Thread: 22lr Resizing/Hollow Pointing Tool

Originally Posted by SixtyTen

I'm going to have to disagree on the depth of the hollow point. I spent a bit of time yesterday playing around with the really long narrow hollowpoint that I was getting inconsistent results with and found that by adding a small 45degree flair to the nose of the HP, I got excellent expansion on all 5 rounds I tested. The projectile expanded up to around 0.460" and the mushroom curled all the way past the base of the projectile, so the whole thing was maybe 4mm thick. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos and am now at work.

The downside to this deep hollow point is that it works the projectile a lot and I'm finding not all brands can handle it, so a smaller hollow point with a little less expansion is probably more practical in the real world.

Yep - I think we are in agreement just the way to get there is the discussion. Once the projectile has started upsetting, it's away and going provided that there is still something in front of the projectile to expend the energy that it takes to cause the lead to flow. Which in the case of a rabbit might not be much! What I'm saying is that you don't need a deep hollow point for expansion, the tip profile is what does it. A narrow hollow point with a 45deg flare at the leading edge does the same job as a fatter shorter hollow point, the target isn't fussy and it's not a fashion statement! I suspect that there will be a 'magic ratio' of tip diameter to hollow point diameter that gets good upset and expansion going, and if we could magically discover the ratio we'd be away. As you discovered, the more you work the lead especially in harder lead alloys the harder it is to work with the deeper hollow points, - so my personal thing from the little bit of pissing around I did before I gave up and just paid for Powerpoint is that the 'minimum you can do which gets the maximum results you can with ease' is the way to go.