Hornady Critical Defense Ammo..make some at home...?

[Stargazer]

Hornady seems to have whipped the "clogged with clothing" reason that hollow points do not open correctly sometimes. Their polymer in the cavity helps push open the petals of the HP even if it is being pushed by clothing so when it does enter the body it is open or opens very rapidly. So it seems they may have nipped this issue in the bud with these new rounds.

Now, would normal silicone in the cavity of our HP's make them act more like they are supposed to and not clog either? I do not have ballistic gelatin so it would be hard for me to tell if it works or not. But maybe a squirt of silicone in our HP cavities would make the rounds we already have work better and not clog as easy with clothing and expand better?

The post in Hydra-Shok's helps even the opening of that HP unless of course it gets half plugged with clothing as it is likely to do. Same for the great Ranger SXT (Black Talon) rounds, great HP with it's heavy petal tips but it can clog and not open correctly too.

The silicone would add very little weight to the round but may just help it perform as it is supposed to, after going through clothing. What do you guys think?

[Unclenick]

It may be their take off on the Corbon Pow'R-Ball bullets. These are hollow points with a round polymer ball inserted into the tip. It is to promote feeding like hardball and also to initiate expansion.

The apparently now defunct self-defense forum had a great post by a fellow whose girlfriend was a med student who did a forensics rotation. She was in on an autopsy of a fellow shot, I think, five times by police. As is usual with handgun loads, they could not tell by the damage whether the bullets were solids or hollow points or even what caliber they were as they had all penetrated completely. They were perplexed, however, by the presence of little round polymer balls they found in the wound cavities.

[Al Norris]

Actually, these are answers to get around the Federal Ammunition patents on EFMJ (Expanding Full Metal Jacket) technology.

In a mistake, last summer, Federal Ammunition offered MidwayUSA some production mistakes (weight varied from 123gr to 125gr) on their 9mm 124gr EFMJ bullets. I was lucky to get some of these (Federal does not normally offer its line as components).

After some experimentation, I settled on 6.6gr of HS-6 under these bullets. Very accurate and expands always.

Is Hornady offering these as components, or must we buy the loaded cartridges?

[Qtiphky]

Do you reload your own loads for self defense? I had an old timer tell me never to use my own reloads for self defense purposes because of liability reasons if you ever have to use them. You know, he made his own loads so he went looking for someone to shoot. He really didn't need to shoot the intruder yadaydayda. Any thoughts?

[Stargazer]

Right now they are loaded rounds only but they did release the LeverLoution bullets for reloading. So maybe in time they will release these as well.

I understand about the liability deal and due to that never "carry" reloads in the pistols. But adding silicone to the nose of a Hydra-Shok or a Ranger SXT is not "reloading" it. Are we penalized for carrying Hydra-Shoks over a FMJ factory round? But sir, I was only trying to prevent lint and fuzz from building up inside the cavity of my rounds. They are factory rounds that have not been tampered with. I just color code my rounds so I am NOT carrying any reloads with me. Hmmm, some plausible explanantions for the silicone. Maybe get two different colors, one for my reloads and one for factory rounds.

[jibjab]

Couldn't these bullets be used for hunting in any number of semi-auto platforms ?

[Al Norris]

Originally Posted by Qtiphky

Do you reload your own loads for self defense?

Yes I do. However, there is a caveat in saying this.

I live in rural Idaho. I've researched court cases in my state. I've "quized" county sheriffs and prosecutors throughout the State. This type of liability has never been raised... Doesn't mean it won't ever be, but as of now, there is no such liability in the State of Idaho.

I've had numerous discussions with Massad Ayoob about this subject, here at TFL (yes, he is a member). Now with almost 3 years of research, I'm comfortable with reloading my own personal defense ammunition. I'm comfortable with saying, that the liability issue, as it currently stands, is a regional issue. It still remains an issue; More populous States or States with more restrictive firearms laws or attitudes about personal firearms ownership, will certainly be different.

I would not recommend anyone else loading their own PDA, without doing their own research in their area.

[Unclenick]

The liability thing has been speculated and talked to death and it still mostly turns out to be just that: speculation and talk. I, too, have discussed it with a county prosecutor. Also with an attorney friend who says that as far as criminal prosecutions go, he still can't find any instance of a civilian defensive shooting where the subject of handloads became a factor, much less reversing a finding of self-defense or justifiable homicide. He doesn't believe there ever will be unless a law is enacted specifically making defensive shooting with handloads illegal. He can't find one of those, either, and unless environmentalists get handloading banned, he doesn't expect one to come about. There just aren't enough instances of it happening to be on anybody's radar. He points out that justifiable homicide is normally unpremeditated and happens with whatever tool is at hand. For that reason, once the homicide is determined to have been justifiable, the weapon doesn't matter unless it caused collateral damage. I take that to mean one should avoid using cannon, explosives, or gamma ray bursts whenever possible.

Your state's civil law might be more important to consider? Many, Ohio included, now have laws that prohibit a criminal or his family from suing for injuries incurred during the commission of a crime. If your state does not have that provision, you might want to restrict yourself to carrying hardball? If you are concerned that handloading makes you look guilty of premeditation, how much worse will it look when it is discovered you've been altering commercial ammo to ensure it does maximum damage?

[Al Norris]

Originally Posted by Unclenick

If you are concerned that handloading makes you look guilty of premeditation, how much worse will it look when it is discovered you've been altering commercial ammo to ensure it does maximum damage?

That right there appears to be a very large liability issue, to me.

It's one thing to load what is available on the market. It's quite another to alter/tamper the components.

[Stargazer]

Gentlemen, I appreciate the legal comments and all but that is not the subject at hand. I was wanting to ask the opinions of others as to whether or not they thought the silicone might help in the same way the polymer does with Hornady's new rounds.

[Notenoughguns]

I would think silicon is too soft. Those polymer tips are tough.

[FALPhil]

Stargazer wrote:
Gentlemen, I appreciate the legal comments and all but that is not the subject at hand. I was wanting to ask the opinions of others as to whether or not they thought the silicone might help in the same way the polymer does with Hornady's new rounds.

Stargazer, welcome to the internet!

Since you are an obvious newbie, I just want to point out to you that forum discussion threads have a tendency to morph and take different directions that the thread starter originally intended. Sometimes you can get them back on track,and sometimes you can't. Please don't take it personal; it's just a dynamic of the medium.

To get back to your original question, I think that you might possible be able to approach the Hornady performance with a 6mm airsoft pellet held in place with silocone glue/caulk. But we'd have to do some pretty strenuous testing.

[Unclenick]

I'll get back to the same question as well and suggest that the silicone would most likely constitute a form of pre-plugging of the hollow point. If soft material like cloth and leather can stop a hollowpoint from expanding, then I would expect the silicone RTV to have about the same effect. Try it on gelatin or wet newpaper or even on water jugs to see if you can detect a difference? I think there was perhaps a false inference taken by the OP that there is something special about the material in the nose being a polymer instead of, say, a piece of wood, that makes a bullet expand. No such luck. Polymers include a very wide range of materials, some of which are convenient for executing the polymer nose designs, but the bullet tip and the polymer parts have to be shaped to work together. Shapes designed to be expanded directly by hydrodynamic forces probably will continue to require direct hydrodynamic forces to work as intended.

Personally, I find the irregularity of hollow point performance a strong negative. I understand that since the infamous Miami FBI shootout, the bullet manufacturers became far more diligent in testing their designs. As a result, the performance with plugged cavities and in barrier penetration are both improved in many instances.

In the mean time, essentially ignored by the major commercial ammo makers, a good deal of data has been accumulated by hunters showing that, within their range limits, flat meplat solid bullets are far more effective than intuition suggests they should be, and they suffer no inconsistency. If you want something consistent that loses energy rapidly in fluid medium, load .45 caliber 185 grain JSWC target bullets up past 1000 fps and do some experimenting. I think you'll be surprised.

[Stargazer]

Unclenick, thanks for the serious post on my original question. I was the OP here and the video shown was impressive to me. I had seen over the past few years were bullet makers had started to add "hard" polymer tips to their bullet noses for nose protection mainly. Then it seems Hornady used a more flexible polymer to make the Leverevolution rounds and noticed the more flexible tip actually helped open the HP more consistently. Then the Critical defense bullets came out with flexible polymer they said acted like a fluid medium to open up the HP even if it were clothes pushing it in and not actually fluid/tissue.

But as you say and they did too, the cavity and the polymer were made for each other so to speak to work together for reliable expansion no matter what is pushing on the polymer.

I just had the thought that perhaps silicone, after it is dry, acts similar to the flexible polymer that they used in the Leverevolution rounds. It's pretty flexible compared to the early hunting bullet polymer tips. The silicone may not help at all but then again if it is trapped inside the HP cavity it may act as a fluid and help open the petals more reliably.

I guess it couldn't hurt to try it out to see if it makes any difference. Wet Phonebooks behind some old clothes might show whether or not the silicone makes a difference or not.

Yes jibjab, this polymer technology does seem to have been born with hunting bullets and more reliable expansion from them.

[treg]

I'm glad you posted this Stargazer - I saw thier ad and thought the same thing. I see no reason why it wouldn't work very similar to what Hornady advertizes.........I do have some .38 cal. XTP/HP bullets and some blue rtv silicone........

I think it's time to bust out the redneck balistics lab!

[Kjeil]

There was an article in the November 2008 shooting times that discusses some much older testing that indicates that silicone would probably work. Here's the link:

http://www.shootingtimes.com/ammunit...811/index.html

Basically it talks about some experimentation the Dallas crime lab did back in the 70's. They found that filling hollow points with paraffin (which would turn to liquid under pressure) would make them expand more reliably.

[Stargazer]

Kjeil, thanks for sharing that!

[1uspatriot]

I personally witnessed an obese walk in GSW patient have two 45 slugs fall out of his back onto the floor. They were unmistakably the Remington UMC value pack JHP that walmart carries sometimes.
Ive read those rounds cannot and will not expand under any circumstances. So I bought a box, a tube of RTV silicone and a syringe. I made a test batch and fired them into mud. They all expanded into gnarly massive mushrooms, while the unplugged ones did not deform at all. I believe the silicone plug is squishy enough to transfer tremendous hydaulic pressure laetrally against the inner walls of the hollow point and it forces it to expand. It worked so well with the thick defective umc jhp design, I had to try it on my premium T series rounds. They'd be the deadliest bullets in handgun technology if not for their vulnerability to denim plugging. So I painstakingly filled in hundreds of T series 45 and 9mm rounds with RTV and wiped them flush with pretty red star shaped plugs in their tips now. They will open through heavy clothing rain or shine. Call it a Critical Defense Hybrid design.

[Stargazer]

Thanks 1uspatriot, this thread needed that kind of testing. Since the CD ammo came out a lot of other makers are doing the same thing with plastic and polymer tips on their bullets. I have not tested mine but they remained filled to this day, 2 1/2 to 3 years later.