Just finished reading “Unintended Consequences”, and in the story the protagonist Henry Bowman loads a 44 magnum case with a homemade “nylon” derlin bullet and a load of pistol powder(the writer doesn’t give load data).

He did it to make a bullet that would work at arms length but wouldn’t leave a skull.

I get the concept, has anyone ever done that?

When I first joined the CG we used Speer plastic bullets and a primer to shoot at a roll of paper that a movie had been projected to, so that we could do a shoot/don’t shoot judgement course.

These of course didn’t cycle the 1911.

I’ve made wax bullets and hot glue bullets in the past for practice. But it only used a primer-no powder. (Drilling out the primer hole larger to prevent setback of the primer cup and locking up the revolver)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MikeinNC,

I guess it could be done.
Brandon Lee was killed with a dummy bullet, said to be just a jacket, driven by a blank.
Colt made a revolver with nylon saboted plaster cored bullets back when they were afraid of Sky Marshalls shooting holes in airplanes.
Remington made anti-riot shot shells loaded with nylon #4. Stingers at several yards, penetrating lethally if the fool charged within a few feet.
An intrepid home ballistician put "just a pinch" of powder behind one of those primer driven plastic bullets and blew a hole in the wall.

Didn’t know about the air marshals ammo.
We had a reservist who was an air marshal -he was a dick but could put 50 rounds in a 5” circle from 25 yds and in. With the crappy Sig DAK trigger. Every time. He told us he shot as much as he wanted. And I believe him. He shot the same when we had him shoot all 50 from 25 yds. He didn’t mention the ammo being different though. This was back in 2008

The trick Colt revolver was a product of the 1970s, soon discontinued. I think your guy would have carried a P229 maybe even .357 Sig. The brass realized that first, even a pressurized airplane leaks like a sieve, important control runs are duplicated and second, you might have to shoot through a seat... or stewardess to get at a terrorist who was going to kamikaze the whole plane.

The example sounds ridiculous. How one would do this with a plastic bullet and a velocity reliable enough to penetrate the skull in the first place is open to question. Complicating reliable skull penetration are issues like thickness, location of entry and angle of entry. Sounds more like a novelist's device.

However, Speer has made plastic training "bullets" for decades. I've used them in .38 Spl. Primer powered only.

https://www.speer.com/bullets/...ic_training_bullets/

I've never read the book, but know a few people who did. Reading it, every one of them came to me at times asking me about something in the story, if I thought it was possible, or could be real. Every one of them was and I was able to tell them "Yes, so and so did that in the 60's..." say.

There were lots of experiments with nylon, derlin, teflon bullets, as well as light metal alloys. Extreme velocities, which they also shed very quickly so they weren't good for very far, they weren't very accurate IIRC and there may have been "leading" issues, though it obviously wasn't lead.

I can still see all the photos of the bullets and test targets etc, but for the life of me I can't remember what the reference book was. (pre internet days for me)

quote:

Originally posted by Nipper:
The example sounds ridiculous. How one would do this with a plastic bullet and a velocity reliable enough to penetrate the skull in the first place is open to question. Complicating reliable skull penetration are issues like thickness, location of entry and angle of entry. Sounds more like a novelist's device.

Well that’s why I was asking, everything else the writer said about guns was spot on. No reason to think it was hokum..

So I’d imagine a 44caliber plastic cylinder(wad cutter)probably 30grainsand running at 2000fps give or take would go right into a skull at three feet or less. (Both numbers completely made up)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MikeinNC,

Anyone remember this stuff?

https://www.gunsholstersandgea...d-at-2009-shot-show/

Something probably similar. Plastic/nylon/polymer type coating, powdered lead/steel/copper

There was Thunderzap (we called it Thundercrap back in the early '90's). It was a polymer projectile ammo in 38spl and 45.

Jerry Miculek smokes a chicken with one at 4:06 in this video

So I did it. I got a foot long stick of .440” (7/16)ptfe from Amazon.
Put it in the drill press and sanded it to .430/.429
Cut several lengths to .70”
Loaded the shells with a mild dose of green dot (five grains), there was still plenty of room in the case so I could have used more.

Went to the range this morning and couldn’t get a chronograph reading because the ptfe is white and it wasn’t reading it.( I hit one of the sky screen sticks with a real round and that was that)

While they would travel the 35yds to the berm, they just bounced.
Up close was a different story. At four feet, the ptfe bullet went into a 1/2” pine board my kid karate chopped. It compressed the wood in a circle to the depth of 1/4” and broke the board into three pieces. This was just laying on the berm.

At point blank, the ptfe bullet broke the remainder of the board and almost went thru.

So I figure that shooting a human in the face at point blank would kill a person by entering the skull and relatively thin facial bones and not exit the back it the skull. Just like Bowman did in the book, while aboard a plane.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Didn’t know about the air marshals ammo.
We had a reservist who was an air marshal -he was a dick but could put 50 rounds in a 5” circle from 25 yds and in. With the crappy Sig DAK trigger. Every time. He told us he shot as much as he wanted. And I believe him. He shot the same when we had him shoot all 50 from 25 yds. He didn’t mention the ammo being different though. This was back in 2008

Back in the mid 90’s I attended a firearms instructor refresher course at FLETC and there was an Air Marshall in the class with a P229 .357sig that was likewise a crack shot. He echoed that he shot as much as he wanted (and did).