Here's the scenario: Take a Winchester Cowboy Action Load, 45 Colt, 250 grain lead flat nose round.Then, take your variable speed drill with a nice sharp drill bit(bit size may vary). Drill shallow hole in end of bullet. Do you now have an effective hollow point round that will deform and be suitable for personal protection @ a fraction of the cost of those factory brands? Or, like my dad used to do on his 45 acps and 22LR lead tips: take your pocket knife out and cut a "cross hair" along the tip of the bullet. Am I cheap,stupid, or what??!! Spend good money on guns and scrimp on ammo??!! Or,look at the cost of ammo/components nowadys for reloaders or non reloaders. Your opinion,please? Disclaimer: be careful not to drill hole in hand or cut fingers off:eek:

There are several fixtures on the market that do exactly what your talking about. I don't know if it really makes any difference though. The big 41-44 and 45 caliber bullets traveling at modest velocity really perform well regardless of the shape or if their flat nosed or hollow point.

Here's the scenario: Take a Winchester Cowboy Action Load, 45 Colt, 250 grain lead flat nose round.Then, take your variable speed drill with a nice sharp drill bit(bit size may vary). Drill shallow hole in end of bullet. Do you now have an effective hollow point round that will deform and be suitable for personal protection @ a fraction of the cost of those factory brands? Or, like my dad used to do on his 45 acps and 22LR lead tips: take your pocket knife out and cut a "cross hair" along the tip of the bullet. Am I cheap,stupid, or what??!! Spend good money on guns and scrimp on ammo??!! Or,look at the cost of ammo/components nowadys for reloaders or non reloaders. Your opinion,please? Disclaimer: be careful not to drill hole in hand or cut fingers off:eek:

My Dad talked to me about cutting the end off a 30.06 bullet and scoreing w/ a knife during WW2. They called them Dum-dums. Use a hot knife on lead. I would forget .22lr. jp

Not for you if you're frugal but this'll take care of those .22s.

my efforts at this type change resulted in rnds so out of balance that few went where i tried to putum.

The cowboy loads are pretty mild. I doubt they would expand.

Why bother? There's plenty of good ammo on the market. I don't shoot enough peope in a given year for the cost of factory ammo to be an issue. In fact I'm pretty sure the cylinder in my carry gun has had the same ammo in it 3 or 4 years, at least.

BTW, the idea of cutting off the tip of military FMJ ammo is not new- and not a good idea. Military FMJ ammo is made with a cup and lead core, typically, just like civilian ammo, except...the open end of the bullet's jacket is at the base, not the nose. If you cut off the metal nose of the bullet, you now have a jacket open at both ends, with a lead core in the center.
When fired, it's quite possible for the lead core to blow out of the jacket, and the now tubular jacket to stick in the barrel.
This was documented more than once in the era just after WW2, when surplus FMJ ammo was dirt cheap and widely available.

Amen, Jack. Many ruined rifles and more than a few missing body parts are due to that brand of cheapness.

Ditto for any other kind of bullet "surgery." It's just not worth the risk of hurting yourself while carving or drilling on bullets.

Back in the seventies I spotted a friend grinding the nose off 7.65 Argentine FMJs because he said the 150 grain Norma ammo "dropped too much". I pointed out the danger of a jacket stuck in the bore and he agreed at once that it was a bad idea for that reason. However, I never could convince him that the Norma 150s did not "drop" more than the 174 grain military stuff, it just impacted lower than the point of aim with the issue sights due to different recoil and barrel vibrations. He remained convinced that the military FMJ was faster because it kicked more and shot to the sights.

I thought I posted the link. http://www.leverguns.com/store/acurizer.htm

It looks pretty cool to me.

"Do you now have an effective hollow point round that will deform and be suitable for personal protection @ a fraction of the cost of those factory brands?"

Cowboy loads are not the best self defense loads available today; they are somewhat downloaded from the original Colt 45s. At 750 FPS, they are unlikely to expand like a standard hollowpoints. But we would be interested in seeing pictures of any tests you perform using the X'ed bullets.

Are the lives of you and your family worth the extra $10 to have good commercial ammo in your self defense handgun? :confused:

I recommend that you shoot the cowboy loads for fun and then load good quality self defense ammo when you leave the range until you can prove that this X'ed bullet idea actually works and is not some gun myth.

Another thing to consider: A prosecutor (or an attorney suing you for wrongful death) will surely ask" Why did you alter the bullets?? Weren't factory bullets deadly enough for you? I believe you did it to inflict additional injury and pain since factory bullets wouldn't hurt as much.........etc."

(Remember, attorneys don't need to stick to facts when presenting a case. And most juries will be stacked against you as much as possible.)

Forester used to make a hollowpointing accessory for their brass trimmer. Came with a couple different size drills. I think its a good idea but I could never get the holes to center everytime. For the 45 Colt Id just get some CorBon hollowpoints.

check into the paco kelly tool if you're wanting to customize .22 rimfire bullets... i like the way mine opens up the hollow point and makes the bullets concentric and more accurate........

I've run just enough factory hollow points through my auto-loader to know that it is reliable and to get a general idea of the accuracy. Which was 2 boxes of 20. No feed problems and a good group, so I was happy enough with that. So I bought 2 more boxes, haven't shot a single one yet.

Eventually I got sick of removing 12 rounds out of both mags every time I went to the range or to the sand pit, so I just watched the bucket-o-mags at the local shops and eventually got 3 more factory clips for $5 a piece. Now I have 2 mags filled with defense rounds and 3 to plink with. For that particular gun.

Just spend the money once and be done with it. It doesn't hurt your wallet that bad.

I can remember when I was a kid, me and my cousin were shotting our twenty-ri Twofuls, as he called them, at a target on a piece of plywood. As we were looking at our targets, we noticed the small clean holes the 22 LR solid point bullets were putting in the wood. I asked my cousin if a hollow point bullet would make a bigger hole. He said he thought they would but we could not afford any of the fancy hollow points since they were about a quarter more a box. My cousin said he knew how to make dumb-dumb bullets out of regular bullets. He took his pocket knife and cut an X on the nose of a bullet and his finger. He did several this way, giving me a few to shoot. We shot the next target with these dumb-dumbs. When we examined the target, it was obvious that the cut bullets really did make bigger holes but it wasn't worth the wear and tear on the fingers. Later in life were able to afford the real hollow points.