Has anyone tried these yet? I watched a show on Discovery Channel last night about these and they say they're just as good as lead.

Also, this website is offering to send you 6 of them for free.
http://www.frangiblebullets.com/

The Discovery Channel? Ballistic experts? I don't think so...

As for sintered bullets, they are nothing new. They have been around for around 100 years...just ask any .22 caliber gallery owner.

There are a lot of caviats with sintered bullets. The worst is that they are VERY fragile! They cannot be roll crimped, cases must be belled before loading and then a limited taper crimp only.

If you drop a sintered bullet, kiss it good-bye...it's would be like dropping a china plate.

Sintered bullets also have a pension for stress cracking...

Yeah, I happened to catch the "bullet" show last night myself. It was somewhat entertaining and was perhaps a bit less frought with error than many productions of its ilk. As Ricci says, "frangible" bullets have been around for a very long time (gallery .22 shorts go back to the 19th century) and are certainly nothing new or magic. They are of limited usefulness in rather specialized applications.

I was amused at the hoopla over "bulletproofing" cars and clothes as a panacea for security. There was never a 1903 Springfield round made that wouldn't penetrate the most sophisticated of the "bulletproofing" shown.

The script was lax in failing to devote significant mention of the development of the cupro-nickel jacketed bullet and its contribution (along with smokeless powder) to a quantum leap in projectile velocities. The program also failed to provide any useful elaboration on the differences in jacket bullet design and performance, ie. non-expanding, controlled expanding, rapid expansion, tangent ogive, secant ogive, boattail, etc.

I found it laughable that one statement proclaimed that the bullets of today are "nothing like those of 15 or 20 years ago". Well, the military bullets are EXACTLY like those of 100 years ago; and the "recent" innovations in sport hunting bullets (polymer tips, partitions, bonded cores, monolithic expanders) are mostly 30 to 50 years old (although manufacturers keep bringing out new products with various adaptations of these features).

Like most features of its sort, it left the uninitiated viewer with the impression that modern projectiles are somehow super-high-tech products that defy understanding by anyone but the most sophisticated scientists and technicians. They're mostly still just lumps of metal made to a specific size and shape (and most of them, when given adequate velocity, will penetrate anykind of car or clothing, no matter how much you pay for it).

Thanks guys, but wouldn't they make a nice groundhog bullet? What about using them in populated areas to reduce the ricochet problem?

I saw it as well. Even though I wasn't paying attention to it entirely, I did feel that they were fairly accurate in what I did pay attention too.

What I thought was interesting was not the traditional frangable bullets, but the blended bullets. These bullets apper to act like a solid or ammor piercing bullet when hitting hard objects. But act like a soft when encountering soft targets. They 'sounded' cool.

Here's a link to a site that describes a demonstration of the bullets.

I was thinking that a variant of these might just be the ticket for for elephants...

Take Care,

-Steve

[ 08-19-2003, 20:59: Message edited by: Steve ]

They really tenderized that pot roast, didn't they?

I saw the show, too. Can't fit it all in 45-50 minutes. Heck it has taken some of us 40 years to learn as much as they put out in that time. There's ALWAYS more to learn. Another thing, at least they are talking about guns without making it seem as if Satan invented them.

I was looking at these too to try out someday.

they do offer a free trial. 6 bullets of any caliber they make shipped to you.

maybe someone can take them up on this offer and see how they really perform?