Energy transfer & tissue disruption. A RN slides thru tissue, pushes organs out of the way, generally a poor choice for anything but shooting thru barriers. A flat point or meplat, crushes & tears tissue, creates a larger non sealing hole thru the target. More damage, bigger hole, greater blood loss, sooner end to the fight. If you must carry non expanding bullets, a large lead flat point is your best bet.

 

+1 I use Buffalo Bore full wad-cutter .38s (150 grain hard cast) in my J-frames for the reasons mentioned in the above quote.

 

http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/methods.html#lbt

Reported Cavitation Data for Hard Cast Flat-Nosed Handgun Bullets

 

A flat nose bullet can do a lot of damage while ensuring good penetration.

I carry Sellier & Bellot 140-grain .357sig rounds when I venture into the woods, with a backup magazine of Hornady 147-grain XTP.

I imagine a .45ACP flat nose round would be formidable.

 

To hang up many semi autos?

 

A Lorcin perhaps, but certainly not a problem for a handgun of even basic quality.

 

The metplat isn't too large on the bullets the OP is referring to and it is has a radius to boot. It is a TC bullet, basically an FMJ version of the XTP profile. Still it should make a slightly more crisp hole in paper than an RN. If my pistol couldn't feed a bullet like that reliably I would get rid of it.

 

Buffalo Bore loads a 230 grain flat point +P 45 ACP designed for protection when in the woods. Flat points are known to have the ability to penetrate straighter than a round nose. The older I get the more I am happy with standard 230 grain hardball but the flat points do have some merit.

 

The older I get the more I am happy with standard 230 grain hardball....

I'm with you,Hiker. Reliability is worth a lot in my book.

 

So I noticed that Freedom Munitions is now selling 225 grain flat nosed .45 ACP ammo. Apparently its selling quite well as its completely sold out.
What is the advantage/thinking behind this round?

Although this may not be the thought behind the creation of the round listed above but another thought behind the flat nosed bullet is for use in a lever action carbine/rifle. rounds are loaded one in front of the next - nose to tail, there is a lesser chance of premature detonation of a round in the magazine.

 

I'm sure not technically the real reason, but the best reason for me.... They fit better in ammo boxes, especially the plastic ones used when reloading. When placed with primer up, round nose is wobbly and doesn't stay correctly and then requires you to place them primer down. This in turn makes it more difficult to remove out of the box with your fingers only able to grasp the rounded tips.

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk

 

Flat points take advantage of a concept called Supercavitation. A high-velocity projectile with a flat point will create a high center of pressure at the nose of the bullet. At a certain pressure threshold*, this pressure forces the fluid radially outward at a velocity high enough that the "hole" left in the fluid ahead of the projectile is larger in diameter than the projectile itself (the "super" meaning "ahead of").

The advantages are two-fold:

1) First, that the fluid is actually not contacting the sides of the bullet means reduced friction, which means greater and straighter penetration.

2) That larger-than-caliber "hole" punched through the medium can result in permanent wound channels significantly larger than the bullet diameter. The results are harder to find because the mainstream is all focused on the latest fancy JHPs, but if you dig around you will find many results of 1.5"+ wound cavities with depths of 24-48 inches using bullets having meplats of, say, .35" to .40" pushed to velocities in the 1200-1400fps range.

Conversely, the tapered edges of the expanded mushroom of a typical JHP do not induce the same radial velocity in the fluid as the nominally-flat central area. Thus, they tend to generate more friction for a given tissue displacement, which is why they stop much earlier than a WFN despite similar overall wound diameters.

In the .45 Super thread, es350 reported the following results:

A 215gr WFN bullet with a .38" meplat, pushed something around 1350-1400fps, made a permanent wound about 1.5-1.75+ in diameter all the way through the animal.

A ~200gr XTP (not 100% sure of the weight of the top of my head) pushed at a similar velocity made a 1.75-2" permanent wound cavity in the first 6" of penetration but which tapered down closer to caliber-sized after that.

Google "wide meplat permanent wound cavity" and you will find los of threads, with pictures, showing similar results.

*edit: forgot to add*
*That "certain velocity" is a function of bullet diameter, meplat diameter, and fluid density / cohesion. Most any bullet fired into water will make a big splash as large volumes of fluid are displaced by that center of pressure. Tissue, obviously, is much less fragile, but the end effect of having tissue displaced to a diameter greater than the bullet--even to such a large degree that a volume of tissue well beyond bullet diameter is damaged beyond function--is very real and very common.

Long story short:
JHPs came about as an improvement over round-nose bullets, and they are. They were justified to the public by over-hyping what is barely more than the myth of "over-penetration resulting in hitting innocent bystanders," but the underlying goal was to get more effective ammo for police officers. The reason WFN bullets are not more widely used is a combination of feed reliability (in both autos and revolvers) and the continued belief that there is a small child cowering behind every would-be murderer.

I often run FWCs in my G21, and would absolutely keep the first cylinder stocked with them in a revolver.

 

I often buy FP bullets in bulk to help simulate JHPs in practice.

If I had a pistol that wouldn't digest those like pacman eating dots I'd sell the POS ASAP.

 

I don't have a huge amount of experience shooting 1911s, but I own a Les Baer and other quality .45 pistols. I'm not leery of JHP ammo based on personal experience, but I've read a lot about 1911s being picky about the stuff they like or don't like.

In my simple mind, .45 round nose ammo would be effective for self defense and should be the most reliable fodder for a 1911. Anyway, I figure death from a natural cause is likely to get me long before a bad guy might try to put me down.

Shoot more, read less. :2gun:I have 1911s in all flavors & manuf; full size, Comm & OM. All feed just about anything; all jhp, lswc, lfp, boringly reliable. There is so much hype about the unreliable, finicky 1911, mostly BS. Feed it decent ammo from a quality mag, not unlike most any semiauto, don't mess with it, it will run fine. Yes RNFMJ is reliable, about all that can be said for it. Effective, more like adequate & IMO, adequate sucks in a gunfight.

 

I can't fuss about your statement. You obviously are an experienced 1911 guy who has carefully tested your pistols for reliability. I can't help but wonder, though, if your .45s have been tweaked a little to achieve near perfection or if you own high-end guns that are hand-fitted and carefully tested before delivery.

I used to hang out at the 1911 forum where nearly everyone loved 'em, carried 'em and frequently fussed about finding the 'right' ammo to achieve high-level reliability. The reliability concern is one reason I bought a Les Baer early in my 1911 experience.

I love the 1911 platform. I love shooting them, but I don't carry one for self defense. I should have made that clear early on. Of all the guns I've owned, nothing has been as fun or felt so natural in my hand. Plus, I grew up when 1911s were the king of autoloaders, and I have a special affinity for historic US military weapons.

 

Oh, and fwiw, with an EMPTY case loaded into the mag of my 1911, I could drop the slide from slide lock and it would feed 100% of the time...

Also, it is unlikely you will find a factory-loaded .45 ACP using bullets with a meplat greater than about .28. If you handload, the best you can do relatively inexpensively or in bulk will be 255gr SWCs (basic .45 Keiths), which typically have a meplat of .32.

Here is a link to a basic calculator that is probably accurate +/- 15% if I had to put a number to it . But, it is pretty consistent andat least useful for comparison's sake.

http://www.beartoothbullets.com/rescources/calculators/php/wound.htm

 

I use a lot of FN for shooting paper, they make nice holes in the target, making it much easier to see "hits" Holes look like the were paper punched.

 

Beat me to it. I purchased 1000 rounds of 147 gr. 9mm wad cutters about four months ago, before the panic(s). Shoot as reliably as ball ammo in my experience, but definitely easier to spot the hits at more than 10 yards.

 

I can't fuss about your statement. You obviously are an experienced 1911 guy who has carefully tested your pistols for reliability. I can't help but wonder, though, if your .45s have been tweaked a little to achieve near perfection or if you own high-end guns that are hand-fitted and carefully tested before delivery.

I used to hang out at the 1911 forum where nearly everyone loved 'em, carried 'em and frequently fussed about finding the 'right' ammo to achieve high-level reliability. The reliability concern is one reason I bought a Les Baer early in my 1911 experience.

I love the 1911 platform. I love shooting them, but I don't carry one for self defense. I should have made that clear early on. Of all the guns I've owned, nothing has been as fun or felt so natural in my hand. Plus, I grew up when 1911s were the king of autoloaders, and I have a special affinity for historic US military weapons.

Why I call bs on most 1911 naysayers. All my 1911s are stock but one. All are off the shelf lower end models; Springfield, Colt, S&W, all run 100%. The only thing done to them is trigger job if needed to get to 4-4.5# range, grip tape, done. 1000s of rds in competition & training classes without an ammo related malfunction. I see more malfunctions in glocks than I have ever had with the 1911. Start messing with parts, you'll get failures. Use a $8 mag, you'll have failures.
One of my fav ccw is a stock 1911pd. Slim, ltwt, 100% reliable. The only thing I've done to it was grip tape & a bobtail conversion, which you can now buy stock, stock trigger, a joy to carry all day iwb.

 

This guy here (out of the box) feeds everything I've put through him, and that is a bunch, and mostly all my hand loads. Jacketed or hard cast.

COMPARISON PICS... 45acp

CM
:horse:

 

I use wide flat-point SWCs in my two M1911A1s for bowling-pin shooting at the Chester NH and Country Pond, NH gun clubs. They bite into the pins better.

 

Oh yeah. The lee 200gr fp is terrific pin smacked & you don't have to run it at max either. At a sedate 900fps, it blows pins off the table & followup shots are very fast. Sub 4sec runs are pretty routine.

 

Under the ballistic discussion here is testing of

vs

vs

available here

Yes, it's a .380 but the concepts are the same. I was surprised by the results.

 

His obsession with the 18" maximum penetration suggests an incomplete understanding of the reasoning behind that 12-18" standard.

The 12-18" standard was derived from observations that HPs from service calibers that penetrated beyond 18" almost universally did so only when failing to expand. Expanded HPs create a lot of drag and only very powerful calibers can drive heavy bullets fast enough for the bullets to expand and exceed this standard. Conversely, service calibers with reliably-expanding loads are almost universally incapable of this.

Sure, one can still say penetration beyond 18" can perhaps represent wasted energy. Still, it is estimated that exiting skin is the rough equivalent of 4" of tissue penetration. So, passing through an outstretched arm (that is not contacting the body) takes that 16" down to 12", and add a leather jacket to a big guy and we are back down to nominally "under-penetrating."

Nothing against his assessment that the XP was probably the best overall performer. But calling 16" of penetration from a non-expanding bullet "ideal," and 19" from the same bullet "disappointing," is a little narrow.

Long story short, there are a lot more cases of folks getting hurt or killed because their bullets failed to penetrate than have been hurt or killed because their bullets were otherwise well-placed but did not do enough tissue damage.

Finally, I would strongly expect that a true WFN (a meplat of, say, .27" minimum, vs .22" of the tested FP--my wife has those exact bullets sitting in her gun right now) would have at least match the observed performance of those XPs.

 

His obsession with the 18" maximum penetration suggests an incomplete understanding of the reasoning behind that 12-18" standard.

If you watch some of his videos you'll see he pretty religiously follows the 'FBI protocol' and stays within those overall limits. While I may not always agree with his personal opinion he does do a good job of keeping it numbers based and consistent across tests.

 

Yeah I disagree with the 18" rule. Missing the target altogether is a MUCH bigger problem than the myth of over penetration. I'm sure many more people (about 3,000) are seriously injured or die due to lightning strikes than due to bullets that over penetrated their intended targets.

Getting enough penetration and good expansion are really all you should concern yourself with.

 

Getting enough penetration and good expansion are really all you should concern yourself with.

My wife tells me the same thing...lol

 

The purpose is to cut a cleaner hole through a paper target while still feeding more reliable than a full wadcutter. Has nothing to do with wounding potential regarding why this is manufactured. In some loads, such as Hornady's 9mm fmj 135gr, is to also simulate the bullet shape of an expanding load and therefore have the same reliabilility tests.

 

Except it does enhance terminal performance. It only punches a slightly better hole than rnfmj.

 

A flat nose bullet can do a lot of damage while ensuring good penetration.

I carry Sellier & Bellot 140-grain .357sig rounds when I venture into the woods, with a backup magazine of Hornady 147-grain XTP.

I imagine a .45ACP flat nose round would be formidable.

I carry the same in my G23.4/ 5.3" LWD .357 Sig Bbl. Woods configuration... except reversed. 147 gr. XTP backed by 140 gr. S&B.

Buffalo Bore loads a 230 grain flat point +P 45 ACP designed for protection when in the woods. Flat points are known to have the ability to penetrate straighter than a round nose. The older I get the more I am happy with standard 230 grain hardball but the flat points do have some merit.

I got some Government over-run CCI Speer Lawman .45 ACP 230 Grain +P Flat-Nose TMJ (54302) Ammo as a Woods round for my G36.




Nutter

 

Shorter bullet length for same weight. Look at 9x21 ammo compared to 9x19. Also more room for powder in the case. The two main reasons I do not like 9x19 are the tapered cases and the 'pointy' bullets. I would feel much better with a 9x21 and 125 gr. GD's than 9x19 with 124 gr. GD's. They make larger holes immediately and are already closer to final expansion. They also deflect less on angled shots and better through windshields. Speer started making truncated 230 Lawman as well as the ball they always had. The 200, 200+P and 185 were always truncated. That's why the GAP uses truncated and works best with 200's but a wide meplat, shallow HP will work also.

 

Except it does enhance terminal performance. It only punches a slightly better hole than rnfmj.

It can enhance terminal performance just as a full wadcutter can, but that is not why Freedom Munitions is manufacturing this particular load. They are manufacturing it as a training load and flat nosed bullets do punch a much cleaner hole when a paper target is hanging loose like at the indoor range my wife and I use. Round nose tear holes like they have yawed when the paper target isn't backed with cardboard.

 

I cast a .429 full wadcutter (215gr) and drive it at 1200FPS for pin-shooting.

 

Any one that has shot animals with WFNs and LFN knows the value of the FP, meplat,
and the faster you shoot them the bigger the hole

 

YEs, it will punch the meplat dia, but unless the bullet has a full caliber cutting shoulder, like a swc, it's only slightly better than RN imo for paper. Any flat point is better than a RN in terminal performance. Even a small flat point can yield measurably more tissue damage.

Yet there are people that recognize the terminal bump they get from a fp & will buy it for that reason. Especially for those that like fmj or are stuck with it.

 

My whole reason for starting this thread was to confirm a suspicion I had that the flat point might have slightly better terminal effectiveness.

If I can get FP training ammo for about the same price and have it be even slightly more effective as defensive ammo if I run out of the good stuff in some emergency situation. Awesome. Why not stock it?

Sounds like I should go ahead with using FP as my training ammo from now on.

 

I've shot a good number of deer with a handgun and Keith style bullets and a few WFN...my last kill was on a whitetail with a Glock 20 loaded with WFN bullets. I have had no problems with any of them.

In a pinch I have no qualms whatsoever carrying ball in a .45 for self defense and in fact have done so for many years. It comes pre-expanded for crying out loud and you simply do not hear stories about GI's complaining about the lack of stopping power in their 1911's in places like Germany and the South Pacific or Vietnam for that matter.

 

I've shot a good number of deer with a handgun and Keith style bullets and a few WFN...my last kill was on a whitetail with a Glock 20 loaded with WFN bullets. I have had no problems with any of them.

In a pinch I have no qualms whatsoever carrying ball in a .45 for self defense and in fact have done so for many years. It comes pre-expanded for crying out loud and you simply do not hear stories about GI's complaining about the lack of stopping power in their 1911's in places like Germany and the South Pacific or Vietnam for that matter.

Well likely that the handgun in war isn't really used all that much. 45 ball fails often, it's a poor choice when just about any jhp will be better. If it doesn't expand it does have a flat point to tear tissue. RNfmj just pushes tissue aside. The holes can even be sort of self sealing as the tissue isn't torn, just punctured. Why a fp is a better choice, wider the better. Otherwise solids are a distant 2nd to an expanding bullet, rifle or handgun IMO.