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The 155 silvertips and 175 Silvertips were quickly abandoned after FBI shooting in Miami as Agents used the Silvertips failed to penetrate the subject after good hits.
I suggest 180 or 200 XTP in 10mm Auto.-
Not sure what to make of this. 155 grain Silvertips didn’t exist at the time, and I don’t think 175 grain did either, but it may have.
Certainly no 10mm ammo was used in that battle. The 9mm round that got the blame for not stopping Michael Platt was, I believe, a 9mm 115 grain silvertip. And while it did stop short of his heart, it also performed as the 115 grain JHP at 1200 fps was advertised, e.g 12″ of penetration. It is also interesting to note that this was considered the fatal shot, but since it was neither a CNS hit or a direct impact to a main blood carrier it took several minutes before Mr. Platt succumbed: Minutes in which he fatally shot several FBI agents.
Introduced by Winchester in 1979 this 9mm ammo is under-powered and IMHO is not suitable for a modern take on personal defense, let alone law enforcement encounters. The bullet is well designed for velocity and commonly expands to 0.60-0.65″‘s in diameter. In a typical defense scenario of a frontal encounter it would probably work fine. But for dynamic encounters that may include barriers or off-angle shots it is not going to provide great performance.
The 175 grain Silvertip in 10mm is a completely different story. I find it interesting that you suggest a 180 grain XTP over the Silvertip when in fact the data seems to show these two as pretty much equals. In the Lucky Gunner labs testing the Silvertip trailed the XTP by only .7″ penetration (16.2 vs 16.9) and outperformed the XTP on expansion (0.68″ vs 0.64″).
The only real criticism I could level at the Silvertip is, for those five shots, it was less consistent than the XTP. I found this odd as the silvertip had lower extreme spread and better standard deviation in velocity. This suggests the issue is in the bullet mfg process is less rigid for the Silvertip, but given the design, and probably the tooling, is two decades older this is not entirely unexpected.
In the end if both boxes are on the shelf at the same price per round, I would pick the XTP. But the lead is very, very slim. If the STHP was cheaper I would buy it, even if the price difference was very small. They are pretty much equal.
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I thought the 10mm Auto was “invented” after the Miami shoot out. It was determined the 9mm was was not adequate. Not just the bullet but the caliber in general. Then it was determined that daintier hands could not handle the 10mm Auto and the .40 S&W (Slow and Weak) was born. I have a couple of 9mms and as I understand it, they, the ammo companies, have advanced to a point now where it is more lethal, heavier bullets, higher velocities.
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That is a very common lore. I have seen very reputable and otherwise knowledgeable cognoscenti repeat various parts of the lore as fact. But a lot of it is wrong.
The 10mm Auto was introduced with the Bren Ten. First guns from Dornaus and Dixon and ammo from Norma as available to public, in limited supply during 1983. The Miami shootout was not until April of 1986, about three years later.
The aftermath of the shootout caused the FBI to create standards for ammunition evaluation. Conducted in 1988 their tests included six protocols: bare gelatin, heavy clothing, steel barrier, wall board barrier, plywood barrier and windshield barrier. Ammunition was evaluated on the bases of penetration depth, expansion diameter and retained weight.
Originally 10mm auto was not on the list to be tested. Dornaus & Dixon were out of business and except for Colt introducing the Delta Elite in 1987 the 10mm Auto would have been dead. One of the FBI technicians owned a Delta Elite and proposed it be included for evaluation.
However, by 1988 reports were surfacing of full power Norma ammo causing the 1911 frame to crack. Out of an excess of caution for his personal, and possible soon to be rare firearm, the technician handloaded ammo for the test using a 180 grain JHP loaded to about 950 fps. This load dominated the test results.
The FBI did not want to adopt the Delta Elite or handloaded ammunition. RFPs were issued for a semi-auto in 10mm and for ammunition loaded to their spec.
S&W won the pistol RFP with the 1076. The gun is a tank, but tanks are heavy. Agents used to carrying small light revolvers or alloy framed 9mm semi-auto’s were not happy about a new sidearm that was 50% to 100% heavier. The FBI also wanted some changes to make the DA trigger more like “revolver” trigger pulls. These modifications that created an issue where the 1076 might lock up with a mechanical conflict that required gunsmith disassembly to resolve. S&W eventually retrofitted the guns with corrected lockwork, but the damage was done. Agents had heavy and uncomfortable to carry guns with a reputation for becoming anchors when they needed them most.
Federal won the RFP for ammunition, which lead to the development of the Federal 180 grain hydra-shok. It mimic’d the ballistics of the ammo used in testing with a muzzle velocity target of 950 fps.
Despite the internet lore about excessive recoil for the agents, I can find no FBI documentation that anything but the “FBI load” was ever issued to agents or used in a qualification test.
So why the lore? Here is my supposition. The 10mm Auto had a reputation as a very “hot” cartridge, well deserved from the impressive ballistics of the original Norma loads. The rank and file FBI agents had no idea that they were being issued “watered-down” ammunition. They new they were getting the “mighty” 10mm Auto which had destroyed the test protocols. And they new their qualification scores were dropping. So I think they did believe it was the ammo.
But, FBI 1076’s were slow to arrive. Many agents were issued their new pistol on the same day they shot their qualifier, usually with just a basic familiarity overview and a few practice shots. Transitioning from S&W model 59’s semi-autos or Model 10 revolver, the much larger 1076 is hard to shoot well regardless of ammo. But a 250 round training session would have probably solved the qualification problem.
The point of proof that it was never the recoil; October of 1997 saw Glock 22 and 23 pistols in 40 S&W issued to agents from New Agent Class 98-1. A simple recoil calculator tell you the recoil energy of a 180 grain bullet at 950 fps is over 50% higher in the Glock than the 1076 because of firearm weight.
Finally, S&W had been in a development track of a 40 caliber cartridge since the late 70’s. The first test cartridges were fired from a gun in 1978, but risk averse executives put a blanket over the project. A couple of dedicated employees kept it on simmer in a backroom until the late 80’s when suddenly a market opportunity appeared. About the only deviation from the original 40 B&S wildcat and the final 40 S&W was the change to small pistol primers.
All that said, the lore is strong. I saw the “agents couldn’t handle the recoil myth in wikipedia without citation, and in two different NRA publishing articles. Everyone just accepts it, even though the actual FBI documentation shows it to be wrong.
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The Silvertips were available in 9mm at that time and were new !
Yes you are correct this shootout led to the 18” minimum test for new standards. The one shot that hit the suspect that should have been a lethal hit with the 9mm and Silvertip failed to penetrate the torso! This led to the development of the 10mm and then later 40 SW. -
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