Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Lehigh extreme penetrators

What's the story on the 10mm and 357 sig. Thanks for your efforts.

I definitely see some 9mm testing in my future! I will want to see how they stack up against the Buffalo Bore 147 grain +P hard cast. This is the load Phil Shoemaker was using in his bear encounter.



With the Buffalo Bore load mentioned above, I got a pass through of 6 jugs using a Glock 43, with the round veering to right and missing the 7th jug. With the Glock 19, the round passed through the 8 jugs I had set up for the test.

I guess for me, im not sure the phillips head is doing more actual trauma in live tissue... Ballistic gel is a medium to compare bullets, it is not representative of how bullets perform in flesh of various sorts...skin, bone, cartilage, organs, etc... Lehigh touts their FTM design, fluid transfer monolithic and yeah it looks like it does something in gelatin but do yall trust that as the end all, be all marker for performance? Im genuinely curious....

I expect I'll drone on with heavy-for-caliber HP's, RNFP's and SWC's. I'm not saying the crusader bullet don't work as advertised. For me, it is simply that it doesn't accomplish anything significantly better than what I'm using now; and certainly not enough better to justify the price.

I hear you Sarge, but like I said before, if you live in a state that prohibits lead then it might be an alternative.

Yes indeed. And if the price could be gotten down to meet a gov't contract, it would be an improvement over FMJ pistol ammo.

How do you know? Have you tried them?

Try them in/on what is the question

If you don't know the answer, then they most likely aren't for you.

But, they're gauranteed to produce "deader" dead guys.

I have the lee 95 gr and am planning to remove the micro grooves as you did for pc use. What load are you using in the 9mm?

I'm using Ramshot Silhouette powder; started at 7.0 gr and worked up to 1500 fps in my guns. Mixed brass and CCI SP primers.

Win Autocomp would also be a great choice for this kind of load, and may give even higher velocity. I don't think my Silhouette load is maxed out either though.

That 95gr Lee is a neat little bullet, and is great for mild target loads too. I've been loading it at 1050 fps for GSSF indoor matches since beginning of the summer; it makes a very easy shooting load.

I don't think anyone's making miraculous claims on these. Don't believe me though, try them for yourself. I was very skeptical as well before I tried them.

FOr starters, I am not saying these bullets dont work, I am looking to see what evidence has been presented they work as well in living tissue as the gelatin
they do a helluva job on ballistic gelatin, next time I go hunting for steel plated ballistic gelatin, I will load these up...

I think the discussion is for self-defense and the typical response is "try them and see for yourself", so who is shooting people with them to compare terminal performance with a hollow point

also for bears, who has "tried" them on bears?

so the assumption based on youtube videos Ive seen is, the phillips head mono causes a good wound cavity in ballistic gel thus it will cause as large a wound cavity in living tissue...is there any other evidence to support it?

yes they go through more water jugs than a federal HST...i dont need to try that, i believe it. I believe they will out penetrate an HST, gold dot, etc...

not really. Speaking for myself, my testing has been in comparison to other known good performers (124gr Gold Dot +P in my case). Meaning, if my GD load does X, how does this new bullet compare? Try them in a bunch of different conditions, not just in gelatin or water. Go shoot through some drywall, sheet metal, glass, denim, deer, pigs, coyotes, etc as well. No one test covers all conditions, just as no bullet is perfect for all conditions; that's why you have to choose what to use for the worst case conditions you might encounter.

If you don't think you can believe results of any of that kind of testing, you better question the testing done on whatever bullets you're carrying as well, because that's how bullet performance testing is done. You know as well as the rest of us that nobody's testing different loads by shooting people; that's a straw man argument.

I'm just trying to present my observations on these, not convince anyone to start carrying them. My only argument with people on this stuff is when they make assumptions without having tried or researched it themselves. If someone has different observations than I do from shooting these, they should definitely post them, please!

Regarding expansion and water jug testing - my observations with the 90gr ED bullet at high (1500+) velocity is that it doesn't burst (a rough indication of temporary cavity) the first jug as hard as a Gold Dot or HST, but does tear up the 2nd and 3rd jugs a lot more. That indicates the hollow points are dumping a lot of energy right at the start, when they expand, while the ED bullet carries the damage farther into the target. Disclaimer for guys like Sako75 - don't try to read too much into that; it's just what these do in water jugs, it doesn't necessarily mean that's what they'll do in a bear or person.

The Penetrator bullet is less impressive in that regard; if we compare an HST at one extreme and a slow hard cast at the other, the Penetrator is closer to the hard cast end of the spectrum.

I didn't think much of Barnes bullets until I tried them.




Travis

No need.

1. I can make inferences from Lehigh's gelatin results.
2. I am not dissatisfied with the loads I mentioned above.
3. I can cast conventional bullets myself or purchase proven alternatives much cheaper.

I think I'm one that doesn't understand this bullet. From what I've seen the wound channel is only slightly larger than the starting diameter, but not anything comparable to an expanded JHP...So what am I missing? Help a brotha out.

Yondering,

I remain skeptical but I'm interested in learning more. What I haven't seen yet is how large the soft tissue wound channel is as measured. Everyone is saying "wound channel like a JHP" but when I look closely at ballistic gelatin that has been shot with these bullets, the wound track seems to be right at, or slightly above starting caliber. Is there anything that gives an actual diameter of the wound track, so that the round can be more accurately assessed against a JHP?

Also, for secondary wounding from stretch cavity, the velocity number that has always been accepted is 2,000fps. This was the number given all the way back near the turn of the 20th century, and in several articles written by Dr. Fackler, he pretty much confirmed that 2kfps seems to be about the right velocity. Anything below that and it has to be a shot that comes extremely close to a non-elastic piece of body tissue.

So again I remain dubious about its effects from high velocity...and the fact that over the decades I've seen a LOT of extremely high velocity handgun rounds come and go. They all make nearly identical claims, but as time goes on we find out that the claims just aren't so.

I won't go so far as to say "my mind is made up" in regards to carry ammo, and I like to say I'm open minded...and hope that is true.

I really want to see solid numbers rather than photos of things shot because photos of things shot often doesn't tell the whole story...and often can be created by first ensuring precisely perfect conditions.

That's why most ammunition evaluations scientifically list a numerical value for each category such as; Velocity, starting bullet weight, ending bullet weight, starting bullet diameter, ending bullet diameter, penetration on bare gelatin, penetration on (and then list each test medium), etc.


For my primary carry ammo, I'm pretty happy with the overall performance, but there's always room for a "specialty round" in one of my spare magazines. But I need to see the stats/numbers etc before I'm really going to be convinced.