Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Would you ever load hardball for defense?

Thanks, I'll check out the video and keep an eye out for info on your website.

Those aren't a truncated cone (as developed by the Germans close to the inception of the 9mm Parabellum), but are LBT FN designs.
FWIW.
Most SWC automatic handgun cast bullet designs ARE truncated cone bullets patterned after the original German 9mm jacketed TC bullet. They differ only in having a full diameter shoulder and under diameter nose cone, but the nose profile is a truncated cone, not a rounded ogive as pictured.
A TC bullet will be exactly what it is, a truncated, cone shape from the bearing band to the nose. Nothing truncated about a round nose, flat point bullet, ever. You can have a truncated cone on a SWC as a nose profile. A rounded, truncated cone does not exist in the cast bullet mould world, period. A cone isn't rounded.

Hawk,

You might want to educate all the cast bullet and jacketed bullet manufacturers then. It would appear they have been labeling things wrong for decades. Same with all the ammo manufacturers.

Hawk is right except where he states,

"Nothing truncated about a round nose, flat point bullet, ever."




If a rnfp wasn't truncated, it would continue the radius and be...roundhouse.

But it ain't a cone either.

But it's all semantics.

A muzzleloader projectile system isn't a "Say-Bo" its a "Sah-Bot".
Except, common use is Wrong. I just roll with it.

I like a round nose flat point with the biggest 'flat' I can get. And the bigger the diameter, the better.

Its all good.

Its like when people call any 240 SWC a "Keith" bullet. The true Keith was not really optimal for high volume production. what most cast bullet manufacturers advertise as a Keith are slightly modified. Keiths are flat based, and have square cut grease grooves. Most commercial production versions are bevel based with rounded grooves to make things easier. Performance wise, as far as I have ever seen in the field, there really isnt any, but its enough to give some of the armchair theorists something to carry on about.

I doubt the current American manufacturers like Winchester were worried about the German historical correctness when they labeled their 115 grain 9mm a "full metal jacket truncated cone".



Hawk made me smile when he mentioned the Germans though, considering we are talking about the 9mm.

For some reason I immediately thought of Smokey and the Bandit!




I am going to load some more of the smashy nosey thingys into some C260 (that's The stuff some boomy stuff in there

After I shove some mini land mines into the ass end of some C260 (That is the specific type of brass used in cartridge brass) I am going to fill the things with this magic meat tenderizer I have gallons of laying around, then top it with some smashy nosey things.

Excepting around the outside.

https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/truncated-cone-outline-icon-vector-32488014

Yep. They are outstanding performers on hogs and deer!

Mac, what velocity are you loading those 9mm 147 gr. penetrators at?

FWIW, all I’ve ever shot with a .45ACP was a couple of trapped hogs. One big boar (about 250lb, big for around here) was a headshot that went in between his eyes and out the bottom of his neck. Death was instantaneous (obviously), but that bullet had to go through a LOT of skull (in and out) brain, and muscle.

The surprise was the 150lb. pig that I shot dead through the shoulders. .45 entrance, nickel sized exit out the far shoulder, and warped the ground stone dead. It hammered him. I figured out why Jeff Cooper liked it.

Both were done at about 12’ with an h&g68 over 6.3 grains of H Universal for 950fps. Not a big cross section of big bore pistol performance, but it made me a believer.

I need to lay hands on batch of those Rimrock 9mm’s. Been running Lee 125 TC’s, those would step my 365 up a notch.

I have a SWC mold for 9mm that throws a 135gr bullet with a pretty good flat nose on it. Nice thing is it’ll even feed in an unmodified 1960’s vintage BHP. I load them to 1000fps or so as they shoot to the sights and are accurate with no leading.

Turning once again to my most used test media, pigs, I’ll say that they are markedly less effective than my normal 200gr SWC 45 load. They’ll penetrate and they’ll kill even big ones but they don’t slap them like the bigger bullets. Still better than 115 hardball.

Sagebrush,

Sorry for being anal retentive about the bullet description; THIS is a cast duplicate of the original 9mm Maxim/Parabellum projectile (truncated cone) of the WWI era. For us gun cranks, calling every muzzleloading projectile a Minie bullet gets irksome too!

Like you stated, the Semi-wadcutter has also been bastardized over the years.

This is the 9mm bullet I was talking about above. It’s a Lyman mold but without going out to the shop I can’t recall which one. I need to cast and lube some when it cools down, I’m getting low on 9mm.

Hawk, is it true that the original Parabellum bullet design was changed due to it’s tendency to tumble and yaw on impact, making it a no no for military use at the time? I’ve always wanted a Lyman 356402 because I’d heard that but never bought one, straight penetration is better for my field gun uses anyway.

Kid,

I believe that was the alleged reasoning, but having used the design (not in 9mm) on 3-4 deer in a slug sabot I used to handload, it was probably because the flat, even fairly small, worked much better terminally than the round noses and deflected less as well. At least what I have seen with my own use.
It also fed pretty slick.
It was by no accident that the 9mm was a pretty speedy round for that time and any terminal bullet improvement was evident. It became a mediocre round when saddled with a round nose.

Your bullet above is what is classified as a SWC; it is due to the shoulder, but the nose is cone shaped, lacking a radiused nose and has a nice flat meplat.

It really varies depending on the gun. I have shot them in everything from S&W Shields and G19s to CZ -75s to long barreled G34s. The G34 will give you 1100 FPS.

Its all good Friend!

Lots of stuff today is not referred to by its original name.

Something new very day. Original TC bullets in the Luger? I thought wait a minute, I got the 6 shells that came out of my dads bring back Luger, circa 1945. Pointy round nose.

This thread led me to a search. Sure nuff, the Germans started with a TC(tapered flat point as I've called it to avoid confusion) but replaced it with the pointy RN FMJ by the late teens. I can't paste pics but think we would all like the modern versions more than the original that in it self was pretty pointy, a very small meplat.

FWIW and prob’ly known here already, Buffalo Bore tests their loads in various real-world firearms. Scroll down for their findings in different handguns.

https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=388

For a Makarov carried, yes. For the same reason the hard cast, full charge wadcutters are in the Airweight 38, remain unsure about the expansion of expanders traveling at the velocities of these pistols.