Unknown Projectile

[CricketSquish]

A friend of a friend may or may not have a projectile that I do not know of and can't find much info on. It was claimed to be .45 caliber and it was quiet long for an ACP, maybe it's a .45LC or .45 for black powder. I heard it was made entirely of "Carbon", and it did look dark porous black. Whats special about it is that it was claimed to fragment 100% even at the low speeds that black powder provides. This was claimed to be verified by that friend.
I did a little prowling and found only like 2 patents talking about projectiles with Tungsten and some other shit I don't remember off hand. The projectile was very heavy also. Even with the traditional hollow point in it.

Does anyone know what this is? It seems too dense for Carbon so maybe it could be one of these patented projectiles I read of....

[Alexires]

Not one of those "Safety Rounds" that they can use on the inside of planes because it fragments so readily?

I've heard they are made of carbon and a kind of resin to hold it together.

[festergrump]

That was my first thought, too. A frangible bullet like the Glaser Safety Slug. If not, the color of the projectile leads one to believe it may be coated with Lubalox similar to the Black Talon projectiles of the 90's, though these weren't meant to fragment completely but provide better expansion in soft targets (flesh). IIRC, this round is discontinued.

Any chance you might get that "friend of a friend" to provide us with a picture, CricketSquish? A really good closeup might really help identify it. A ruler placed alongside the round in the photo would help even more to identify the casing.

[Cobalt.45]

Any possibility that these rounds could be a sintered ceramic material? I heard somewhere that there were LE-only rounds being developed but heard nothing more about it.

OT, but has anybody ever tried wax bullets backed by thin card-stock and propelled w/a primer ONLY (no powder, I'm leery of too-small loads causing DDT)? These wax rounds were shot from a borrowed snubby .38 (sorry, J:o). The idea was taken from a GUNS magazine article from the '70's. Talk about frangible!

I used these in my garage to the dismay of anything that walked, crawled or slithered. Not lethal to anything much larger than a mouse (blunt-force trauma) but entertaining when boredom hits.

I never tried hot-glue bullets- wonder how they would work, being harder than wax or if they would foul the bore. Wax was OK in this regard.

Also wondered about using wax as a sabot for something more lethal but never explored this possibility either.

[Jacks Complete]

Wax bullets certainly work, and they need not a lot to make them splat. Gives me an idea for a bio-compatible bullet. Think tallow or even Fight Club. You keep it stored at a low temperature (far above cryo, unlike the magic "ice bullet")

The fat would dissolve at the 37 degrees of a body, leaving next to no trace, and there would therefore be no ballistics, just a little GSR in the wound.

[joffe]

OT, but has anybody ever tried wax bullets backed by thin card-stock and propelled w/a primer ONLY (no powder, I'm leery of too-small loads causing DDT)? These wax rounds were shot from a borrowed snubby .38 (sorry, J). The idea was taken from a GUNS magazine article from the '70's. Talk about frangible!

Don't know what the article said, so hopefully I'm adding something to this thread. Before simunitions, one had to make one's own ammo. A common way to do that is like you describe above. Bill Jordan writes about it in his book "No Second Place Winner". Doesn't work well in a pistol, but in a revolver, it works just fine. It hurts when you're hit. But as long as you wear a face mask, no permant damage is caused. Great fun if you're practicing with a partner.

[festergrump]

Cobalt, I just got finished putting a dozen hot-glue balls through a BP revolver and it works like a charm. Those things bounce off of hard targets without fail and I've yet to find one to examine after impact, but I can tell you that it's fun as hell to shoot as 'quiet' as that.

What I did was drip hot glue into a Lee .454 ball mould and seat each moulded glueball down as far as it would go into each cylinder chamber without any BP at all. One #10 cap per nipple and they really ZING! (sorry, no chronograph). I'll bet they'd hurt like hell if you got struck with one, though.

No plastic fouling of the barrel at all.

Accuracy is not even an issue I can discuss at this time as I'm out of glue temporarily, but Minute of Person at 25 paces, for sure...

(safety glasses are a must and a nutcup might not be a bad idea, either! Youch! :eek:).

[Cobalt.45]

Accuracy is not even an issue I can discuss at this time as I'm out of glue temporarily, but Minute of Person at 25 paces, for sure...

(safety glasses are a must and a nutcup might not be a bad idea, either! Youch! :eek:).
Got a good chuckle outta that!

But great that the hot glue doesn't foul the bore- I know what I'll be up to this evening.

I'll also try it with a BP rifle and see if that will work, too. It uses the 209 primer, so it might have enough "oomph" to spit it downrange...:D

[486]

It was claimed to be .45 caliber and it was quiet long for an ACP, maybe it's a .45LC or .45 for black powder.

If it is rimmed it might be .45 LC, rimless it might be a prototype round that was designed for the Thompson submachine gun. I can't find the name right now, but it was a .45 acp that was about twice as long.
Saying "a friend of a friend" is somewhat more incriminating than saying "I saw in a magazine" or something of the sort. ;)

[Cobalt.45]

If it is rimmed it might be...Projectile- not round- or the OP wouldn't have posted.

What is curious is the perceived weight. While heavy bullets don't rule out being frangible it is counter-intuitive and would seem to make the job somewhat harder to do.

[Alexires]

Perhaps. Then again, I would have thought that it was intuitive. You are trying to make a round that imparts enough energy to hurt/kill a target, but doesn't penetrate walls/reactors/submarines/etc. It is easier to double the mass than make the projectile go 4 times faster (Kinetic energy eq.)

A heavier round imparts more energy than a lighter round at the same velocity. Then again, this is only a thought experiment, and I have no idea how different velocity rounds with the same kinetic energy are for penetration.

[Cobalt.45]

I may well be wrong in my assumptions, I have done no testing in this regard myself.

But lighter bullets give up their energy quicker than heavier ones. Combining lighter weight w/a frangible design and higher muzzle velocity would- to me- seem the route to take, to design a low penetration round that retains some semblance of accuracy.

I'm sure the manufacturers tip-toe the line between weight, penetration, frangibility and accuracy and the case is far from closed when it comes to this technology.

[Hitech_Hillbilly]

It's simple physics, for the same velocity, the object with the greater mass will be harder to stop. The object with more mass takes more energy to push to the same velocity from a physics standpoint, and the mass will determine how quickly it will transfer that energy to the object trying to "stop" it. The materials that make up the object will then be considered for ductility and malleability, etc. to determine whether it will be frangible, and how much so.

[Cobalt.45]

and the mass will determine how quickly it will transfer that energy to the object trying to "stop" it.
Mass has less to do w/the transfer of energy into "flesh and blood" target than construction, within reasonable limits- witness the difference in hollow point as opposed to jacketed spire point ammo on said target.

PS Thanks for correcting your OP, that E didn't = MC2. I'm glad I'm not the only one that hits the "edit" button.

[Hitech_Hillbilly]

Thanks, I'm bad to hit the enter key before I do a sanity check. As to the Mass vs. construction, I agree and disagree at the same time. All else being equal, the smaller mass object will "dump" it's energy quicker, hence the shock wave that travels through the medium. That being said, I wouldn't rely on that shock wave for lethality only, but would turn to materials and construction to ensure proper wound characteristics.

[Alexires]

Well. How awkward.

It appears that I have had a brain-fart. I retract my statement about mass vs. velocity. Faster bullets would probably be more frangible. I only just reread what I had written and it makes no sense.