Federal HST- Impressive performance!

[DocGKR]

We have not noticed any major improvements.

[tpd223]

Light to medium weight clothing. The recovered projectiles from OIS incidents I've seen appear more like those from 4LD than BG test shots...

That has been my observation as well with a few loads that I have seen used numerous times in OISs, mostly 124gr +P Gold Dot, although the non-expansion of various JHPs in street shootings/homicide cases that I have worked bears this out as well.

I can't speak to the Federal bullet, but the 115gr Winchester Silvertip has not changed one bit from the days of the FBI/Miami shootout. I had heard several times that it had been "updated" after that event. Straight from Winchester they advise it had not.
Just one example.

[Beat Trash]

I've been having a discussion with a guy over on Arfcom who has shown problems with 147gr HSTs when shooting them into water. Here is the pic he posted:



He also fired 115gr DPX and 124gr +P HST and 124gr GDHPs which all expanded perfectly. The gun used is a 3.5" M&P supcompact.

This is kind of unsettling. Would there be any reason to expect the 147gr HSTs to have lost enough velocity out of a 3.5" barrel to not expand properly?

[ETA] Link to thread: http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.htm...&page=1#bottom

My agency hosted ballistics workshops last November. ATK was first. The 147gr HST load was what I was really interested in from them. Main test gun was an issued 4" M&P. We also conducted bare gel tests using a 3.5" M&P9c and a 3" Kahr PM9. This was done to see the effect of velocity loss from a shorter barrel, when compared to the bare gel shots from the 4" gun. Short answer, 4" to 3.5" no difference. When going down to the 3" gun, there was some difference. But very little, maybe an increase in penetration of .5".

The interesting thing occurred the following week when Wincheester came out. We kept the actual box of ammunition from ATK and reshot the 147 gr HST against the Winchester 147gr Ranger T loading. In one test we had two failures of the HST to expand. One round looked like the round pictured. I asked for the test to be reshot. The second time the round failed to expand at all. The thing looked like an unfired bullet.

My agency ended up switching to the Winchester loading. While the failure to expand did play into the decision, it wasn't the main factor.

I'm not a ballistic engineer. But I do know that when dealing with bullets, sometimes weird shit happens. It's because of this concept that I'd still have no issues carrying the 147 HST in my guns.

If I were buying carry ammunition and had to choose between the Winchester 147 gr Ranger-T loading and the Federal 147gr HST, I probably buy which ever one was cheaper.

There are no magic bullets. If the round fails to expand then shoot them again!

[Abraxas]

-one anonymous, anomalous test of skeptical methodology is not going to leave me too concerned...

Ah yes there it is, logic. Why would you want to cloud an issue with facts, this is the internet.This is where some story from "some guy" is supposed to mean as much or more than real testing and real world results

[Voodoo_Man]

not going to mention any info on who/how/what/etc (keeping opsec in tact) but this is a .45 HST round pulled from someone



Good stuff right there if you ask me.