I work 7 12 hour days and then I am off for 7 days. On my last day off I go to my local gun range to shoot one of my S&W revolvers. When I get home and before I clean my gun I will shoot a round into water jugs. I had a box of Remington Ultimate Defense 38 Special +p. I shot a round with my 6 inch 686 through 4 layers of denim into the jugs. I found a piece of the jacket in the second jug. The rest of the jacket in the third jug and the lead core on the table just through the 4th jug. After seeing those results I tried one out of my 4 inch Model 15. Found the entire jacket in the second jug and the lead core hit the back of the third jug and bounced back. Should I have jacket separation at 38 Special velocity in water?

I have found that many cartridges advertised as "extreme, ultimate, tactical, mega, zombie, etc" fly apart in a way I don't prefer.
YMMV

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Science plus Art

If not a "Bonded Bullet".........
any thing can happen.

The Golden Sabor bullet is very close in a lot of test from separating.
However it does look great with its expansion.

One never knows what the 4 layer of material will do to the bullets out come.

Tried quite a few varieties of 38 ammo. That was the first one I saw separate.

I think that truly bonded (I think it involves some form of electrolysis) have a better chance of keeping their jackets. The only ones that I know are Speer bullets, but I'm sure there are some out there that are equal quality.

Jacket separation was really common 30 or so years ago but manufacturing methods have improved and bullets should stay together in soft tissue.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I have heard it claimed that water is the toughest test of all for jacket separation - it appears the thinner water can more easily get between the jacket and the core.

You mean as opposed to thick water? Water (regardless of thickness) will do strange things to bullets.

thinner as in "thinner than ballistic gel" - does that clear it up for you?

good one though!

If you want to do some experimenting, try saturating the water with salt. Saturated salt water will have a density of 10.0 pounds per gallon versus fresh water having a density of 8.345 pounds/gallon. The density of the water might have an effect on resistance and maybe salt water will be an even tougher test on a bullet.

Sounds interesting but splashing saltwater all over the yard would probably get me in trouble with my better half!

I'm not sure this is really a bad thing , the core stays intact and the jacket fragments do secondary damage.
These are the old school cup and core bullets that were used for many years. The bonded core bullets have the jackets soldered or bonded in some other fashion to stop this from happening. They are more expensive because they are harder to make.
You pays your money and takes your choice.
A lot of men and animals have fallen to a plain lead bullet , no jacket at all. In my experience , if the cup and core bullet is accurate , moving at a decent velocity and placed in the vitals , it will do the job even if the jacket sheds. Back in the day it was all we had and managed to take deer and hogs each season.
Gary

If one sections a jacketed handgun bullet, they will find the jackets are quite thin in comparison with a rifle bullet. If you're concerned about jacket and core separation, it would probably be wise to choose heavy bullets. The lower velocities would probably lessen the chance of separation and even if separation occurred, the lead core portion would be considerably heavier than with a light bullet.

I shoot only cast bullets in handgun cartridges. I've never seen any advantage to shooting a light bullet, cast or jacketed, in any handgun cartridge unless it was more accurate or to bring down the point of impact with a gun that shoots high.

I bought that box a couple of years ago. About all I could lay my hands on at the time. I carry Buffalo Bore +p 158 grain LSWCHP in my Model 67 and 135 grain Speer Gold Dot in my 642.