Searched the thread for "bone" and these (two above, one below) are the posts that came up as relevant. In a 49-states version of wild animal defense, which seems to be black bears, big cats, wild swine, various oversize reptiles, and the like, due to the likely speed and violence of the attacker, hitting the off switch is crucial. It may be protected by tissue more difficult to penetrate than the pig/human flesh that gel is engineered to simulate. In particular, bear/pig skulls may need to be penetrated. I don't know anything really about gator scales, but I reckon they're a little tougher than human skin. And the impact may be at an oblique angle, given their typical geometry.
In such a context, if we're not going to go all the way to a Lehigh Defense bullet, is there an advantage to having 230 grains of hammer to break things versus 147 or 180? i.e., Would it be worthwhile outside the northern Rockies to choose the USP .45 with 12 rounds of HST +P vs. a 9mm or .40 version of the same gun with 15 @147 or 13 @165/180?
Secondary scenario: You're limited to 10 rounds in all of them. Does the greater rate of repeated tries outweigh any advantage that may exist in breaking bone to get to the switch? What if your shooting at "assessment speed" is roughly equivalent?
Tying to BBI's comment above, I've read about the original design of the 9mm round being a truncated cone that was perceived as being significantly more effective in battle than round-nosed ball. There are three such loads available that I'm aware of.
https://www.targetsportsusa.com/fioc...-p-109334.aspx
https://www.targetsportsusa.com/winc...-p-109471.aspx
https://www.gtdist.com/hornady-9mm-5...ass-135gr.html
(Hornady also has a similarly shaped 220gr .45 Auto load.)
AE 147gr used to be, but it seems no longer is (and may include other undesireable product variation).
All the 147 grain bullets I'm aware of have some degree of flat nose, and some others of various weights, but they all have rounded ogives. And they vary widely in the diameter of the flat meplat and the radius at the edge. I'm not aware of any being bonded.
And I found this FMJ/SWC in .45 Auto that I'd never seen before:
https://www.targetsportsusa.com/fede...5b-p-3818.aspx
If one was going for "barrier" (=heavy bone) penetration in the target without going full solid copper, as well as seeking more tissue disruption than a nice, blimp-shaped FMJ, is some variety of flat nose such as these worth testing?