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The Case
For-and Against- High Velocity Pre-fragmented Projectiles
There
is a lot of info out
there about High Velocity Pre-fragmented Projectiles such as Glaser
Safety Slugs and Mag Safe ammunition. Some tout them as 'the
ultimate self-defense round' and others decry them as useless and a
rip-off. In fact they are neither- they are a special-purpose
limited application round and within their limits they work quite well.
What is a
Pre-Fragmented Projectile?
The most common form is
a bullet-shaped copper shell filled with shot. The size and
quantity of shot varies with the design. The end of a Glaser
Safety Slug is capped with a polymer half-sphere. Mag safe has no
cap, but rather fills the space around the shot with an epoxy
resin. Since these bullets are lighter than conventional bullets
they are fired at higher velocity than conventional bullets- usually
150-200+% of typical bullet velocities for a given caliber. This
gives them a proportionately higher kinetic energy load as well.
They are called Safety Slugs for several reasons; first because
they are designed so that if they hit a hard, angled surface instead of
ricocheting they will break up into small pieces that are unlikely to
have lethal effect at any significant distance from the
impact. They are also likely to break up in a standard
interior wall, especially if they strike at an angle, emerging if at
all as a diffuse spray of small projectiles at low velocity that are
unlikely to inflict a lethal wound. They will not over-penetrate
a human body and possibly go on to strike an innocent bystander. Such
rounds were originally designed for Air Marshals as it was felt that
they would be less likely to over-penetrate the fuselage of an aircraft
in flight and cause explosive decompression.
There have been a number
of theoretical studies; many of these are well thought out and
theoretically sound if you accept their basic assumptions. The primary
assumption is that it is necessary to penetrate at least twelve inches
to result in a 'stop' as a cross-body shot might have to penetrate that
far to disrupt vital organs and structures in the body. Unfortunately
these studies don't take into account documentated cases of actual
shootings in real life with high-velocity pre-fragmented projectiles.
In these cases they have most often worked extremely well- overall at
least as well as conventional hollow-point ammunition in their given
caliber.
There are stories of
these bullets failing to penetrate heavy clothing, leather jackets
etc. To the best of my knowledge not [i]one[/i] of these stories
has been documented by any reliable authority.
There are also
objections based on the idea that an intervening limb might take the
hit, causing the bullet to break up before hitting the torso and
failing to result in a 'stop.' The point that an intervening limb might
take the hit from the bullet is well-taken. On the other hand a hit in
the hand or arm with a service caliber Glaser will virtually insure
that that limb is out of action- and we shouldn't ignore cases where an
intervening limb has deflected a conventional bullet.
Marshall Evans study of
actual coroner's reports of real-lfe, documented shootings did include
two examples of 9x19mm glasers failing to stop a suspect with a single
hit- one was a cross-body shot that struck the back by the shoulder
blade at an acute angle and while it did massive surface damage did not
stop the perp- though it is doubtfull that a comparable hit with any
conventional bullet would have done better under the circumstances. In
the second case the Glaser round passed through the upper arm and
started to break up before hitting the suspect's chest. A conventional
round under these circumstances would likely have been more
effective. In a few cases locally of use by police officers in
the late 1980s and early 1990s they performed at least as well as
conventional ammunition but not notably better. There have been a
number of shootings with 9x19mm Glasers since that have been
documented- on the average glasers have performed about as well as a
good conventional hollowpoint. However that doesn't tell the entire
tale. When broken down into full-frontal hits and oblique hits the
statistics change noticably. In cases of full-frontal hits 9x19mm
Glasers have been over 99% effective at stopping with a torso hit- it
is only on oblique (crossing the body) hits that effectiveness drops as
low or lower than good hollowpoints- on an oblique hit the bullet
requires greater penetration to interrupt vital structures and the
blue-tips don't reliably have it. Since most home defense shootings
involve full-frontal shots this is less of an issue for home defense
uses than it is for law enforcement.
Then there is the
argument that HVPFPs have very poor penetration against car windows,
doors etc. This is hardly surprising- they are [i]designed[/i] to
not penetrate these types of obstacles! Many will argue that this
makes these rounds unsuitable for general law-enforcement use. I
happen to agree with this however it has no bearing on most civilian
in-home self-defense situations.
Some also argue that an
overzealous prosecutor can claim that you were using 'special killer
bullets.' If you get hung up on this one some one should shoot your
lawyer; the 'killer ammo' charge in the case of Glasers and their ilk
is laughably easy to shoot down in court. You weren't carrying special
'man-killer' ammo to be sure that you killed your assailant. Far from
it- you were carrying 'Safety Slugs' that wouldn't overpenetrate or
richochet and hurt innocent bystanders; you were in fact concerned
enough about this possibility that you were willing to spend as much as
$3 a shot to insure against accidental injury of innocents. It helps of
course if this is actually true and reflects your real reasons for
using this ammo.
Which brings up another
issue; these rounds are expensive, often costing $3 a round or even
more. I lived in an apartment years back and at a gun show a fellow
questioned spending $3 a shot for defensive ammo. I asked him if he
didn't think maybe my neighbor's 3 year old daughter's life wasn't
worth a bit more than $3 a shot? Currently I live in a house with a
wife, five dogs and five cats. It would really suck if a round from my
gun penetrated a wall and injured or killed one of them- which even
very good hollowpoints frequently can.
HVPFPs aren't perfect,
nor are they useless. They are special application ammo that I believe
is pretty well suited to 'house guns' but not as a police duty round.
They are suited to special circumstances and civilian use in densely
populated areas, apartment buildings or for homes where other family
members are usually present. For home defense in almost any good
quality service-caliber revolver I would not hesitate to recommend
them. In a semi-automatic pistol I wouldn't unless you are completely
satisfied that they will function correctly- how you establish that is
your judgement. My wife's Kahr E9 cycled a small number (8) of Magsafes
flawlessly. Normally I would still be a bit dubious but since the gun
has never experienced any feeding problems with any type or profile of
9mm bullet I'm not concerned.
For general
law-enforcement and self-defense outside of the home HVPFPs are often
not the best choice due to their lack of penetration of
obstacles. Law enforcement officers in particular may encounter
situations where they need to fire on a vehicle or through obstacles
and to a lesser degree legally-armed civilians may face these same
situations. In these cases modern, good-quality hollow-point
ammunition remains the choice of professionals
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