Think you don’t need to spend the extra few bucks on premium hollow point bullets? Think again.
Although most people are familiar with the term “hollow point,” new gun owners may not know what hollow points actually do, or why they are strongly recommended for personal defense.
Here are the top three reasons why you should load your defensive handgun with hollow points.
- A hollow point bullet can expand about 2 times its original diameter. This results in a wider wound channel and maximum transfer of kinetic energy into a soft target. Logically, the greater the damage to a threat, the quicker that threat will be neutralized. Non-hollow point full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets are not designed to increase in diameter upon impact, nor maximize energy transfer.
- Most hollow point bullets feature meticulously engineered profiles, so their copper jacket material will peel back and allow the lead core to bulge into a mushroom shape. This results in uniform expansion, making the bullet’s terminal performance predictable in a variety of target mediums.
- Hollow point bullet expansion creates more surface area to cause drag. For this reason, hollow points may not over-penetrate targets like FMJ bullets can. In a defensive situation where the background cannot always be controlled or predicted, hollow points may decrease the potential for over-penetration, compared to FMJ bullets.
