Homemade Hollowpoints?

[John Kepler]

Regarding accuracy, I had not thought about unbalancing the bullet by drilling it. .

Bruce....have you ever calculated or even considered just how fast a bullet spins....even a pistol ball? It's in excess of 100,000 RPM...rifles can exceed 200,000 RPM! Little inaccuracies in things like concentricity can go a LONG way toward screwing things up!

[BruceV]

Just got back from Wal-Mart. They had no HP .40 S&W ammo in stock, but I consoled myself by buying two more boxes of the Fed. 180 gr. FMJ's. I also had a nice little chat with the sporting goods manager. He said they would be receiving some of the 100 rd. value packs. He took my contact information and said he would call me before it was put up on the shelves. In the past he has called to let me know when they had .22LR ammo. Isn't it amazing what happens when you are nice to people? Sincerely. Bruce.

[gunner]

We had used soft point bullets and drilled the hole as deep as you can see the soft point tip. Also used a special die ( normal used for shortening the casese by file down ) so the round is exactly adjusted. And drilling was made on a CNC- machine. It worked, but as you can see there is a lot of work for a product that is cheaper to buy at a store. Sometimes big boys need toys. And for the reasons that jim wrote, we made a cut thru the bullet to see how deep its possible to drill. But all the things we made are out of guarantee.

Regards

Gunner

[Dale in Louisiana]

One of the problems with hollowpointing FMJ bullets is that the typical FMJ jacket is THICKER at the nose than the base. Purpose-made HP ammo has a thinner jacket to facilitate expansion.

Another problem is that most FMJ has a solid nose and an open, non-jacketed base. I've heard of cases where enthusiastic hollow-pointing has left a jacket stuck in the barrel with the core blown out the muzzle. Again, never saw it myself, but hey! It could happen.

There there's the stories of some of the old hunters in Africa turning their hard-nosed big game bullets around to use on softer-skinned game. The base-first bullet supposedly gave expansion. Of course you have to remember that most African game shooting in the golden age of African hunting was close-range stuff.

A decent machinist should be able to whip up a rig in short order that would produce a consistently concentric hole of fixed depth if you still wanted to play with it. I seem to remember these being sold commercially many years ago.

Dale in Louisiana

[Kirk]

Forster make a hollow point attachment for their case trimmer. It will make a nice, consistent HP in cast bullets; you may have to crank harder for a FMJ!

[JBS]

Cast bullets do not operate at the pressures of jacketed bullets. Cast bullets don’t leave a jacket behind in the bore either. In a blowout they ether exit or don’t. When they don’t you know it and stop shooting until it’s cleared. Slamming another round into a jacket stuck in the bore will cause shall we say catastrophic events. Not worth the potential problems.

[smokey]

Bruce, I tried your solution many years ago[while in Viet Nam],it is not a really workable solution for reasons cited above. A possible solution would be to pull your bullets and replace them with HP bullets for reloads. No telling whether you will have velocity enough to get expansion or not without experimentation. I'd think,if you used 180/185 grain or perhaps a 200 grain bullet with a powder load for a mil. spec 230 ball you probably won't have any pressure problems but I DON'T guarantee it!Sounds like an interesting experiment tho'. Best of luck and PROCEED CAREFULLY. Nick

[BruceV]

Good Lord God help me... I'm thinking! And as my wife would tell you, when I'm thinking, everyone needs to run for cover. The ammo I've got on hand is 180 gr. FMJ which I assume is loaded to full factory velocity for that loading, ie., somewhere around 900 fps. If I pull the factory ball and replace it with say a 180 gr. JHP with a similar diameter, ogive and shank length, it is reasonable to think that the resultant load would be safe and shoot to the same POI. However it will be some weeks before I am able to do anything about experimentation, etc. as I currently have my hands full getting my two congregations ready for Charge Conference. Sincerely. BruceV.

[maverick1]

Glock advises due to the rifling design of the barrel do not use cast lead bullets.