Posted on 12/13/2005 9:20:22 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Hollowed bullet easy to get & hard to survive
BY ALISON GENDAR and DAVE GOLDINER DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Hollow-point bullets like the one used in the slaying of Officer Daniel Enchautegui are much deadlier than ordinary bullets - and nearly as easy to get.
Cops favor using the hollow-point bullets because they are less likely to pass through a target and ricochet into a fellow cop or bystander.
But they want their public sale banned to keep them out of the hands of thugs like Enchautegui's alleged killers, Steven Armento and Lillo Brancato.
"Our mission is to stop violent felons," said Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch. "There is no reason for anyone else to have that ability."
Armento allegedly shot Enchautegui with his father's .357-caliber handgun, loaded with the hollow-point bullets.
Anyone with a gun permit can buy the hollow-points in a gun shop. They also are readily available on the black market.
"Anybody can go out and buy them," said Michael Palladino, head of the Detectives' Endowment Association.
The main difference between hollow-point and regular, "full-metal jacket" bullets is that the hollow-points flatten on impact and expand inside a target.
The NYPD switched to the new ammo in 1999.
"They are less likely to penetrate the intended target and hit a bystander," said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne.
An on-duty cop's bulletproof vest would likely provide the same protection from a hollow-point as a regular bullet.
whoa! you're paying $1.00 for .303? you're getting ripped off. if you shoot enough of it, hit a gun show and pick up some south african or british surplus. you should be able to get it for half that.
i load my own for cheaper still.
what do you have that shoots .303? enfield?
To hell with buying them.
Make them.
These bastards never stop.
Yeah, Nichols department store is the only place I can get them. I go to the pawn shops and they never have any. The going price around here is $20.00 + tax for a box of twenty.
A Lee-Enfield and it's shoots straighter than ****. I love it.
Oh, duh?? If a car jacker jumps me or I have to face a home invader at 2:00 a.m. does this fool think I'm not out to stop a violent felon? Every one of my loaded defensive weapons is, and will remain, loaded with hollow points and nothing but.
Required only by the signatories, and then only when fighting other signatories - and the USA is not a signatory.
well, it's more like 35,000 cops. each cop carrying a 9mm has 46 bullets for the most part, though. those carrying .38's are armed with 18 each. so get started.
Buy Remington "Gold Sabers". Same bullet, sans the black paint and the 'evil' name. Libs is soooooo stupid that they rejoiced when Remington 'took' Black Talons off the market. That Remington replaced them with the same grooved jacket with a different color and name has completely escaped them.
Reloading is the way to go with expensive ammo. A single stage press is fine for low volume shooting. I use a progressive Dillon RL550B to make large volumes of 38SPL for plinking at the range. The bigger, more expensive rounds like 500 S&W and 45-70 are built on an RCBS Rock Chucker single stage press. I can build 4 to 5 boxes of ammo for the cost of one factory loaded box. A box of 50 44 mag can be reloaded for about $6.50 or purchased for $20. You have to reload about 30 boxes to break even on the initial cost of the press/dies/scale/calipers/load book.
Adding a new caliber to the Dillon 550 will set you back about $80 for dies, conversion kit and a dedicated block to hold the new dies in the 550. A new caliber on the single stage press requires a shell holder ($6.00) and dies ($30).
BTW, though illegal right now in the States, arcane bullets are a very low-tech and effective anti-armor round, and are easily made. They were originally developed in Germany during WWII. Just mill pure copper or soft brass to a somewhat smaller diameter than the lead bullet would have (copper and brass are harder than lead, so chamber pressures go up - one would start right at the diameter of the rifling, and increase the diameter slowly from test to test paying attention to primer and case deformation). The front of the bullet is simply milled to a 45/90/45 degree cone (sharp tip). High velocity (1400+ FPS from a .45 ACP), and goes through body armor and metal very nicely according to the old Guns and Ammo issue I read. Lots of wound damage as well, from what it said. One never knows when this kind of information (as well as a machine shop) might come in handy...
Surprisingly, I wasn't able to find much information about arcane bullets using Google...strange.
P.S. Looking around on the web, it appears that AP ammunition is only prohibited if it is "A handgun projectile wholly made of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium" or "A handgun projectile larger than .22 caliber with a jacket weighing more than 25% of the total weight of the projectile." So, it appears the pure copper form is legal to manufacture, at least for the time being... It also appears from the wording there that copper jacketed steel cored bullets should be fine as long as the jacket is less than 25% of the total weight...hmmmm. :-)
That Remington replaced them with the same grooved jacket with a different color and name has completely escaped them.
Stupidity or turning a blind eye serves its purpose.
Just make that illegal too.
And in the present conflict, we wound our enemies, the rest run away, and we are left to take care of their wounded, tying up our resources, increasing our logistical tail, and giving the enemy propaganda to use against us. Interesting how that has worked out for us.
It is very easy to make a solid bullet into a hollow point.. are they gonna ban bullets altogether? be t that's the end plan
Holy cow! It took until 1999 for the NYPD to start using hollowpoints!? Amazing...
Hell, in NY., they're lucky they still have guns!!
see my post 100
This stuff does not work nearly as well in real life as in the ads...
I printed out your info about reloading equipment. My son has been reading up on it. It's something he's been wanting to do. I, on the other hand, have my motherly fears about his undertaking it.
Thanks.
If they ban em tomorrow I won't run out till 2049 based on a 500 round bi-weekly practice.
Laws are for folks that follow em and the prison populations are proof that many follow the laws....< /sarcasm>
Stay safe !
well... ain't that special?
Although this statement can be found everywhere, I believe that it is largely an urban myth. The primary logic behind moving to jacketed bullets at the end of the 19th century was to reduce the extrodinarily bad wounding that was associated with late century bullets - 45 caliber 200+ grain soft lead slugs created ferocious damage, resulting in a huge number of amputations due to smashed bone, etc. Also, the use of jacketing resulted in far less barrel fouling.
Only after the fact did soldiers discover that the jacketing reduced lethality (which they often overcame in the field prior to the 20th century by shaving jacketing off the end of the bullet, creating a field expediant jacketed softpoint)
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