Frangible ammo

[sgtsundevil]

alright how do you feel about using this type of ammo to prevent over penetration of target and walls to prevent secondary casualties?

[thei3ug]

Frangible bullets generally are not going to disintegrate on drywall or studs. They will keep going, just like lead. It'd been demonstrated. They need something hard like steel plate to cause them to fail. Drywall is definitely not hard.

[Leonidas24]

In testing frangible projectiles have shown to act similarly to FMJs when penetrating drywall, plywood, and tissue. If overpenetration is of vast concern, then something like a Barnes RRLP be of benefit. A fellow I know from DOE sang praises about the RRLP a few years ago when explaining the dangers of working around nuclear power plants.

If nuclear meltdown, however, is of no concern, then I'd personally continue to use proven bullet designs for home defense. The 77 gr Sierra TMK load from Black Hills looks promising.

[MegademiC]

alright how do you feel about using this type of ammo to prevent over penetration of target and walls to prevent secondary casualties?


It likely wouldnt frag on indoor building materials, not penetrate enough to reliably stop an attacker, or a combination of both. Or it will just act as an fmj through drywall or wood.

[CodeRed30]

SSA used to load (and might still) their frang 6.8 rounds with the RRLP. There's a video floating around of an RRLP impacting a tomato and exploding. Might be worth looking at if you're looking for something that doesn't penetrate much. BUT, I'd be worried about it's effectiveness in a defensive capacity.

[sgtsundevil]

so you guys think that a bullet that does not penetrate or not deep enough would be ineffective and the kinetic energy is not enough to stop the attacker? people die from blunt force trauma all the time. First I hope i never have to employ a weapon in my house but in the likelihood i was looking for something that maybe would not cause as much damage if i should happen to miss. i plan on shooting a watermelon in the next few days to see what it does on it. and also a piece of sheet rock or thin plywood just to see the effects. I will try to get some pictures and report back what i found out. Thanks for the input guys much appreciated.

[markm]

As stated, frangible isn't very good on soft targets or drywall/wood. I shot a bunch of it into different stuff, and basically it penetrates too good on housing materials and not very good on soft targets (water).

It'd CERTAINLY drop an attacker, but it's less than optimal in every individual category.

[MegademiC]

so you guys think that a bullet that does not penetrate or not deep enough would be ineffective and the kinetic energy is not enough to stop the attacker? YES. IT HAS HAPPENED TO MANY TIMES BEFORE. Kinetic Energy is not a wounding mechanism. They might drop, they might react as if nothing happened. people die from blunt force trauma all the time...

Red is me. For your second sentence quoted above:

100% of the time, are they quickly incapacitated from one at any location on the chest?
You want a bullet that will reach the CNS and vitals as often as possible. That generally correlates to a round that penetrates more than 12" in Ballistics Gel.

[Koshinn]

people die from blunt force trauma all the time.

Not from rifle rounds. Newton's 3rd Law means that the force you feel in your shoulder when you shoot is going to be greater than the force the bullet imparts on the target (due to wind resistance).

[jmnielsen]

so you guys think that a bullet that does not penetrate or not deep enough would be ineffective and the kinetic energy is not enough to stop the attacker? people die from blunt force trauma all the time. First I hope i never have to employ a weapon in my house but in the likelihood i was looking for something that maybe would not cause as much damage if i should happen to miss. i plan on shooting a watermelon in the next few days to see what it does on it. and also a piece of sheet rock or thin plywood just to see the effects. I will try to get some pictures and report back what i found out. Thanks for the input guys much appreciated.

It's actually how well that energy is transferred to whatever is being struck with the bullet. You can have all the kinetic energy in the world and if it isn't transferred to the object being shot then you aren't doing much good.

I wouldn't call a bullet striking someone blunt force trauma either. While it won't feel the same as the recoil impulse from a semi-auto rifle, it's definitely not going to be something that knocks someone on their ass.

[sgtsundevil]

thanks guys