Talk:Hollow-point bullet

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[edit] This article is inconsistent with the Wikipedia Article "Stopping Power"

This article states that hollowpoint bullets are more effective than other bullets. This is in direct contradiction to the Wikipedia Article on "Stopping Power" which states that bullet deformation and energy transfer, especially in handgun calibers, are not significant factors. This should be researched and corrected. One or the other has got to be incorrect. 12.96.65.14 19:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a problem--both are correct depending on the references you cite... Hollow point bullets limit penetration, and increase the diameter of the cavity left by the bullet--that is a fact. Whether this is good or not depends on the application, and that's where opinions differ. Shooting at a prarie dog, it's almost universally a good thing. Shooting at a charging Cape Buffalo, it's almost universally a bad thing. Any other application (especially defensive handguns) and there's significant disagreement. The number one concern in all cases is placing the bullet in the right spot. You can't have enough power to make a miss effective. scot 19:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Some improvements (2003)

I made a couple of small corrections:

  • the pit is not drilled, it is actually cast in place
  • It's the Hague Convention that covers expanding ammo, reference to Geneva Conventions is a common (nearly universal!) error
  • JHP's aren't just used in pistols, they are very common in rifles as well.
  • The article gave JHPs are rather illicit sound, so I pointed out that they are in fact the norm, and actually required in many cases
  • pointed out that calling JHP's "dum-dums" is at best slang (and arguably just wrong, since it really refers to soldiers illegally modifying service ammunition)

-- Roger 14 Aug 2003

[edit] Merge with "dum-dum"?

I think this should be merged into Dum-dum Jooler 17:24, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

The term "dum-dum" refers to a modified FMJ bullet, not an intentionally designed bullet; this is a very significant distinction. Militaries bound by the Hauge convention must use FMJ ammuntion (although non epxanding hollow point rounds are used by US snipers), and modifying these bullets to expand by filing down the tip is illegal. The resulting bullet is not actually a hollow point, but rather a soft point bullet, which, all else being equal, expands at a slower rate than a hollow point. Modern hollow point bullets are carefully designed from the start to yeild very specific expansion performance under given circumstances. While "dum-dum" needs to be cross referenced with hollow point and soft point bullets (and probably FMJs as well, since that's what dum-dums start as) they are certainly worthy of different articles. Now I admit that much of the first paragraph of the dum-dum article probably belongs somewhere else, but the history and the Hauge convention portions (the Hauge convention being in direct response to dum-dum bullets) should stay there. scot 20:45, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


No, the dum-dum bullet was intentionally designed by the British Army in India as the article points out. Who says that dum-dum bullet refers specifically to a bullet illegally modeified? Jooler 00:25, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Who modifes bullets anymore, when high performance hollow point and soft point ammunition is readily available? There is a device made to cut hollow points into match grade .22 Long Rifle bullets, as match grade ammunition is not sold with hollow point bullets (note however that these are NOT jacketed bullets, but are solid lead--the cutter is not made to deal with jacketed or plated bullets). This is the only case I know of, and it's pretty uncommon--I think the practice of handloading rimfire ammunition with better bullets is probably more prevalent. In cases where expanding ammunition is not available, modifying a bullet to make it expanding would almost always be illegal, and military use of expanding ammunition in international conflict is a violation of the Hauge Convention. Modifying bullets by cutting the tip also tends to destroy the accuracy, as it is very hard to do so accurately enough that the bullet retains its balance, and EVERY modified bullet is EXACTLY the same weight. So if the correct use of the term Dum-dum refers to bullets modified to be expanding (which I would consider the case) then I see very few cases where Dum-dum would refer not legal ammunition. scot 15:43, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] About the Hague convention

There should be some more talk about the Hague convention's ruling here. This article here adheres to Neutrality for sure, but come on, it's a bullet designed to rip the flesh tissue when it goes in!

Yeah, as opposed to all those other bullets designed to apply a gentle moisturizing lotion to the skin on impact instead of ripping a hole in it. --Raguleader 06:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

When the article states the head of the HP expands in a mushroom shape, I'm assuming that the head expands outwards (radially) and flattens to form a mushroom shape - is this correct? I just thought the current description was a little vague and could use some clarification. Virogtheconq

That is correct. Infortunately, I don't have any mushroomed bullets handy or I'd take some pictures. I may see about getting out and doing some shooting and capturing a few in the not too distant future. scot 22:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I added two images of a 38 spl hollow point bullet. These images are an excellent example of the intended terminal ballistics of a hollow point bullet sometimes referred to as mushrooming.

--Rickochet 02:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Added an image of an expanded bullet. Not the "nicest" expandation but it can do until someone takes a better picture (and it has travelled more than halfway through a moose ;).If someone maybe can add what the 6.5x55mm (Mauser I think) is called in USA (if it is called anything). But don't remove the current designation please. --User:Zoeds 13:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
The only 6.5x55mm I'm familiar with is generally called the "6.5x55mm Swede" or just "6.5mm Swede", as it's generally found in Swedish surplus military arms. scot 15:53, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Just popped over to your user page, and since you're Swedish, I'm going to assume that round is what Americans call a 6.5 x 55 mm Swede, and change the caption accordingly. scot 16:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
6.5 x 55 mm Swede seems like a good name. There is a slight difference in the charge I belive between the army version you talk about and the "civil" one which is the on the image, but it's not worth mentioning. The recoil when shooting with the army version is a bit stronger. --Zoeds 17:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Could be loaded to a slightly higher pressure in the military version; the 5.56 x 45 mm NATO round has both a higher max pressure and a longer throat than the civilian equivalent .223 Remington. Also, given the prohibition of expanding bullets in warfare, which is mentioned in the article, I think it can assume that the reader will make the connection and realize that that's a civilian loading, not a military one. scot 18:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
The difference is in pressure loading. Civilian ammo 6.5mm Swede is typically downloaded out of concern for the safety of antique Norwegian Krags chambered in this caliber.

_______________________________


[edit] Plagiarism was suspected, but all is OK

This whole article is plagerized from here: http://www.answers.com/topic/hollow-point-bullet or vice versa.

Vice versa. Many, many sites, including answers.com, mirror Wikipedia, which is entirely legal, as long as they attribute the information to Wikipedia (which answers.com does do; take another look). Look at the article history here, and you can see the evolution of the article on Wikipedia and see who the authors are. scot 14:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New pics


[edit] Accuracy

"As a side effect, hollow point bullets can offer improved accuracy by shifting the center of gravity of the bullet rearwards."

Why does this make the bullet more accurate? It seems to me that it'd make it less stable, hence less accurate. —wwoods 23:10, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

One explanation I have heard is that hollow point bullets are jacketed in reverse (compared to FMJ). In other words, the nose of the bullet is where the jacketing ends, instead of the base. This jacketing over the base of the bullet prevents deformation and vaporization of the lead upon firing, which in theory results in better stability of the bullet in flight. I would imagine this advantage, if it indeed exists, would be found in the newer TMJ bullets as well. There are some other reasons cited for improved accuracy of hollow points, but this is the only one I am familiar with. SquareWave 06:09, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Listing

Maybe wiki should have a listing of the different types of bullets at the bottom or something... I'd do it if I knew enough about wiki coding + bullets, which I don't. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nafango2 (talk • contribs) 05:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] So why are hollowpoints banned in warfare?

Title says it all...

This article mentions they're banned, but doesn't say -why-? What reasons were there for banning them?

--Penta 15:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

To find the root cause, you have to work your way back through the laws of warefare. From the article:
The Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III, prohibits the use in warfare of bullets which easily expand or flatten in the body. The relevant statements are:
The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions.
The present Declaration is only binding for the Contracting Powers in the case of a war between two or more of them.
That explains when and why hollow points are banned, as they do expand readily in the human body. To find out why that is a bad thing, you need to go to the earlier St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which states:
That the only legitimate object which States should endeavour to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy;'
That for this purpose it is sufficient to disable the greatest possible number of men;
That this object would be exceeded by the employment of arms which uselessly aggravate the sufferings of disabled men, or render their death inevitable;
That the employment of such arms would, therefore, be contrary to the laws of humanity;
The Contracting Parties engage mutually to renounce, in case of war among themselves, the employment by their military or naval troops of any projectile of a weight below 400 grammes, which is either explosive or charged with fulminating or inflammable substances.
This was due to Russia's use of small caliber bullets (i.e. infantry weapons, not cannon) that were provided with a small quantity of explosive that detonated upon impact, causing far more serious wounds than a solid lead projectile. The Dum-dum article covers the history of the expanding bullet, but to sum up, the Brits discovered that their new high velocity .30 caliber bullet wasn't doing nearly as much damage as their older, slower .45 caliber bullet, so they began to experiment with open tipped jacketed bullets that would expand upon impact, to produce a wound comparable to the .45 caliber round with the .30 caliber bullet. The international community then decided that this was similar enough to the Russian's exploding bullet that they tacked it onto the rules of war as causing aggravated suffering. Modern military bullets, which are even smaller at .21-.22 caliber, generally tumble and/or break in two, which produces a more severe wound than would otherwise be generated. scot 16:31, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyediting style: hyphenation

As professional copyeditors know, there are times in life when a hyphen would be best but can't be easily introduced because the majority of the population using a certain term is used to omitting it. A good example is high speed steel, as discussed at High speed steel#Copyediting conventions. In the case of hollow-point bullet, there is an added wrinkle: The term is shortened by nominalizing the unit adjective hollow-point. Logically, the hyphen should remain when writing the nominalized form. However, this distinction is lost on most of the population, and if we were to style the nominalized form thus in this article, I suspect that we would constantly be upbraided by users telling us that the "right" way to style the nominalized form is hollow#point, as evidenced by 38 million Google hits, etc. (BTW, "#" is the editing symbol for a word space.) What the epistemology boils down to is that you either have to implement the style and then bother defending it from "correction", or you have to accept the styling hollow#point for the nominalized form, because its usage outnumbers the usage of hollow-point in that application. I currently vote for the latter because I don't care enough to bother about the former. But I bothered to write this discussion here because I felt like this topic is eventually going to come up among edits to the article. So here is the full answer, pending someone asking. — Lumbercutter 22:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)