[Jeff Higgins]

Only 1" of penetration and the .40 S&W did not fail??? Wow.

Hunters have known this for a long, long time: hollow point ammunition in hand guns is a sad joke. All the fancy names conjured up by the marketing folks will never change that. Black Talon, Golden Sabre, Hydra Shock, and on and on. All of the impressive photos of perfectly mushroomed bullets will never change that. Hollow points are simply ineffective in hand guns.

By their very nature, hand guns are extremely limited in power compared to rifles. For example, the vaunted .44 mag, in its heaviest loadings. struggles to match the muzzle energy of the .223/5.56 NATO. Considered an extremely powerful hand gun, the .44 mag can't keep up with what most of us consider a "varmint" caliber in a rifle. The .223 is not even a legal deer round in most western states (although some eastern states now allow it, but their deer are half the size of ours).

The .44 mag is legal for hunting most big game. It is, however, wholly ineffective for doing so with hollow point bullets. The bullet of choice is a good, hard cast lead bullet. Essentially a solid, it will not expand, even when hitting heavy bone. And it will provide full penetration on the largest of game. I have driven 250-300 grain .44's and .45's clear through full grown mulies, and a couple of caribou. A could of them lengthwise; brisket to butt hole. No hollow point will ever do that.

Full penetration, with an exit wound, is how slow moving (relative to rifle bullets) hand gun bullets kill. Forget "shock" value; there isn't any. Even the highest velocity handgun rounds (very light bullets in magnum revolvers) seldom break 1400 fps; hardly enough to induce shock, even with an expanding hollow point. Best to use a heavy for caliber bullet, cast hard or fully jacketed, and strive for full penetration. Semi wadcutters are best, cutting a full caliber hole through tissue similar to a paper punch. That is the kind of trauma that hand guns kill with; expanding hollow points driven at "high velocity" don't cut it. Never have, never will.