This article appeared in the April 2000 issue of Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement. The pictures that accompanied the article in the magazine are at the bottom of this on-line version. There are also a couple of material penetration test pictures that were not included with the magazine article.
In 1973 when I entered law
enforcement, the newest, most controversial, bullet was Lee Jurras' SuperVel hollow and
soft points for the .38SPL/357MAG, 9mm, .380 and .45 ACP. Lighter in weight than standard
bullet weights, and at a much higher velocity, the theory behind the SuperVel said that
increased expansion from the higher velocity translated into tissue destruction, which
produced better incapacitation with less danger of excessive penetration. And for the next
27 years, virtually every bullet from every manufacturer was a variation on the same
theme--hollowpoints were THE law enforcement bullet designs. The ammunition industry, at
the urging of the law enforcement community, made bigger, smaller, soft/hollow, higher
velocity, subsonic, plated, unplated, serrated jacket hollowpoints. Now familiar names
such as Gold Dot, Hydra Shok, Silvertip, Black Talon, XTP, Tactical, Golden Sabre and so
on, emerged from the marketing departments of the ammunition manufacturers, big and small.
And each of these designs was heralded as an improvement over what had come before, and in
many cases, were.
These efforts continued at an
even more frantic pace after the infamous Miami shootout involving the FBI against two
very determined and well-armed suspects. That tragedy gave rise to what has become an
accepted standard for ammunition that was established by the FBI in their 8-protocol
performance criteria test. The law enforcement readership is familiar with these events
that include bare 10% ordnance gelatin, gelatin with heavy clothing, wallboard, plywood,
car window glass, car door metal. These media demonstrated for the first time what many
experienced forensic ballistics investigators had known for some time but had never
quantified. That bullets shot into bare gelatin, do not display the same expansion and
penetration when fired through the practical media used in the FBI protocol.
It was determined that while
the hollowpoint was a clear improvement over what had existed before, and certainly
improved officer survivability through increased wounding features, there still was a
problem in consistent bullet performance of the traditional hollowpoint. And the causal
factor for this inconsistency of performance was, as the FBI clearly demonstrated, the
barrier that the bullet had to go through before it hit flesh. Some designs worked better
than others. But the test barriers of clothing, wallboard and plywood contributed the most
to the inconsistency of performance by the hollowpoint. And for a simple and quite
apparent reason. The mechanism for expansion for any hollowpoint projectile is the hollow
cavity. When it fills with tissue, expansion begins through a hydraulic effect against the
wall of the hollow cavity. Expansion is usually facilitated through internal and external
notching or jacket serrations. The result should be a uniformly expanded bullet with the
core and jacket intact and arrayed in a symmetrical pattern of fins resembling a mushroom.
That's the way it's supposed
to be! But the FBI tests showed, and pathologists empirically proved, that when a
hollowpoint projectile has to penetrate a barrier such as clothing, which a majority of
criminals do wear, the mechanical function of the hollowpoint is impeded. The hollow
cavity fills with clothing and precludes fluid filled tissue from exerting its influence
on the interior walls of the cavity, and so what's produced is essentially a plugged
hollowpoint that performs very similarly to a full metal jacketed bullet. It goes through
the target with very little wounding effect, i.e. tissue destruction, and penetrates
excessively. And the infamous term "stopping power" is diminished and danger to
bystanders is increased. But the hollowpoint was a compromise and since it was a
mechanical device and nothing mechanical works 100% of the time, it was accepted and
adopted in the LE community as the best game in town, which it was until the emergence of
the new Federal Cartridge Company's Expanding Full Metal Jacket (EFMJ) projectile.
Over three years ago, the Research Group of Federal, under the leadership of Dave Longren, Bruce Warren and Larry Head, began a serious analysis of the performance of all hollowpoint bullets of every manufacturer, including Federal's Tactical and Hydra Shok. The validity of the FBI test protocol had long been established and with the assistance of the Law Enforcement and Military Sales division of Federal, which gathered actual shootings information from agencies, the need for a more consistent "through barrier" projectile became apparent. In a joint program with Tom Burczynski, of Experimental Research, Inc., Federal focused its efforts on the FBI events that included heavy clothing, plywood and wallboard. They knew that the hollowpoint had to be capped or covered, and yet achieve the expansion characteristics that the LE community demanded from current bullets. The solution became the new Expanding Full Metal Jacket (EFMJ) projectile that Federal introduced at the IALEFI and IACP conferences in the late fall of 1999.
The EFMJ is
not a variation of the classic hollowpoint. While some initial consideration was given to
simply filling a hollowpoint with a material that would prevent plugging and yet allow
expansion, tests proved this to be unworkable and inconsistent in performance. The design
started literally from the bottom up. The bullet begins with a conventional copper jacket
of a truncated cone design with a small flat nose or meplat. The interior of the jacket is
heavily scored in a radial fashion. Inserted into the jacket nose is a rubber core or
plug, followed by a lead core. The jacket is then "heeled" over at the base to
hold the plug and core in place. Upon impact, the scored jacket flattens, and with the
rubber plug sandwiched between the jacket nose and the lead core in the rear, expansion
begins. And expansion is consistent and symmetrical.
When I interviewed Bruce
Warren, we spoke about its applicability to the wide range of weapons in today's LE
arsenal. Federal tested the design through submachine guns, carbines and virtually every
barrel length autopistol in use by the law enforcement community. The expansion
characteristics remained consistent through gun type and barrier. With virtually every
police agency of any size incorporating submachine guns into their tactical inventory,
such as the MP-5 variants, and carbines, the performance of the typical pistol round was
found in many cases to be somewhat lacking when driven at the longer barrel velocities of
the shoulder weapons. Many of these bullets blew up and created surface wounds. The
Expanding Full Metal Jacket overcomes these problems.
While it seems we take
questions of functionality for granted these days, I continue to hear about failures to
feed with some handgun models, a problem that's exacerbated through poor shooting
techniques. The EFMJ design is outwardly a full metal jacket. Its nose configuration
facilitates feeding. When tested through my military Browning Hi-Power, which will not
feed anything but FMJs, six magazines (84 rounds) fed flawlessly.
The ammunition tested was
production run 9mm +P 124-grain loads. We must remember that when
Gorge Luger designed his pistol in 1904, the 9mm Parabellum cartridge contained a
124-grain bullet. Since then, pistol manufacturers have continued to remind ammunition
manufacturers that the camming surfaces, springs, magazine design and other features of
9mm pistols are designed for a 124-grain bullet at a muzzle velocity of 1120 feet per
second (fps). While we have been extraordinarily successful in using bullet weights from
95 to 147 grains and at varying velocities in the 9mm, remember the cartridge was designed
with a 124-grain projectile, which caused Federal to produce for their first Expanding
Full Metal Jacket ammunition, in the 124-grain weight. Of course, other weights in 9mm are
on the drawing board.
Federal has also applied this
design to the increasingly popular .40 S&W and the .45 ACP. Prototype designs are
being finalized as this article is written. Bullet weights in the design phase for the .40
S&W included 155 and 165 grains, and in the .45 ACP 185 grains. Included in this
article is a chart showing expansion, velocity and accuracy of the
production/preproduction 9mm, .40 and AS ACP. All production and preproductions samples
met the FBI minimum penetration criteria of 12 inches in the mediums tested.
Questions are often raised
about a new design's accuracy, which is somewhat surprising when the close ranges of
actual gunfights are considered. I won't say the EFMJ is the most accurate 9mm bullet I've
shot, but it's close. Consider the EFMJ's weight, jacket shape/configuration, the center
of gravity and center of pressure, all of which determines whether some projectiles fly
true and others don't. Federal, quite obviously, has the formula correct.
This projectile should
receive immediate and serious consideration by both law enforcement agencies and the
military. Some departments in the U.S. are still required to use a non-hollowpointed
projectile. The European police community has labored under similar prohibitions for many
years and the EFMJ should be a natural for their considerations.
"ADDING MORE SPECIALS EVERY DAY SO STOP BACK"
E-MAIL Eric@ammoman.com