Improving a 22LR hollow point......

[eltorro]

I read a Finnish article about improving a hollowpoint's performance by filling the cavity (the hollow-point cavity that is... take your mind out of the gutter) with grease.

I have been experimenting with this a little....
Anyone else tried it?

 

[Beater]

use beeswax.....works better, and non toxic if you want to be " saveing the planet" less messy to

 

[eltorro]

This is actually a great idea..... I wish I had thought of it.....
I was incredibly hard to squeeze all that grease into the syringe ...

Have you tried using it?

 

[hunter64]

The trick is to have what ever substance you put in the hollow, completly encapsulated so that when it hits the bullet erupts. In my .44 Mag I opened up the hollow a little bit deeper and filled it with grease about 3/4 of the way. I then took a BB and put it on top of the grease and flush with the tip of the bullet and used a soldering iron and melted the bullet and the BB together so that it is completely covered. Oh my goodness, the difference is outstanding. I can't see why it wouldn't work on a .22, just on a smaller scale.

 

[cyclone]

Are we talking about in-flight performance, or the terminal punch once it lands?

 

[eltorro]

We're talking about terminal performance. Whatever we do to that bullet is not going to help it fly better.
The idea with the BB is great, but I'm thinking that the amount of grease/wax that will be put in is relatively uncontrollable, so making it even more uncontrollable isn't going to help matters ballistic-wise.

 

[Turkeyslayer 1300]

why not put a bead of solder in the tip instead and make a small penetrator of sorts that would also upset the bullet.

 

[joe-nwt]

The trick is to have what ever substance you put in the hollow, completly encapsulated so that when it hits the bullet erupts. In my .44 Mag I opened up the hollow a little bit deeper and filled it with grease about 3/4 of the way. I then took a BB and put it on top of the grease and flush with the tip of the bullet and used a soldering iron and melted the bullet and the BB together so that it is completely covered. Oh my goodness, the difference is outstanding. I can't see why it wouldn't work on a .22, just on a smaller scale.

Everyone send their LIVE 22 ammo to hunter64 for soldering modification.......

 

[hunter64]

Yes, by all means do send all your hollow point ammo to me. Of course I will have to test them out on some gophers and I will report back on how they work. lol

There are lots of modifications that can be done to ammo and a great book on it is "Combat Ammo" by Duncan Long. Goes into detail about everything that can be done to all sorts of ammo, shotgun shells, .22 ammo, exploding handgun bullets all sorts of "for information only" type reading.

 

[canuckgunny]

Can't say I have tried it. Finns must have a lot of time on their hands. Don't they sell 17's with v-max's in Finland? Guarantee that guy would be out shooting instead of experimenting with crappy .22 hollowpoint if they did.

 

[zuke]

What about opening up that hollow point enough to take a .22 blank of some type?

 

[Turkeyslayer 1300]

The 22 blank idea was used in the late 1890's in the .40-.50 caliber cartridges of the day and apparently was a failure as it only created flesh wounds and hindered penetration even on dear.

 

[Dr.Lector]

glycerin, mercury... "for information only"

The idea with the pellet closing the cavity is much better than a plug (made of, say, wax, which will be thrown away by rotation). Some will argue that it has to be very centered, otherwise it will un-balance the bullet. Also, for closing the cavity they use shellac and all kinds of epoxy.

 

[hunter64]

As Dr. Lector said, with my .44 mag. more often then not they were lopsided and would be ok to about 25 yards and that was it. When they hit the rabbit broadside it would make a huge mess. In Duncan Longs book they had a small pistol primer in the nose of the cavity on a 44 mag bullet. When the bullet hit anything hard the primer would explode and disintegrate the bullet about 2-3 inches inside the wound cavity.

 

[TDC]

Its called shot placement.....

TDC

 

[Ardent]

As Dr. Lector said, with my .44 mag. more often then not they were lopsided and would be ok to about 25 yards and that was it. When they hit the rabbit broadside it would make a huge mess. In Duncan Longs book they had a small pistol primer in the nose of the cavity on a 44 mag bullet. When the bullet hit anything hard the primer would explode and disintegrate the bullet about 2-3 inches inside the wound cavity.

You strike me as young and impressionable, don't buy into everything you see on tv, or read as is the case here.

Everyone send their LIVE 22 ammo to hunter64 for soldering modification.......

This sailed right over his head...

 

[eltorro]

glycerin, mercury... "for information only"

The idea with the pellet closing the cavity is much better than a plug (made of, say, wax, which will be thrown away by rotation). Some will argue that it has to be very centered, otherwise it will un-balance the bullet. Also, for closing the cavity they use shellac and all kinds of epoxy.

I avoided putting epoxy on top, but never accounted for the wax/grease being thrown out by rotation.

 

[joe-nwt]

This sailed right over his head...

Shhhhhh! You'll spoil the fun.......

 

[Dr.Lector]

I avoided putting epoxy on top, but never accounted for the wax/grease being thrown out by rotation.

Just to have an idea about what is happening there, the rotation speed (rpm) can be calculated (and implicitly, the centrifugal force). In those calculations (in case anybody is curious) it's up to everybody to assume the velocity and the rate of twist.
In those conditions, one needs something much stronger than wax (as a plug closing the cavity) to make sure it holds together. But wax (or other soft materials) might do for slow things, 22 rimfire, HG cartridges, etc.
Nevertheless, a "plug" or an opening of a SMALL diameter will only help things.
Also, the hole is supposed to be thin and long as opposed to large and shallow for two reasons: minimizing the radius (and by doing so, minimizing the centrifugal force), and for obtaining a large amount of pressure concentrated on a small surface during impact.
At least, that's the theory of it.

The idea with the mercury or glycerin is at least 90 yrs old, and I wondered nobody mentioned it in here before me. Modern day experiments included elastic materials, like some hydronic types of rubber, but apparently they didn't work as good. "Compressible" oils was another hope in the 50's and 60's, but I don't know about any fantastic results.

Again, for information only.

 

[eltorro]

I tried them with grease, on gophers.
I got some spectacular results with some of them and just plain thru and thru with others. I don't have ballistic gelatin so I can't rely on rely on some - maybe - lucky shots.
Plugging the HP is still an interesting alternative.... will have to look into that...