Handguns — A New Standard - Brief Article

Guns Magazine, Dec, 1999 by Charles E. Petty

The world of handgunners is brighter too. When the century dawned most handguns were revolvers that shot roundnose lead bullets. As automatic pistols began to grow in popularity in the early 1900s, full metal jacket bullets became standard. They had round noses, too.

Things rocked along in a pretty steady state for probably 50 years before there were any significant changes in handgun bullets. While there had been a few hollowpoints (mostly bullets with holes drilled in their noses), the arrival of magnum velocities from handguns made jacketed bullets desirable for revolvers too.

Of course there was a cast iron -- gold plated -- law written somewhere that said you had to drive a bullet over 1,000 fps before it would expand. Back then, bullet performance was tested by measuring how many 1" pine boards -- not tissue -- the bullet would penetrate. We've learned so much in the last 20 years of this century that the hype has been moderated and true facts are getting around. It is about time.

I give credit to Dr. Martin Fackler for developing a standardized testing method using 10 percent gelatin to evaluate bullet penetration and expansion. The FBI must be credited for expanding on Dr. Fackler's findings with the inclusion of barrier materials such as clothing -- both light and heavy -- and hard barriers such as wallboard, plywood, steel and automobile windshield glass. Their ammunition test protocol gave bullet designers something to shoot at.

For the first time a consumer, in this case the FBI, was telling the manufacturer what to do. In the past it had always been the manufacturer telling us to take it or leave it. Now the shoe was on the other foot and manufacturers responded.

Well, not at first. There was resistance, resentment and cries of "foul" when one company consistently won FBI contracts for ammo. That was Federal Cartridge Company who had very promptly made bullets do what the FBI wanted. It took awhile for the other companies to catch up, but they did. Today, it's a very level playing field out there with good ammo from every major manufacturer.

Engineers are able to use sophisticated computer programs running "finite element analysis" to study bullet performance. By looking at how the jacket metal and lead core respond to various stresses they can design bullets that will expand and penetrate to predictable -- controllable -- levels.

If you look at the velocities achieved by a host of handgun cartridges popular for defense and law enforcement, you'll see one glaring fact: very few of them are 1,000 fps and many are considerably less. The reason is because expansion is a function of bullet design and velocity is a variable that can be controlled -- not a prerequisite.

The debate over "stopping power" seems to have settled down to a dull roar as the public learns that a hand-gun is probably one of the least effective means of stopping anything. My mail reflects the change. It's pretty rare to get a letter asking for the best ammo anymore. I have acquired some favorites over the years, but I would not feel the least handicapped if I had to load my carry gun with somebody else's premium ammo.