Hex Bullet Hi-Jinx: Taurus' capable copper bullet

American Handgunner, March-April, 2003 by Charles E. Petty

It's been a long time since we've seen the name of a handgun manufacturer on a box of ammo. The last time was Smith & Wesson ammo, and that was over 20 years ago. When I saw the first ad for the new Taurus fodder, it was pretty clear this was a marketing, rather than a manufacturing, effort. Nonetheless, it is very different from the common "me-too" product. At a glance you can tell it's derived from the Barnes X-bullet, which has an enviable, and well deserved, reputation as a rifle game bullet.

In this business the word "new" is badly abused, and the Taurus ammo breaks no technological ground. What it does do--very well I'd say--is adapt for handgun use the technology used in Barnes X and Winchester Fail Safe rifle bullets.

Taurus thinks this is pretty cool stuff. "Advanced Handgun Cartridges" and "20 Superior Cartridges" are prominently printed on the box label. So is the fact the bullet is 99.95 percent pure copper. But the really important thing is the Hex Bullet trademark. To be sure, it puns the X-bullet. But it is also accurately descriptive of the projectile's expanded shape.

I suspect people view bullet expansion as a random even and there was a time when this was true. But no longer. Modern designs expand along engineered lines by building weak points into jackets or bullets that, when they encounter fluid mediums, the pressure inside the hollow point pushes outward and causes the bullet to fail (rupture) along predetermined lines.

Yet another myth is you must have the highest possible velocity for reliable expansion. That's a crock. In fact, too much velocity can be just as bad--or even worse--than too little. The engineer must perform a delicate balancing act between the rate and amount of expansion to achieve desired levels of penetration.

Most good hollowpoints will penetrate about an inch of gelatin before expansion starts and will reach their maximum size between 3" and 5". Increase the velocity above the design parameters of the bullet and penetration will be reduced. This is contrary to conventional wisdom, but the increased velocity will make the bullet expand more quickly and the increased area acts just like a parachute. If velocity is reduced, penetration will increase at first because the braking action of expansion is less.

When the FBI began to test bullet performance with barrier materials in front of the gelatin block, a very different picture of bullet performance emerged. Hollowpoints that once expanded beautifully turned, effectively, into ball ammo when their noses became plugged with cloth or other non-compressible material.

Designers developed several methods to overcome these obstacles and found all that was needed was to get the bullet to start to expand. Because once the nose opened up a bit, the fluid medium would wash enough of the barrier material away to allow expansion to continue. Gelatin testing shows us initial expansion will be delayed a little--usually by an inch or two further into the block--and overall penetration increases proportionately.

Construction of all the recent "premium" handgun bullets consisted of a lead core covered with a conventional jacket or one made of brass. The exception here is Speer's Gold Dot, which has a copper jacket plated onto a lead core.

Bob Morrison, now Chief Operating Officer of Taurus International Manufacturing, has a long history in the firearms industry. He had been particularly impressed with the hunting performance of the Barnes X-bullet when he was a manufacturer's representative for Barnes. He wondered if something similar might not be a good handgun bullet.

But before this could be done, there was a substantial hurdle to clear. The Gun Control Act of 1968 has serious prohibitions against "armor piercing" bullets. More commonly, these were referred to as "cop killer bullets" that purportedly defeated body armor worn by law enforcement officers. The major feature of the bill was that bullets without lead cores were generally prohibited.

Over a period of time, Barnes made some samples and Morrison submitted them to ATF for consideration. Two points were vital: construction had to be pure (99.95%), and therefore relatively soft copper; and quite obviously they could not penetrate standard body armor.

Morrison reported in due time ATF notified Taurus that, "the submitted samples are not armor piercing," effectively removing the legal cloud of GCA 68.

But we must be aware that some states follow the wording of Federal statutes when writing their own codes. So it's only prudent to check for legal pitfalls in state law.

One of Morrison's early decisions was to retain Alan Corzine as a consultant. Corzine, formerly vice president of research and development for Winchester, is an extremely competent engineer. This is from personal experience, for I have been fortunate to watch the development and testing of Winchester's Fail Safe, Black Talon and SXT bullets during Corzine's watch. He worked on testing and refining the design of the Hex Bullet.