The Frontier Sixshooter Community Message Board - Testing Bullet Hardness

Testing Bullet Hardness (reply)

Creeker — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:08:09 +0000

Remember those articles.

Thank you! That is valuable information. (reply)

JimT — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:36:34 +0000

I have loaded a bunch but have yet to test them by shooting through stuff. I appreciate you posting that.

Yes. That's what I was testing though for self protection. (reply)

Gunner — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:14:14 +0000

Playing with suppressed AR 300 Blackout with plated 220 gr subsonic loads, they will go thru 7-9" logs and bounce off the steel back stop, I find them lying on the ground in front of the back stop all the time. Some bent, some with nose deformation and some could be reused with only rifling marks.

Gunner

Shades of Keith's account... (reply)

Paul — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:47:00 +0000

of shooting a bull elk in deep snow. IIRC he was using a 38-40 with a soft point jacketed bullet.

Yes. That's what I was testing though for self protection. (reply)

JimT — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:21:48 +0000

The plated bullets will not penetrate like the jacketed bullets. Even though plated, they are soft and deform easily. My preference is to punch a hole in and out.

Testing Bullet Hardness (reply)

Bob Hatfield — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:10:53 +0000

A long time ago. Probably in the 90's Ross Seyfried wrote an article where he used a 38 snub with 158 grain CCI Lawman ammunition to dispatch a wounded Elk. The bullet was one of CCI's RNFP plated type bullets. The bullet failed to penetrate the Elk's skull as it was too soft even though it was plated with copper.

This prompted him to test a 38 snub load that would do a coup de gras on an Elk. Seems he had another article maybe where he used skulls and bones from cattle maybe to test 38 loads. He came up with using the hard cast SWC which penetrated bone and skulls very well. That is if I remember it all correctly.

Testing Bullet Hardness (reply)

Slow Hand — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:25:49 +0000

That’s a good way to do a comparison.

I e shot a decent number of plated bullets. It’s my understanding that they are swaged and then plated, so not very hard and the plating allows for higher velocity than bare, soft lead. Kind of like powder coating, you can use softer alloy and still be able to drive it harder.

Testing Bullet Hardness (reply)

Paul — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:01:19 +0000

Set up a jig and you could form hollow points that way...

Testing Bullet Hardness

JimT — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:25:23 +0000

I was wondering how the plated .45 ACP bullets compare to the jacketed bullets. So I took a couple factory jacketed bullets and a couple of the plated bullets and put them nose to nose in my vise, then slowly closed it.

The harder bullet will always show up. Before a got a lead hardness tester I tested my cast bullets this way.