This entry has been cross-posted at the Gun Nuts Radio Blog, under International Cartridge Corporation.
One of the items that we talked about on last night’s show on ParaUSA was the ammo, provided by International Cartridge Corporation, which was 100% frangible and 100% lead free. Hit the link for ICC’s website; you can also listen to us discuss the rounds on the show last night.
As I mentioned on the show, and as Tam mentioned in her review of the Para LTC 9mm, when I heard that we were going to be running frangible ammo for the duration of the weekend, I was real sad because I assumed based on my previous experiences with frangible that we were in for a long weekend of suck. Boy howdy was I wrong.
My Para LTC 9mm ate round after round after round of 100 grain 9mm frangible, and in addition to not jamming, the round was extremely accurate and ran cooler than regular ammo. A lot of this is because the frangible bullets, unlike lead don’t compress into the rifling, which means that to ensure accuracy, the bullets themselves are manufactured to a much tighter tolerance than a standard pistol bullet.
ICC Ammo also manufactures a self-defense/duty round, which is the first frangible/”explosive” round I’ve seen for self defense that I’d actually carry in one of my guns. Unlike other rounds like the Glaser which blow up in the first four or five inches of tissue and leave a real nasty but shallow wound cavity, the defensive version of the ICC frangible has about half the bullet blow up in that 5 inch zone, creating a similar wound cavity to a Glaser…but then the other half of the bullet is designed to stay intact and then acts like a wadcutter, cutting a good sized wound channel deep enough into the target to meet the FBI’s penetration standards. So you get the same benefits that you’d get from Glasers (massive wound in shallow tissue, lots of blood loss) with the benefits that you get from a deeper penetrating bullet.
If you’re interested in ammo from International Cartridge Corporation, you can see a list of their distributors here.
“My Para LTC 9mm ate round after round after round of 100 grain 9mm frangible, and in addition to not jamming, the round was extremely”
Umm, extremely what?
Accurate. The round was extremely accurate.