Seems like I recall a 95g cup point or some such in 9mmP back in the '70's or '80's. Perhaps an attempt to get a 9mm that would expand reliably back when that was definitely a hit or miss proposition. A 90g .38 Special would seem like a reprise of that load, and I expect it will prove to have the same strengths and weaknesses, whatever they were.
I have no complaint about ballistic gelatin tests, because they clearly serve a purpose in helping us understand what bullets will & won't do in flesh. We need something else, though, to show us what bullet and bone do to each other. I believe that is where lead or softcast bullets shine, at least in FP, TC, or SWC profiles. From what I understand, roundnose bullets tend to glance off or skid along bone in many situations, and so do FMJ and JHP, unless these bullets strike bone very squarely, in which case they drill caliber-size holes. The lighter and/or pointier they are, the more they tend to deflect or skid. Soft lead, according to Thompson-LaGarde, tends to flatten against bone and smash out large portions of it. (Regardless of that test's shortcomings, I think they were in a very good position to evaluate bone damage and penetration.)
Now, since most SD shootings are close range, face-to-face, what proportion of a human torso presents bony structure to an impacting bullet? More specifically, how much of the upper CNS is protected by bone? If we accept that upper CNS hits or instantaneous loss of blood pressure are the only ways for pistol bullets to physically stop a human being immediately, how much target area are we talking about?
You see what I'm driving at. I can accept that expanding (or tumbling) bullets create more tissue damage & blood loss than a flat-nose lead bullet making the same hit--unless the hit location is such that the FN penetrates much deeper and does more damage. But for an instant stop. . .how do the numbers look? (And even then, it won't be possible to quantify the extent to which a JHP may actually penetrate instead of skidding, or the extent to which lead bullets would indeed deflect off of bony surfaces.) Wider, heavier, sharper-shouldered, flatter, faster bullets, on average, seem to increase the odds in our favor. Every load represents a variety of trade-offs.
