Cast HP with a steel shot?

[Bazzer]

I'm curious as to what would happen if I shot a cast hollow point with a steel shot in it against a metal plate or a vest?  I've been powder coating some of my bullets and I've been using steel shot when tumbling to get the powder to stick.  On one or two of my HP's I have had a steel BB get stuck in the cavity. Since on some armor piercing rounds they have a steel core I'm wondering if leaving the shot in might do the same thing?  Of course I would like to give it a go, but here in California its illegal and I don't have the facilities to test.  Might it work?


Interests include Fly Fishing, Archery, Shooting and many more.  British Military Veteran.

[Dieselman]

My best guess is that having a steel BB in the hollow cavity would do next to nothing for armour piercing capability.  When looking at pictures of handgun ammo designed to be armor piercing, most have a reverse ogive and sharp point. At the very least, they all seem to have a sharp point of some sort. I think the rounded BB would be too blunt to pierce anything any better then a plain bullet would at the low velocities achieved by handguns. If the steel inserted was a very hard alloy with a needle point, then it might make a difference.  I question the armor piercing capabilities of even factory engineered armor piercing handgun ammo.  Velocity has more to do with armor penetration than does the material of the projectile. Sure, rifle rounds designed as armor piercing such as m995 do work reasonably well. However plain old m193 lead core copper jacket 5.56 will penetrate thicker steel better than M855 with the so called steel tip penetrator. Because m193 is faster. Speed kills and speed penetrates.

[10mmGarand]

Cool pic. What brand ammo is that?

I'm aware it's not common gun shop/Walmart stuff.

[Dieselman]

Cool pic. What brand ammo is that?

I'm aware it's not common gun shop/Walmart stuff.

I don't know what brand it is. It's just the image I chose off of google images when I searched armor piercing handgun ammo. 

[IridiumRed]

That looks like THV ammo to me.  French company.  They played around with a lot of AP rounds / loadings.  No idea what the current history of the company is, just know that these have been banned from sale / import for a number of years here into the USA.

I just recognized the photo.  AP stuff has always been interesting to me, though I haven't played with it much (no need to IRL).  I just like cartridges, loadings, and anytime something does something WAY out of ordinary, I always take note of it. 

THV seemed to work via having a high speed, very lightweight, brass bullet with a certain pointy shape.  I'm guessing that in 9mm (and this is a wild guess here) the projectile would have been like 75 grains, 1600 fps ?.  Wild guess there. 

The pointy shape I think helped with getting through armor (we're talking about kevlar or related material here), and I'm sure it helped with feeding.  W/o that point, I bet a lot of these rounds wouldn't have fed at all.... esp in the pistol calibers.


KTW did AP a different way, with a very heavy, very hard, tungsten carbide bullet coated in teflon.  The teflon was there not to help the bullet "slide through" the kevlar, but simply to help protect the rifling of the firearm.  That bullet was crazy hard.



Anyways.  Hey everybody, my first post here.  I browse on here some, have several 10mms and love them, but rarely feel like I have anything to contribute..... so since I saw something i could answer, i though why not   Thanks to everyone who DOES post a lot, I like this place

[sqlbullet]

Good to hear from you IridiumRed.   Thanks for sharing.