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Totally Shocking: Extreme Shock ammo takes a radical approach to lethality

Originally printed in Handguns Magazine, August/September 2008 Issue.

By Patrick Sweeney

OK, I’m going to risk the wrath of the traditional bullet folks and talk about Extreme Shock. Yes, the advertising campaign is different. So is the ammo. Extreme Shock loads the projectile jacket with a compressed pellet of tungsten powder. The powder has been treated so it does not sinter-weld in the jacket and thus does not form a homogenous projectile. When it hits a target, the jacket breaks up and the tungsten powder pellet then creates a storm cloud of hundreds of small wound channels.

If you are firmly of the belief that the FBI 12-inch penetration protocol is not just correct but graven in stone, you’re probably sputtering at this point. To see what it was about, I took a trip to Extreme Shock (www.extremeshockusa.net) and spent a day with Jeff Mullins and his crew. The plant is large (for a custom bullet/ammo maker) clean, well-lit and has modern loading machines as well as the testing instruments you would expect for a metal-working shop.

I also shot and watched shot a bunch of blocks of a waxy substance to see what happens. I later shot ballistic gel to test the various bullets, and not surprisingly the bullets perform as described.

But they do not work as we expect traditional bullets to, so I’m still trying to get a handle on the dynamics and physics of it. Extreme Shock controls the rate of bullet disintegration by changing a number of bullet features. Obviously, jacket thickness controls bullet breakup, as does velocity; thinner jackets and higher velocities are going to create faster/sooner breakup.

Also, some of the Extreme Shock bullets have plastic tips in them. The tip material controls the rate of breakup as well. A harder plastic is going to set back faster, compressing the tungsten and bursting the jacket sooner. A softer composition is going to delay breakup, and the plastic compresses more before transferring the load to the tungsten core and thus to the jacket.

Read the rest of the article here.

About Extreme Shock

Extreme Shock™ is the safest, most technologically advanced small arms ammunition produced in the world. Extreme Shock offers superior performance with enhanced safety features that greatly exceed that of lead core ammunition. The reduced over-penetration and reduced ricochet characteristics of Extreme Shock are nothing less than revolutionary. Call 877-337-6772 or visit www.extremeshockusa.net for more information, to order online, or to find a local dealer.

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