Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!ucsd!ames!pacbell!att!cbnews!military
From: ars@PacBell.COM (Andy Soravilla)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: exploding bullets ...
Message-ID: <7737@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 26 Jun 89 03:44:54 GMT
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From: ars@PacBell.COM (Andy Soravilla)

In article <7549@cbnews.ATT.COM> esunix!sim.dnet!jcallen@cs.utah.edu (John Callen, x3933) writes:
>[ Discussion on exploding bullets]
>If my memory serves me right the first "exploding" bullets were called Dumdums, 
>named after the Dumdum armory, run by the British in India.  Dumdums were 
>particularly vicious leaving gapping holes in people when they exploded.  The 
>resulting wounds were extremely difficult, if not impossible to repair, and so 
>deemed particularly unhumanitarian by the Geneva Convention.  
>
>Early experiments in constructing exploding bullets inserted a standard shell
>primer in a hollowed out tip of a bullet (or just used a hollow point bullet).  
>It was intended that when the bullet struck something hard (like bone) it would
>go off.  This often wasn't the case.  There was some research where an impact
>sensitive compound (like mercury fulminate) was formed directly into the tip of
>the bullet.  It was hard to regulate just exactly would set it off, though. 


I read somewhere about constructing "exploding" ammo. The procedure was to 
drill a hole in the slug itself and insert a small amount of mercury. When
the round hits and slows the mercury causes the front of the slug to explode
doing extensive damage to whatever it has contacted. I seem to remember that
this was used by snipers to assure a very serious and/or fatal wound with one
shot as that was usually all that time allowed. However, I cannot substantiate
it.

andy (pacbell!pbhyf!ars)