That is, most of us believed that driving the hollow point to high velocities would make them perform better. In the early days of hollow points, velocity was on everyone’s mind. There is velocity, bullet design, physical limitations of the cartridge, and desirable characteristics of the cartridge.Īmmunition manufacturers have always used consistent methods to test the efficiency of their cartridges. Terminal ballistics, the science of examining the performance of a cartridge when it strikes its intended target, combines several different aspects of cartridge characteristics. I noticed the slick outside surface right away, which is part of the equation for reliable feeding and extraction. The new Hydra-Shok Deep resembles the original, but the pre-expanding scores on the outside of the bullet look more pronounced and the center post looks more like a traffic cone than a fence post.įor now, Hydra-Shok Deep comes in 9mm, 40 S&W, and.
The original Hydra-Shok was known for huge wound channels when demonstrated with gelatin, owing to its very rapid expansion. Law enforcement officers and civilians carried Hydra-Shok with confidence. This may be the limits of my understanding of physics and engineering, but the original Hydra-Shok worked. As it was explained to me 30 years ago, fluids compress against the post, causing the material of the hollow point to peel back quicker and more reliably than just a “normal” hollow point. It was known for dynamic expansion because of a lead post in the center of the hollow point. When the Hydra-Shok was released, it performed dramatically better than many other hollow point cartridges.
The bullet designed resembled contemporary hollow point bullets, except there was a center post inside the hollow cavity. In 1989, Federal Premium released the Hydra-Shok cartridge. The Hydra-Shok Deep is marketed as a personal defense cartridge, designed to penetrate 15 inches in bare gelatin, using the FBI testing protocol for cartridge performance. We tested the new Federal Premium Hydra-Shok Deep cartridges in 9mm and.