Soft-Points For Self-Defense? (The Truth)
Here at the LocaCarnivore, we’ve tested more than a few handgun cartridges. Many a hollow point load has met its nadir in our exclusive “Frost Giant” gel test. The same problem crops up again and again. In most cases modern handgun bullets expand well, even when faced with the thick, realistic winter clothing barriers we use in our tests. Trouble is, this expansion impedes penetration. A good thing when it comes to reducing the potential to perforate your intended target and then hurt someone downrange who didn’t deserve it. A bad thing when you’re confronted by an assailant who’s six-six, 320 pounds, and wrapped in five layers of winter clothing.
You can count the defensive loads which have passed our tough test on one hand. The term disappointment is an understatement.
What is the solution? Many in our audience have suggested a switch to based jacketed soft-point bullets. Before you scoff, there is some sound logic to this notion. Soft-point handgun bullets are designed to bring down medium-sized game such as whitetail deer. These animals are about the same weight as a human, and have similar bone and muscle densities.
Base jacketed soft-points do expand, albeit to a lesser degree than hollow-points. Expansion is perhaps too kind a word. Soft-points flatten a bit when they hit an animal, just not with any drama. This deformation transfers some bullet energy to tissue which causes a mild temporary wound stretch cavity. Since the bullet does not have the wide frontal area found in an expanded hollow-point, it will tend to penetrate much further. The intent here is to give a hunter a round which reaches a deer’s vitals even with a quartering-on or quartering-away shot presentation.
Thus, such a bullet may offer the best compromise between a hollow-point’s energy transfer and a solid’s penetration, which may solve our conundrum. Just one way to find out. We took Federal’s American Eagle brand 158 grain jacketed soft-point .357 Magnum load out to the range and flung it our “Frost Giant.”
If you want to see the results, have a peek at this great video we put together.
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At time of publication, LocaCarnivore had no commercial interests in any products or brands mentioned in this video.
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