In our tests, these loads did fragment as designed, but there is some question as to whether the principles that make fragmenting rifle bullets effective can be applied to slower-moving handgun bullets. In reality, the effects of wounds from handguns are unpredictable and often not very dramatic. Their standard requires duty ammo to penetrate between 12 inches and 18 inches in ballistic gelatin. Expansion . They start with a plain block of “bare” gelatin with no barrier, and follow up that test with a barrier of heavy clothing, and then hard barriers of steel (to simulate an auto body), plywood, wallboard, and auto glass. The FBI used to test handgun ammo at 20 yards as well as 10 feet, but they found very little difference in the data at these two distances. Anyone that’s shot both a 10mm and a 9mm round certainly understands that these two cartridges are different. The size of the pistol also plays an important role. The “real” organic ballistics gelatin blocks used by the FBI today are still made from dehydrated animal tissue. The three revolver calibers we tested all belong to the .32 caliber family of cartridges. Blunt Force Trauma. Obviously, the FBI gel block is made to the FBI ballistics gel standards, but it uses synthetic gelatin, so there’s no need to keep it chilled–and also it doesn’t smell, which is pretty cool. On average, the 4.4-inch barrel yielded a velocity increase of 126 fps over the 1.9-inch snubby barrel. We also took velocity readings of each load with a chronograph. A four-layer heavy clothing barrier was placed in front of the gel for each test. Because of the velocity decrease from the pistols, none of these three rounds expanded in any of our tests. We would have expected the FMJ load in this caliber to have the best potential for decent penetration, but it was still unimpressive overall, even compared to the JHP loads. For this batch of testing, we followed the same basic protocol we’ve used in all of our tests (outlined in painstaking detail back in our first gel test article). We were on the fence about including this load in our testing. Our goal isn’t to tell you which loads to use or which ones are best. Once the bullet travels as far as it can go, the elastic properties of the Clear Ballistcs gelatin cause the bullet to “snap” backward slightly before coming to a complete stop. There are also quite a few of the old .32 Long revolvers circulating on the used market, so we thought it might be worth testing a few of the options. Update 8/8/2018: The 130 gr Federal HST +P load has now been added to our .38 Special results. Test gun: Glock 42 w/ Conversion bbl. Bullet expansion is unlikely and if it does occur, penetration will almost certainly suffer. Adequate penetration: The bullet must have the ability to penetrate whatever is between the muzzle and those vital organs in order to disrupt their function — for non-uniformed civilians, this typically includes clothing, tissue, and bone. Since we knew many of the loads would penetrate deeper than 16”, we used two blocks placed end to end, giving us the ability to measure the depth of rounds that penetrated up to 32”. The Fiocchi FMJ, on the other hand, demonstrated ideal penetration with the KelTec and even greater penetration with the Beretta (which may or may not be considered over penetration depending on who you ask). Update 4/4/2017: We now have test data for 38 revolver loads in .38 Special and .357 Magnum! Whenever feasible, we tried to duplicate the testing protocol reportedly used by the FBI, but our first priority was to be consistent, using the same procedure and conditions for every load we tested. However, most armed citizens carry smaller guns with shorter barrels, which means the bullets they fire will fly at a lower velocity than what is advertised by the ammo manufacturer. As expected, .380 ACP turned in the weakest overall performance of the four calibers we tested, but a few loads fared surprisingly well. Find those gel test on the pages below: Looking at all of this data, it’s tempting to try to sift through the numbers and determine once and for all which load is The One Bullet To Rule Them All. They provide accurate results, but they’re time consuming to make and they have to be refrigerated until almost immediately before they are used. Finally, we have the centerfire revolver calibers: .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R Magnum, and .327 Federal Magnum. 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