Quote:
Originally posted by red-beard
Bullet/barrel ID is BS. They deform on impact. Hollowpoints really deform.
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I have dozens of recovered handgun bullets from various media. Snow banks, oiled sawdust, wet newspaper, even ballistic gellatin. I have recoverd some from snowbanks after they went through bowling pins, coffee cans full of water, and other such targets. I have several handgun bullets recovered from game, although they usually go all the way through.
Most of these bullets I could reload and fire again. The only marks on them are from the rifling, or maybe a slight scuff on the nose. Granted, 90% of what I shoot are my own hard cast lead, but I have a pretty good collection of jacketed soft and hollow points as well. Most of you would be absolutely amazed at how little these expand at handgun velocities, especially "standard" velocities from 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 Special, etc. Even the hot magnums won't expand many of them very much at all. The most frangible hollowpoints I have ever tried, the 200 grain hollowpoint Speer "flying ash tray", still left 2/3 of the shank intact behind the mushroomed nose. Plenty left to tell where it came from.
About the only bullets that come apart thoroughly enough to be unrecognizeable are the high velocity rifle bullets intended for varmint shooting. I've opened up coyotes hit by a 60 grain V-Max starting from my .220 Swift at almost 3,800 fps; there is an entry but no exit wound. There is no bullet inside either; just lead and copper crumbs. Those are the only bullets I have seen personally that could not be identified after the fact.