Round 2 - 9mm JHP's
All testing was done with a Glock 17.
Phone books were fully soaked for 16 hours. Altitude was
approximately 5200 feet, and temperature was about 10 degrees.
To see the full size picture, click on the
pictures below. Be advised that the full size pics are almost a
megabyte each in size. I've put a
CCI aluminum
115 grain ball round and some coins for a sense of scale. Since
many of these rounds were donated, I do not know when they were made.
A couple of side notes / observations. It was lightly snowing the
whole time I was testing. The mags were getting a bit wet, and
the gun itself was fairly damp,
but the Glock 17 never jammed or misfired. Another thing,
handling wet phone books when its 10 degrees is NOT fun, as my gloves
got soaked and my hands froze. I had to change gloves
twice. In the future, it would probably be a VERY good idea to
wear water proof gloves when doing this :)
Regarding penetration: I foolishly forgot to bring a measuring
tape, so I was unable to measure exactly how far the rounds
penetrated. Sorry guys :( My comments regarding individual
round penetration are visual observations, and not scientific.
When possible, I tried to compare the same type of round in different
weights (i.e. Golden Saber 124 vs 147). Next round of tests I'll
make sure to bring a measuring tape.
I'd like to thank SanduneCC of glocktalk, he donated the following ammo
for testing.
Remington r9mm4s 115gr +p+
Comments: These performed the worst of the bunch.
Penetration was nothing great compared to the others, and they had
started to fragment moderately.
Also expansion was the smallest of all the tested rounds.
PMC Eldorado Starfire 124gr
Comments: These did fairly well. A bit of fragmentation on
one of the rounds, but otherwise decent penetration and expansion.
Winchester RA9147HP 147 grain
Comments: These looked just like the 147gr whitebox winchester
rounds you get at wally. I shot them anyways, and sure enough
they perform just like the WWB rounds, so they probably are.
Winchester SXT 147 grain
Comments: Despite what many people think, these are nothing like
the famed Ranger T rounds. The talons underneath are not sharp
or all that long compared to the Ranger T's. They did ok as far
as expansion goes, but
nothing exciting.
Remington Golden Saber 124 grain +p
Comments: Decent penetation and expansion. Had a LOT of
newspaper stuck to the underside. On one of them, the "claw" did
not fully fold back (I bent it back so it would lay flat), so in a
human target it probably would of broke off. Not sure what that
means though.
I expected more out of the Golden Saber's, though i wonder if the
rather long "claws" on them would do a lot of damage on a human target
as it unfolded. Sadly I don't have any criminals or terrorists to
test my Golden Saber's on :)
Remington Golden Saber 147 grain
Comments: Good penetration and expansion (a bit better then the
124's above), but one of them suffered the fabled jacket / core
separation. Though to be fair, the core and jacket were only a
inch apart in the phone book, so in real life this probably would of
done the job on a potential bad guy.
Federal HST 124 grain
Comments: Decent penetration and huge expansion. I'd
love to see the damage this would cause on a real bad guy.
The wound channel caused by the petals would probably be very
impressive.
Federal HST 147grain
Comments: Excellent penetration and huge expansion too. I
was shocked at how well these did. They were very uniform (even
the undersides)
and penetrated an inch deeper then the HST 124's. Probably one of
the best (if not THE best) rounds you can carry for self defence in a
9mm.
On the far right is a Golden Saber 147gr for comparison.
I took a picture of a 147gr HST completely covering a nickle
Conclusion:
The pictures say it all, the Federal HST wins, and wins
easily. I'm impressed enough to use it as my carry load
now. I can't wait to test the HST (and the other rounds) in my
next test - shooting through denim (see bullet-test-7 below).
Further HST testing I've done.
http://www.btfh.net/shoot/bullet-test-3.html
http://www.btfh.net/shoot/bullet-test-6.html
http://www.btfh.net/shoot/bullet-test-7.html
