How so? What specific issues did you have with the terminal performance of the 147 HST that you weren't happy with? How many shootings did you have with it?
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I think the OP's point is that the 147 HST's stellar record of street results (and performance in gel tests) was established before the bullet was redesigned with shorter skiving a few years ago. I tend to think the engineers at ATK know what they're doing -- but I too would like to see some new results/testing.
I know the Fuzz personally, he's not a goober or an idiot. He's actually an extremely well trained, experienced shooter and street cop.
Ref the 147gr HST. This used to be my go-to recommendation for short 9mm pistols. For several years.
Now, not so much. I used to be able to do demo test shots in my small pistols class to show what we want to see from a good bullet design. Typically in Clear Gel, which I use just as an illustration, the HSTs and Gold Dots expand nicely through four layer denim, run the length of the block, and stop on the "clothing" I have on the back side to catch them.
Over the past year I've been seeing failures from the 147gr HST, as in they completely fail to expand, thus act like a FMJFP. This happened last year in my class in front of Cecil Burch, Lee, and Matt and Rob Haught. This first happened from a G43, so we tried Matt's Beretta for the longer barrel. Same thing happened.
I've learned over the years to "trust but verify". Do we recall Todd's blog on "Trust no one's gun"? Well, that applies to bullets as well IMHO.
The most glaring example is the Winchester Ranger-T line. The 147gr Ranger-T used to be a "rock star", to steal a term from an LAPD firearms instructor I know. Then, Winchester got lazy on QC, and bullets can't be counted on to expand. I've see the 127gr +P+ launched from a G34 fail to expand. That's a rather dramatic failure.