Originally Posted by gpalmer
+1, glasers and MagSafes have been shown to be unable to achieve the depths in ballistic gelatin to pass the FBI's test. If you read Fackler, et al, the 2 ways to take someone down are:
1) Blood Loss - make the hole big but unless you hit an artery may take some time during which they can kill you.
2) CNS hit - Fastest way to bring them down and the reason for the FBI's recommendation. The FBI guidelines are based on the Miami shootout where a bad guy managed to shoot a number of agents to ribbons after a bullet didn't penetrate deeply enough to hit his heart allowing him to continue on his rampage.
Yep. Even worse, they don't even perform like you'd expect.
Glaser through drywall.
Compare to
#4 buck and
.45 ACP. Same drywall penetration as #4 buck, marginally less than .45 ACP. Both of these will do the FBI's 12" while the Glaser will not.
Also see performance after going through normal drywall construction. It seems that the fragmenting jacket won't fragment upon hitting something as soft as drywall, instead it'll impact and prevent the projectile from fragmenting at all.
The only thing it really helps with is target overpenetration, but light, fast hollowpoints will do the same with lower price and better penetration.