Lehigh Defense 68gr Fragmenting 9mm

[Quiet Riot]

Lehigh Defense produces custom machined bullets and loaded ammunition. I've had the chance to test a few of their designs, but this one pushes the boundaries the most.

At 68gr, this bullet is very light by 9mm standards, but it cooks out of my G17 at over 1500fps! The gel test results are pretty impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvt3Cfuvlp8

[pilotguyo540]

Oh boy...

I am no Dr. Roberts, but there is a shit ton of fail in this video.

The base only made it 13.4". If 12-18" is optimal, this is barely cutting it.

Retained weight does not count when collecting all of the pieces and weighing the total. The retained weight should be the base alone.

Most of the fragment pieces failed to penetrate all that far.

The permanent cavity was rather anemic.

My local gun shop tried selling me this wonderful new magic bullet. I am sure that if you peel the label off the box, you will see "snake oil" underneath.

[Quiet Riot]

Clear Ballistics is an interesting test medium. It is quite elastic and does not shear like standard FBI test gel. So, in order to get an idea of the potential damage, you need to look at the temporary stretch cavity in freeze frame like I show. In FBI gel, the wound profile would be much more impressive. Watch my test (or anyone's) with something like the Ranger T-Series, a known performer, to see what I'm talking about. The wound channel for most handgun bullets just does not look that impressive in this medium when compared to what we're used to seeing in FBI gel. This is the big tradeoff for having something that is temp stable and reusable.

You are right that I should've been clearer about the retained weight, and I will be more specific in future videos of this kind of bullet. Each piece is intended as an individual projectile, which is why I show the weight of the base first, then add each petal one at a time. "Retained weight" doesn't have the same application to fracturing bullets as it does for bullets that are supposed to stay together, so I will use different wording next time. It would be more accurate to say that each sub-projectile retained 100% of its starting weight and that the entire mass of the bullet was available for penetration as designed.

As far as total penetration, this is supposed to be a bullet to use when overpenetration is a concern. Lehigh Defense also makes a 105gr bullet and loaded ammo that in my test penetrated 18".

[pilotguyo540]

Clear Ballistics is an interesting test medium. It is quite elastic and does not shear like standard FBI test gel. So, in order to get an idea of the potential damage, you need to look at the temporary stretch cavity in freeze frame like I show. In FBI gel, the wound profile would be much more impressive. Watch my test (or anyone's) with something like the Ranger T-Series, a known performer, to see what I'm talking about. The wound channel for most handgun bullets just does not look that impressive in this medium when compared to what we're used to seeing in FBI gel. This is the big tradeoff for having something that is temp stable and reusable.

You are right that I should've been clearer about the retained weight, and I will be more specific in future videos of this kind of bullet. Each piece is intended as an individual projectile, which is why I show the weight of the base first, then add each petal one at a time. "Retained weight" doesn't have the same application to fracturing bullets as it does for bullets that are supposed to stay together, so I will use different wording next time. It would be more accurate to say that each sub-projectile retained 100% of its starting weight and that the entire mass of the bullet was available for penetration as designed.

As far as total penetration, this is supposed to be a bullet to use when overpenetration is a concern. Lehigh Defense also makes a 105gr bullet and loaded ammo that in my test penetrated 18".

Please forgive me for being so rash before. I didn't know this was your product.

Using a different medium than calibrated ballistic gelatin only muddies the waters. It takes the science out of the comparison. You are no longer comparing apples to apples. It also destroys the validity if your temporary cavity freeze frame.

I take issue with all of the fragment pieces retaining all of their weight. Of course they would. There was nothing between the barrel and the medium that would cause it to lose or shed mass. I understand the premise of each little piece being its own projectile upon entering the body. What I failed to see was any of the projectiles leave the initial trajectory. There was no shotgun type spread in the projectiles. Spread measurements in cross section in a repeated test with calibrated ballistics gel would be a good way to compare damage potential versus other known quality defensive loads, like Speer Gold Dot, and Winchester Ranger.

I must have missed the part about this being designed for the fear of over penetration. That is very important information to know up front. Barrier blind tests would be great to compare the penetration versus other rounds as well. These protocols have been laid out by the FBI, so there is no need to reinvent the wheel...again.

Are your bullets really machined? The logistics if that seem incredible, but that is not in my field of expertise. Just curious.

[Quiet Riot]

Not my product at all, but it is my video. Lehigh Defense uses FBI gel in their testing. No YouTuber does to my knowledge- just WAY too expensive and maintenance-intensive for reasons you are probably already aware of.

I guess I'm just used to people already familiar with this medium and what to expect from it. If you want to see a baseline, if you could call it that, I test the 40S&W 180gr Black Talon and 165gr T-Series (a known performer) back to back in the following video. You can see that the wound channels aren't that different for the first 8", and the 165gr T-Series doesn't even penetrate as far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6J3CpxnXJQ

There are tons of other tests on known performers out there using Clear Ballistics that also show what I'm talking about- this medium matches penetration results for FBI gel, but not wound cavity results, unfortunately. You need to compare Clear Ballistics tests to Clear Ballistics test when comparing ammo, so you get apples-to-apples, as you say.