9mm Hollowpoint Bullet test.

[Sean Murphy]

Hi All.

A couple of weekends ago I did my own little informal bullet test of a few HP designs that I have. A couple were from ammo that I have had in my safe for a while and that I would only use if I had nothing else and others were from my current carry loads. One was the 147 Remington Golden Sabers that I recently got from BrendanK.

The test is not really scientific or realistic but does give some info for comparison. The Test Media was saturated telephone books. This media is much harder on bullets than Ballistic Gelatin is and penetration in my experience is about half of what you would get in Gelatin.

The Bullets and loads tested were: 147gr Golden Saber with 5.5gr S221, 124gr Hornady XTP with 4.7gr MP200, 115gr Hornady XTP with 5.3gr MP200 and Sierra 115gr Power Jacket with 5.0gr MP200.

The results were interesting and not entirely what I was expecting. Here are some pics with commentary below.


This is the test Media. 4 soaked yellow pages books. Shots were fired downwards into them at about 45cm range.


These are the entry "wounds" in the media. The smaller central ones are the 147's and the rest were the faster 124 and 115 grainers.


All 5 bullets went through the first book and into the second. I fired 2 147's and one each of the others.


This is where the bullets started comming to a stop. About half way through the second book. First to stop was the 115gr Sierra as expected. It had jacket seperation and was removed from the hole at top left in the pic. The next two bullets to stop were the Golden Sabers and you can see the base of one in the pic. The 115 and 124 grain Hornady's went in the deepest with the 124 having a slight edge.


These are the recovered bullets. From left to right we have the 115gr Sierra, the 115gr Hornady, 124gr Hornady and the two 147gr Golden Sabers.


Here is a vertical pic of the lineup. The Golden Sabers definately expanded the most and this is probably wht the did not penetrate the deepest in this Media. In Gelatin it may have been the best bullet.



We had a few phone books left over so Camo762 fired a couple of his carry loads into a set. These were the 124gr Golden Sabers (Factory Loads) Both had bad jacket seperation but the seperated cores were the best penetrators of the test out of all the bullets. Probably because they had a small diameter. A couple of Frontier CMJ home loads were also fired by Camo and they penetrated to the fourth book. Nearly double that of the HP bullets which all made it about half way into only the second book.

Any comments on this guys?

Sean.

[feroze]

Did you recently purchase the 115gr Hornady XTP's?

If you ever wanna make you own gelatin http://www.myscienceproject.org/gelatin.html

[kurly]

Sean what velocity are you getting from the Hornady XTP 115gr ahead of 5.3gr MP200? Is this the velocity I should be looking for if loading the same bullet?

Thanks
Kurly

[shooter]

Thanks for testing and posting. Each time I see a Hornady XTP in a test, the bullet holds up well.

[Sean Murphy]

Kurly, I have not chrono'd the load but I would estimate around 1200fps from my pistol. The max Somchem load is 5.0gr MP200 and that gives around 1150 in my gun. I previousely loaded these bullets with 5.7gr MP200 and that was a genuine +P+ load that chrono'd at average 1304fps in my pistol.

Sean.

---------- Post added at 14:14 ---------- Previous post was at 14:13 ----------

Did you recently purchase the 115gr Hornady XTP's?

[/url]

No, I have had them for a couple of years.

Sean

[kurly]

Thanks

[Sean Murphy]

Thanks for testing and posting. Each time I see a Hornady XTP in a test, the bullet holds up well.

The main criticism of the XTP is that it somtimes plugs and fails to expand but in paper wetpack this never happens. The main test with this media is how well the bullets hold together. It is still s good bullet and I would rather have a bullet performs like an FMJ when it fails rather than one that acts like a Glazer Safety Slug when it fails.

Sean.

[feroze]

No, I have had them for a couple of years.

Sean

Pity, I've always had good results with them. Think I got about 5 left from them days when the shelves were full....

[Sean Murphy]

Kurly, do not start with my loads as they are above recommended max. I worked up to them and they are safe in my gun. Your gun may be tighter than mine and even a recommended max load may be hot. Start below Somchems max loads and work up.

Sean.

[malcolmm]

Thanks Sean for taking the effort and doing this test.