fine for paper punching at the range, but a poor choice for self defense. I really doubt it works any better than .380ACP ball ammo and is likely to be a less reliable feeder. They will at most, make a same as caliber hole and over penetrate.
Before anyone jumps up and screams about Keith bullets and meplats, let look at what THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. Heavy for caliber hunting ammo. You cannot compare a .44 Special load using a 250 grain Keith style bullet at 1100 feet per second with a .380ACP using jacketed, non-expanding flat point bullets at 950 feet per second.
The .44 or .45 or .41 or even .357 magnum Keith bullets at high velocity may not expand, but cut a caliber size hole and will penetrate deeply, maybe even go through and through giving two blood trails and higher blood loss. That is fine for hunting, but very risky in a self defense shooting where a deeply penetrating round may hit someone else after penetrating the target.

Even in the .357 magnum, the bullets used for hunting are usually at least 158 grain semi-wadcutters at about 1200 feet per second or higher and will almost always overpenetrate. It just does not compare to a .380ACP.
Also, note , NO POLICE DEPARTMENT that I have ever heard of adopted this type of ammo and stuck with it. The NYPD adopted a semi-wadcutter .38 Special load and found it worked no better than the 158 grain round nose lead they had been using.

On the .380ACP, you may or may not have a feeding problem. In my .32ACP's, I have stopped using WINCHESTER ammo because they fed so unreliably. This appears to be less of a problem with .380ACP ammo based on internet comments, but I have spoken to other shooters who had the same problem with the .32ACP ammo.

There is some better performing hollow point ammo coming out for the .380ACP now. I would try that first for a carry load.

Good luck,

Jim
 
"In my .32ACP's, I have stopped using WINCHESTER ammo because they fed so unreliably."

Me too. The Winchester White Box 32acp has flat-nosed bullets that won't feed properly in my European pistols.
 
golden said:
Before anyone jumps up and screams about Keith bullets and meplats, let look at what THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. Heavy for caliber hunting ammo. You cannot compare a .44 Special load using a 250 grain Keith style bullet at 1100 feet per second with a .380ACP using jacketed, non-expanding flat point bullets at 950 feet per second.
Jim
Click to expand...
Since I consider "all caps" in print to be screaming, I'll leave that to you.

The hunting ammo is using a round that is marginal for the task at hand, and choosing a bullet to maximize the effectiveness for that marginal round. Likewise, using a .380 for personal defense, generally regarded as marginal, as are most handgun calibers (the reason we choose a handgun over a rifle for personal defense is they are easier to carry and conceal, not that they are more effective than a rifle round), and choosing a bullet to maximize that round is sound thinking. You may disagree with his choice, but there is logic to it.
 
ShootingTheBull410 talks about "The Butter Zone" - implying that something like 14" to 16" is preferable or optimal. The FBI "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness" says in chapter 11:

"It is essential to bear in mind that the single most critical factor remains penetration. While penetration up to 18 inches is preferable, a handgun must penetrate 12 inches of soft body tissue at a minimum, regardless of whether it expands or not."

The "Butter Zone" for the FBI is between 17.9765625 inches and 17.9921875 inches of penetration. :thumbup:
 
These two might answer your questions. What fascinated me on these tests is the difference between the rounds on the soft targets. The two hollow points tested are clear winners for explosiveness with the Extreme Defender seeming to be a close follower to them. But the Extreme Penetrator and especially the Hard Cast show, as expected, very little explosive response from the soft targets. And in the second video, the Hard Cast is just phenomenal for penetration (like mind blowing).

So, hollow points seem to me at first to be top dog for defensive purposes until barriers come into play. At that point, I can’t find a good use case for hollow points unless I can be assured the bad guy I’m aiming at isn’t behind a car door, window or wall; and is instead coming at me as a shirtless zombie with a boneless thoracic cavity :)


 
Apparently FP bullets continue through target medium (gel or flesh) with less disruption of direction. So straight in and out. Bones and varying densities of medium seem to have less effect as well.
 
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In my limited experience, mostly with 45’s, flat point bullets don’t feed very reliably. Only thing I’ve had worse luck with was some Cor-Bon’s back when they first came out.
 
JTQ said:
I'm not sure I'm buying your theory. There are lots of flat point rounds available for auto-loaders. Nearly every .40 S&W "ball" round is a flat nose truncated cone bullet.
Click to expand...

I’m not sure you understand the difference in meplat effects for a truncated come vs. a WFN. Pistol bullets - these truncated cones you’re touting - typically have a profile far more similar to SWC’s than WFN’s.

Yes, a big meplat is a big advantage, but you’re not going to make a tiny little pistol cartridge with a truncated cone bullet behave like a big revolver cartridge with a WFN.
 
I’ll opine that in autos, reliable feeding is the reason WFN bullets aren’t seen.

The Speer “Flying ashtray” 200 gr JHP was notorious for jamming 1911 pistols that weren’t tuned for that style of bullet, making it a “manually operated” pistol. If you count on “one shot, one kill” from your sidearm every single time then that wouldn’t be an issue. I don’t, so to me I’d rather have less “terminally effective” (subjectively used) bullets that reliably function in my autos over better performing “manstoppers” that don’t reliably function.

Most of my autos run extremely reliably with RN profiled bullets, and very reliably with JHP types with a somewhat similar profile. I’ve had many jams from .380 on up to .45 with sharp-shouldered SWC bullets catching on feed ramps.

I’ll stick to the auto-specific JHP bullets in my semis used for defensive purposes against man or beast, since most (if not all) have semi auto functioning in mind when they’re designed. I will leave my WFN or crisp SWC bullets for my revolvers.

Stay safe!
 
Varminterror said:
I’m not sure you understand the difference in meplat effects for a truncated come vs. a WFN. Pistol bullets - these truncated cones you’re touting - typically have a profile far more similar to SWC’s than WFN’s.

Yes, a big meplat is a big advantage, but you’re not going to make a tiny little pistol cartridge with a truncated cone bullet behave like a big revolver cartridge with a WFN.
Click to expand...
What would the performance characteristic be?
 
I shoot WC in revolvers & SWC in my 45 ACP (rarely have a problem) but only because I'm a paper shooter & they make a cleaner hole. However in a self defense scenario I would imagine that they would work fine under most conditions. Back in the 70's we read a lot of stuff from Skeeter Skelton, Charlie Askins, Bill Jordan, etc. & we once found one where someone said that hollow base WC could be real nasty if loaded upside down (in a revolver). We loaded a few in 38 Special & shot them at the local dump (beer cans, old TV sets & water-filled plastic jugs - those were the good old days) but I can't remember if they impressed us or not.
 
JTQ said:
What would the performance characteristic be?
Click to expand...

Straight line, bone crushing penetration with a big temporary cavity. When you're talking about multiplying factors for bullet mass, the reason why a 44mag can cleanly kill an elephant and why a 40 S&W can't becomes very apparent.
 
Varminterror said:
Straight line, bone crushing penetration with a big temporary cavity. When you're talking about multiplying factors for bullet mass, the reason why a 44mag can cleanly kill an elephant and why a 40 S&W can't becomes very apparent.
Click to expand...
The reason the .44 Magnum can kill the elephant is because they aren't using 210gr hollow points. Deep, straight, penetration is the key when using a round that would ordinarily be considered marginal for the task at hand.

Since the .380 (and most auto pistol rounds) are marginal for the task of shooting people, a 100gr truncated cone would give a similar advantage over choosing a 80gr hollow point .380.
 
  1. I would NEVER carry FMJs for self-defense as a civilian.
  2. When I was XO of a Basic Training company in the '80s, the Army withdrew all of our .45acp ammunition just before payday. As pay officers, we were given the choice of either carrying M16A1s (not happening) or carrying our own personal handguns and or ammunition. I carried my own Series 70 Colt and my .45acp handloads using a heavy charge of Unique and the Hornady 200gr. "Combat Target" JSWC-FP.
 
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