ARX style bullets.

[keithdog]

I was given a box of .380 Ruger ARX bullets. I've watched several videos of these bullets and they appear to be rather lethal and effective for a 56 grain bullet. The fluted design of the bullet appears to accomplish what it is designed to do. The only draw back I've seen so far is that every gel test I've seen is that once the bullet enters the gel block, nearly every single one want to take a downward projection through the gel block. I'm curious if anyone here has any experience shooting this bullet and what your feed back might be. I'm considering this bullet to carry in my Ruger LCPII. The lighter bullet would help reduce the jump felt in the average little .380, and this particular design seems to perform more like a 90 grain hollow point.

[Loosedhorse]

this particular design seems to perform more like a 90 grain hollow point.

Not really.

A hollow-point expands, so you would get a larger-than-.355 permanent wound cavity. The lighter weight of the ARX and its flutes do serve to slow the bullet down in gel, and so should reduce the risk of over-penetration if used for self-defense. Still, since it does not expand, the ARX has more penetration on gel than the HP (but less than a same-caliber heavier FMJ).

The chief advantage of the ARX technology is to reduce the amount of metal needed to produce each bullet--a green bullet, if you will--and thus to reduce the cost of production. I see no specific advantage, other than reduced cost, to most users (assuming there exists an available HP that meets FBI bare-gel penetration specs), although the recoil-sensitive may shoot better with the lighter bullet.

[keithdog]

https://youtu.be/J7_C6kNfjiA

Here is an interesting video on the subject. The damage path is impressive. More so than many hollow points.

[keithdog]

https://youtu.be/LczfeWK9lHw

And here is another.

[Loosedhorse]

The damage path is impressive. More so than many hollow points.

The "damage path" is the permanent ("crush") cavity, not the temporary ("stretch") cavity. So, the ARX will have a longer crush cavity than some HPs, but a narrower one*.

There's lots of HPs, with lots of different levels of expansion and penetration, which tend to correlate inversely; so you can pick what you want. And some HPs (in the .380 chart at the link below, Hornady Critical Defense and SIG Sauer V-Crown) seem to give impressive levels of both.

*No matter how long the crush cavity is in gel, it can only be as long in an attacker as it takes to exit the body. The average US man's chest is about 8.5 inches front to back; the length of an oblique path though the chest will be longer.

http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self...llistic-tests/

[Kemikos]

I don't know... there's a video going around of a feral pig someone took with a Polycase Inceptor round (same ARX bullet as the Ruger ammo), and it had an exit hole that my 3-year old could stick her arm through.

I'm waiting to see more (and better documented) tests, but I'm not automatically writing them off as a gimmick anymore...

[g.willikers]

Over the years, I have also tried a lot of bullets, and have come to one conclusion.
For small arms, the kind we civilians are most apt to use, there's much more to consider.
Bullets and their designs are the least of it.
But still worth knowing about.
That Holy Grail magical bullet everyone has been searching for might be discovered one day.