Frangible Bullets

The old .22 shooting gallery ammunition bullets were powdered iron in a thermoset plastic matrix. As I recall, they were very lightweight, maybe 15 grains, and very high velocity. I haven't checked but I doubt that they are still made anywhere, as there are probably no more shooting galleries to use them.

I remember that back in the 1950s they were marketed to ordinary shooters under the name of Remington Rocket and Peters Thunderbolt. They came in a small cellophane-wrapped flat pack of 28 rounds. At that time they sold for about a quarter per pack, which was more expensive than ordinary .22 Shorts. They came in several different power levels for different size animals.

Winchester once sold some .22 cartridges with frangible bullets for use in slaughterhouses for livestock stunning. I think they were called Stun-Rite. Somewhere I have a few of those rounds. They were available in different power levels for use on different size animals.

jimmyj said:

I am Safety Person for my Security / Safety Team I am concerned about over penetration inside a crowded service (3 on Sundays).
Team Members CCW 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45acp.

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These are sad times indeed, when we need to have a discussion about the proper ammunition to use to protect people at worship.

I bought a couple of boxes of 9mm Sinterfire for the same application, their jhp is marketed as indoor SD rounds.

They shot fine out of my M&P9SC but haven’t carried them yet because team is skeptical of their performance.


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I spent several years performing frangible ammunition development, testing, and evaluation. None of it involved using it to shoot people.

swsig said:

These are sad times indeed, when we need to have a discussion about the proper ammunition to use to protect people at worship.

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humans have been killing each other over religious differences since the dawn of mankind. My uncle, a police det, always carried, even to church services. Though I believe the department's policy was mandatory off duty carry. AMT back-up in an ankle holster.

DWalt said:

There are generally two types of frangible handgun bullets. The sintered copper bullet is made with powdered copper with some Tin powder added as an adhesive. The mixture is pressed into a mold under high temperature and pressure. The other uses copper powder in a polymer matrix, but similarly manufactured. Obviously the manufacturing technology required is not nearly as simple as might be implied, and the current state of manufacture has been greatly refined over the past 30 or so years. When I first became involved back in the mid-1990s, there were many problems to be overcome, accuracy performance being a big one. Regarding frangible bullet breakup on a leather jacket, that is highly doubtful, if not laughable, but anyone anticipating using frangible for defensive purposes is advised to perform some simple penetration testing on various materials beforehand - leather, denim, wood, books, glass, etc. Also, different makes, diameters, velocities, and weights of frangible bullets are likely to perform differently in penetration of common materials. As previously stated, frangible bullets were not designed nor intended for defensive use but rather to break up on impact with hard surfaces, so you are on your own for “off label” use.

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The people at Polycase (a.k.a., makers of the ARX bullets) might differ as to what "on label" uses for their products entails...?

Cheers!

P.S. I've loaded the Sinterfire bullets in 40 S&W and 223/5.56 and they can be very accurate once the proper velocities are determined.

STORMINORMAN said:

The people at Polycase (a.k.a., makers of the ARX bullets) might differ as to what "on label" uses for their products entails...?

Cheers!

P.S. I've loaded the Sinterfire bullets in 40 S&W and 223/5.56 and they can be very accurate once the proper velocities are determined.

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When I was working on frangible, the performance priority was functional reliability and equivalent on-target grouping performance to the M882 9mm in the M9 and M855 5.56mm in the M16 and M4 at 25 meters, which is the usual training/qualification distance for ranges on USAF bases. That wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Also patterning performance for 12 gauge 00 Buck. We didn’t worry too much about 7.62mm in the M240 as that training was usually done on longer-distance Army outdoor ranges. The top priorities were frangibility and complete lead elimination.
This was the final result of my USAF 5.56 projects during the early and mid 2000s which type classified the AA40 frangible training round. I retired in 2008.
Federal Gets Huge Contract for 5.56 Frangible Training Ammo << Daily Bulletin
Cesaroni is a Canadian company which is now a large manufacturer of frangible bullets. I worked with them to develop the first AA40 frangible bullet. That AA40 was their first significant venture into bullets in 2002 and we had to iron out numerous problems. They are indeed supplying the 5.56 frangible bullets for the Army’s AA40 contract with Federal, the exact same bullet we worked out in 2002. They are gearing up to produce 8 MM bullets per month, and additionally are supplying 9mm frangible bullets to Winchester for a large Navy contract. That is another cartridge development of mine. Life is good.
http://www.cesaroni.net/docs/LFF_Data_Sheet_2022_v1.pdf

jimmyj said:

I am Safety Person for my Security / Safety Team I am concerned about over penetration inside a crowded service (3 on Sundays).
Team Members CCW 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45acp.

Click to expand...

Corbon still makes the ammo loaded with the Glazer pre-fragmented bullet in 9mm and 45 but both are listed as out of stock. The blue tip Glaser bullets were specifically designed to be effective defensive or police rounds that would not over-penetrate, not a way to make shooting steel plates safer.

Glazer got a lot of attention in the 80s with these rounds but after looking at the drawbacks they were never adopted by any police agency I heard of. Drawbacks include:

1 - Not enough penetration. A self defense round that cannot penetrate deeply enough will not be as effective as one that does.
2 - The light for caliber bullet at high velocity could cause reliability issues in semi-auto handguns.
3 - Cost. Back in the day these were sold in packages of six. I cannot remember what they cost but it was somewhere in the "For SIX rounds?!?!? Seriously????" range.
4 - Misses with pre-fragmented rounds are just as likely to kill or injure a bystander as any other round. I don't know how competent the people you work with are but missing is a much more common reason for bystanders getting hurt than over-penetration.

A company by the name of DRT (dynamic research technology) makes a variety of Cartridges. My wife had bought a Bersa .380 years ago and came home with a box of hollow points and fmj. Both were DRT brand. The craziest part of the information on the box of the ammo was the claim. Something along the lines of “if vital organs are not hit the projectile will cause cardiac arrest due to increased blood pressure.” I’m assuming once the bullet turns into powder in your blood stream it will clog up the works. I thought that was wild they advertised that on their product. I’ve seen posts on their Facebook page of people hunting with them. And the wound channels always have a nasty copper sheen. The meat is always shredded where impacted. My only thought has been. I wouldn’t eat that.

Some frangible ammunition is spec’ed as completely lead-free and non-toxic. This means no lead styphnate in the primer. It’s been my experience that lead-free primers are less reliable when new and have a shelf life that is much shorter than “traditional” primers with lead styphnate.

Mercury2112 said:

Some frangible ammunition is spec’ed as completely lead-free and non-toxic. This means no lead styphnate in the primer. It’s been my experience that lead-free primers are less reliable when new and have a shelf life that is much shorter than “traditional” primers with lead styphnate.

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Where did you hear that? And what is your experience? I still have a considerable quantity of lead-free 9mm and 5.56mm ammunition which is over 20 years old and remains 100% functional, with no special storage. The only real problem with DDNP-based lead-free primers is that they produce misfires at very low temperatures, beginning at around -20 degrees F. That is why the military does not use them for ammunition that may be used in combat. The newer Federal Thermite-type lead-free primers are supposedly as good as lead styphnate primers at very low temperatures. Or so I have heard. I have not tested any.

DWalt said:

Where did you hear that? And what is your experience? I still have a considerable quantity of lead-free 9mm and 5.56mm ammunition which is over 20 years old and remains 100% functional, with no special storage. The only real problem with DDNP-based lead-free primers is that they produce misfires at very low temperatures, beginning at around -20 degrees F. That is why the military does not use them for ammunition that may be used in combat. The newer Federal Thermite-type lead-free primers are supposedly as good as lead styphnate primers at very low temperatures. Or so I have heard. I have not tested any.

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Oregon DPSST (State Academy) and Santa Rosa Junior College CA (POST including NPS training). Federal and Remington circa 2010-2017. Dramatically higher rate of failure? No. Noticeable? Yes. In a training environment, acceptable. In combat, unacceptable. These are just interior ballistic considerations. SRJC POST had additional function problems with their academy SIG P229s running some frangible ammo. Even if it’s SAAMI spec, loads outside the norm of weight and velocity should get attention to confirm function. Exterior ballistics, they tend to be more erratic in flight and impact. (Well-worn academy barrels won’t help that problem). Terminal ballistics, typical CTF performed like FMJ in ballistic gelatin. If the new Federal NT priming has a long shelf life, that’s great!

I see The Polyfrang (sp?) brand of frangible ammo in a number of gun tests done by Graham Baates on his youtube channel, so it must be available somewhere.