Hunting Ammunition. A Difference?

I believe the Geneva Convention prohibits expanding ammunition for military use. Hunting ammo is designed with a soft lead tip so that it expands on impact, creating a larger wound channel and dumping more energy into the animal.

Hollow point pistol ammo is designed to do the same thing. It deforms and expands on impact, cutting more tissue than cheap practice FMJ. FMJ stands for full metal jacket, where a lead core is completely surrounded by a copper covering. It's cheaper to produce, but doesn't incapacitate as quickly, and is more likely to over-penetrate. I don't know about you, but my neighbors would be upset if I shot a burglar and the bullet wound up in their house.

Hunting Ammunition

Centrefire has a primer in the centre of the cartridge, rimfire has priming compound in the outer rim. The two are not interchangable, rimfires cannot be reloaded, centrefire can, rimfire are only used in low pressure cartridges as the case has to be thin enough to be crushed by the firing pin. The only centrefires in common use today are the 22rf and 17rf.

Good book. Pretty good movies, too, both the original Swedish version and the English-language remake with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, although I thought Noomi Rapace was a darker and more dangerous Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film.

I think your memory has failed you regarding Liddy's reference to target ammo. Common bullets for target competition in handguns are wadcutters and semi-wadcutters, not paper cutters. They are square-shouldered bullets that cut nice, clean holes in paper targets for easy scoring, thus the name. A wadcutter, in fact, is basically a cylinder of lead. It works well and is very accurate at the low velocities used by bullseye competitors, but is a poor choice for almost any other kind of shooting.

The military uses FMJ which is a lead (soft) core surrounded by copper (hard). When the bullet hits something soft, it does not deform and makes a hole the size of the bullet. Hunting and self defense ammo uses either a hollow point, which allows the copper to peel back and make a much larger ragged hole and does more damage to soft material, or a soft pointed or other similar bullet that allows the lead to push the copper jacket open and make a much larger hole that the bullet size and cause severe bleeding and tissue damage. Most states require an expanding bullet when hunting deer and such.

The military uses FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) ammunition.

This ammunition does expand under normal conditions, and is known for it's penetration and straight wound channels.

I am not certain why they use it ... perhaps do to increased penetration or the old "If you kill a man, you take that man out of the fight, if you wound a man, you take that man and his two friends who carry him off out of the fight" principle. I honestly do not know.

As hunters, we use soft point, plated soft point, hollow point, etc. ammunition. The reason for this is that all of these ammunition types expand once entering the target and cause a larger (and sometimes multiple) wound channel(s). We want wound channels like this to kill the game as quickly and humanely as possible.

However, just because FMJ does not expand, doesn't mean it is any less dangerous.

There are so many types of ammunition that it's hard to answer this question reliably.

Some military ammunition is less accurate than a civilian hunting round in the same caliber. Generally, though, the accuracy is the same. There are also types of both military and civilian ammunition that is specifically made to higher tolerances for extremely long-range shooting.

Military ammunition is not "made to incapacitate," generally. What the book was referring to is the fact that military ammunition is required to be FMJ (full metal jacket, or a projectile that has a hard copper casing that completely encases the lead core) by the Hague Convention. FMJ ammo is not appropriate for self-defense or hunting, because it tends to keep most of its shape and penetrate the target.

Hunting or self-defense ammunition is generally a hollow point or ballistic tip bullet.

1) Hollow points. These have, of course, a hollow point. There is an air cavity in hollow point ammunition in the tip. Hollow points are DESIGNED to expand rapidly when they hit their target, whether human or animal. This causes a very wide wound channel in comparison to an FMJ that mostly just passes through the soft parts and either breaks bones or deflects off them. A hollow point also dumps a LOT of energy into the target fairly quickly, which creates massive shock to internal organs, which can basically shred them. That pretty much amounts to a fairly fast kill if the bullet hits in the right spot. These rounds can be effective hunting or self-defense ammunition.

2) Ballistic tips. These are, essentially, hollow points which have the hollow cavity filled with a polymer tip that comes to a point. Ballistic tips are only used in hunting, generally. They are used for smaller game, up to the size of deer, usually. They are designed to "explode" when they hit the target, not in a fiery ball, but to massively deform until they create a huge amount of damage in proportion to their size. Thin-skinned game like deer are usually hunted with ballistic tips, because deer skin, muscle, and bone does not require the bullet to keep most of it's mass.

There is another type of hunting ammunition, which is a soft point bullet. It can have a partial metal jacket (like a hollow point but without a hollow tip), or it can be just a big piece of lead shaped into a bullet. This is often the bullet of choice when hunting large game, but in smaller calibers it can take pretty much anything.

About military ammunition: Some people claim that military ammo is intended to incapacitate. This is not true. Military ammo is designed to kill; make no mistake about that. Unfortunately, an adrenaline-charged soldier may keep running even though he has been shot a dozen times through the torso. To be sure, he'll die shortly afterward, but that all depends on the specific shot location and how far away the shooter was, among many other variables.

Military ammunition in recent years was designed to do more damage with less bullet. Basically, the trend in the last 40 years or so was to make a smaller bullet that, when hitting the target, will tumble and create a very wide wound channel (remember my info on hollow points) and kill quickly. At the same time, it's not necessarily a bad thing for an enemy soldier to be wounded. One wounded man takes far more resources than one dead man. A dead man can be buried; a wounded man requires at least one other soldier to carry him from the front lines, medical care, and recuperation time.

Fragmentation explosives are just as often used to incapacitate; a fragmentation grenade will have a very lethal radius of 30 feet more or less, but fragments CAN be lethal at several hundred feet, and having a soldier pierced through his arm or leg with a few fragments of metal can incapacitate the soldier, as well.

As for Liddy's article, you can easily find articles upon articles suggesting this ammo or that. Different manufacturers come up with different ways to make hollow points or soft points in an attempt to make them more instantly lethal. Generally, a revolver or a shotgun has been the self-defense weapon of choice as suggested by many experts. In recent years, semi-auto handguns have also enjoyed a great deal of attention.

The .357 Magnum has achieved a reputation as a very lethal bullet with 125-grain jacketed hollow points. A 12-gauge shotgun with 00 buckshot is likewise very lethal, since each of the 8-15 pellets of buckshot is the equivalent to firing one .38 Special bullet, which is a good self-defense round in its own right. A shotgun will give a spread of a few inches at home defense ranges, and a bit more at longer ranges. For home defense, either one will work just fine. The main difference is user preference.

It's a myth that military ammunition is designed to incapacitate rather than kill, but incapacitating an opponent can be just as effective as killing him. The fact is that military ammo is inferior in killing power for two reasons: it is designed to comply with Hague Convention requirements that ammunition not be produced or modified to cause unnecessary pain and suffering and second that it can be produced as cheaply as possible. As kid w/ a 12 gauge said, hollow point and soft point ammunition costs a few cents more per round, but the military uses millions of them and the cost difference becomes pretty significant.

The author was right that hunting ammunition is more deadly, but realistically with a headshot, either round will be deadly enough to kill you instantly.

Hunting ammunition generally has a soft lead core surrounded by a copper jacket with a soft lead tip. As it hits a target the tip mushrooms out peeling back the copper jacket to create a larger wound cavity.

Military ammo generally uses a full metal jacket bullet. This bullet has a complete copper jacket with no exposed lead tip. Because of it's shape(lighter in front than in the back) when it hits a target it tends to tumble and create a larger wound cavity.

That's how their physical characteristics differ. As far as being meant to incapacitate vs kill....that's a whole other argument that I'm not prepared to get into on a website full of 12 year old COD players.

Edit: It's the Hague accords not the Geneva conventions which governs the use of expanding ammunition.

The Military uses FMJ (Full metal jacket) ammo,it punches through the target.

Hunters and people looking to protect them selves usually use hollow points or soft points,after these enter the target they open up making larger wound channels.

FMJ is usually cheaper so its a favorite among target shooters,I use fmj when im shooting paper targets and use hollow points,soft points or ballistic tips when im shooting a target like soda cans or bottles,it costs a few cents extra but makes for a larger exit "wound" on the target and just makes shooting seem more fun.