That's the concept which led to MagSafe Ammo, the world's most effective handgun ammo. There isn't another bullet anywhere with the take-charge performance offered by MagSafe Ammo.

Designed for Perfect Penetration Depth

MagSafe's revolutionary design uses large lead shotgun pellets rather than solid lead for a bullet's core. The earliest versions (1986-1987) used small pellets, like the #b shot a competitor uses for their "Silver" line of frangible ammo.

Early in the design process, hundreds of videotaped test shots were made into ordnance gelatin. Then, viewed in slow motion, you could see how a core's pellet size and pattern created the greatest wound damage for any given caliber.

It was quickly learned that using much larger #2 or #3 shot gave perfect penetration depth in gelatin or flesh-form 10 to 13 inches (two to three times as much penetration as our competitors). A large man's chest is only 12 inches thick from front to back, and any more penetration than that was wasted energy which would endanger innocent people.

That was the first goal reached - ammunition which won't overpenetrate a torso and hurt or kill innocent bystanders.

Reduced Ricochet Hazard

One side benefit of using huge shot pellets is the reduction of ricochets, because larger objects are affected more by rotational forces. Tests showed that MagSafe Ammo won't even glance off slimy, wet boards at the most shallow of angles. They also don't ricochet off windshields, car doors or interior house walls. And, most importantly, they won't glance off bone.

Another goal was reached.

"Controlled-Core Technology"

For almost a year, experimentation with shot placement within the bullet's jacket continued, looking for a fan-shaped pellet wound channel. It was felt that the wider the pattern the better the chance of hitting vital organs, even with a poorly-placed shot.

By arranging pellets in specific patterns, literally stacking them in place one at a time, by hand, bullets could be designed to work nearly any way wanted - maybe deeper penetration, or wider wound channel, some even to break apart in sheetrock walls.

To stabilize the pellet patterns until the instant of impact, dozens of types of epoxy resins were tested. A custom blend with perfect properties was found - it is easily broken apart at impact, yet tough enough to launch at twice the velocity of normal bullets.

The end result was called "Controlled-Core Technology", and it is the most innovative discovery in handgun ammunition since the jacketed bullet.

No other ammo uses high-tech resins or pellets put into specific patterns by hand.

World's Fastest Ammo - Yet Lowest Recoil!

The final goal - to have the world's fastest ammo, yet with much less recoil than standard (slower) ammunition - was really tough.

However, hot loads are now offered like the .45 ACP SWAT Load, which clocks 2,160+ feet per second (fps) in a five-inch auto - yet has about one-third the recoil.

The 9mm Mini-Glock Load cruises along at about 2,000 fps from Clock's teensy Model 26, yet has far more stopping ability than the nastiest .357 magnum or 10mm hollowpoint in the world. Yet the recoil is about like shooting low-powered target loads!

Lots of folks said "It Won't Work"

For example, half a dozen gun "experts" stated a 66-grain bullet would not function a .45 ACP weapon. So, MagSafe was tested in full-auto Tommy Guns, which don't function very well at all with light ammo. It was also tried in a 645 Smith with 28-lb. recoil springs - just to make sure.

Then the folks at Magnum Research said a slug as light as 250 grains would not function their massive Desert Eagle in .50 Action Express Caliber. MagSafe's 180-grainer functioned perfectly under all conditions.

MagSafe Swept the Strasbourg Tests

The now-famous Strasbourg Tests put MagSafe on the map. To summarize what nearly everyone already knows, over 600 live French Alpine goats (their bodies are very much like humans) were shot under controlled conditions: no anesthetic, same shot placement from animal to animal, and with blood pressure and heart rate monitors to determine the Incapacitation Time (a measure of how long it took a goat to cease functioning after the single shot was delivered).

MagSafe Ammo worked - better than anything else. Tests were done without MagSafe's knowledge, so some versions tested were the lowest powered. For example, two types of .380 ACP are offered; the .380 Defender, a 60-grainer at 1,360 fps in a Colt Mustang; and the .380 MAX (designed for a big city's undercover drug agents) with a 52-grain slug sizzling along at 1,620 fps in the Mustang.

The Defender has 247 ft-lbs of energy, while the MAX load has 303 ft-lbs. The Defender's lower velocity hampered stopping power, resulting in an Average Incapacitation Time (AIT) of 7.12 seconds. That's the average time for five different goats, each shot once with the MagSafe 60-grain Defender.

However - and this is where things get interesting - there wasn't a jacketed hollowpoint bullet in ANY caliber which dropped the goats faster than MagSafe's weakest .380 load!

MagSafe's .380 beat every .45 ACP slug, every 10mm, every 9mm (including police-only ammo), every .40 caliber - no matter who made it - Cor-Bon, Remington, Glaser and HydraShok.

In fact, MagSafe's lowest-powered .380 ACP load had an AIT faster than the best manstopper of all time - Remington's .357 Magnum 125-grain JHP!

Average Incapacitation Times for all other MagSafe's calibers were in the 4-second range, and MagSafe topped the tests in every caliber but .357 Magnum (a prototype Quik-Shot beat by a fraction of a second), and .38 Special, where Glaser won by .04 seconds. Had the .38 Special tests been done in a 2-inch barrel, MagSafe would have topped that test, too.

THE BOTTOM LINE

MagSafe Ammo is faster, recoils less, and stops attackers faster than any other ammunition in the world. Elite forces are outfitted with MagSafe, from Navy SEALS to the Royal Hong Kong Police anti- gang units, from big-city undercover narcs to guards at some of America's meanest prisons.

The reason is simple. MagSafe works. It's expensive, but it works. You really can turn your .380 into .45 auto, but you have to pay for this kind of hand-crafted performance.

The question is this: Just how much is your life worth?
 

MAGSAFE'S MAGIC BULLETS
by CHUCK KARWAN

Reprinted with permission from HANDGUNS '98 by Chuck Karwan, published by Krause Publications, Iola, WI 54945. Phone: (800)258-0929

YOU HAVE HEARD it time and again from one writer after another: "There are no magic bullets for handguns." Usually the discussion is about stopping power or the likelihood of one-shot stops (incapacitations) with handguns. I have to agree; there is nothing available that can be fired from a handgun that will give you instant 100 percent incapacitation 100-percent of the time. However, there are some rounds out there that can give performance that borders on magic. They are the subjects of this article.

Let us suppose that you are the leader of an elite unit whose mission requires going up against heavily armed terrorists wearing soft body armor. Your mission also includes rescuing hostages being held by these ter- rorists. It is imperative that the lives of the hostages be saved if at all possible.

In deciding what ammunition you want to issue the members of your unit for use in their handguns and submachine guns, you look at the above mission requirements and decide the following: First, the bullets must expand reliably no matter what type of clothing the terrorists are wearing and still penetrate at least 8 to 10 inches of flesh. That will give sufficient penetration to reach vital organs and to achieve a maximum permanent wound channel, which creates the most blood loss and tissue damage, and, thereby, the quickest incapacitation. Second, the bullet must not penetrate more than 14 inches of bare flesh. This is to prevent the bullet from going completely through a terrorist and then delivering a fatal wound to a hostage. Third, the bullet must be able to defeat at least Threat Level II soft body armor, then expand reliably and still be able to penetrate 8 to 10 inches of flesh to make a severe wound. This is because modern terrorists commonly use soft body armor.

That is a tall order no matter how you look at it. You are requiring one bullet to both penetrate armor and expand reliably in flesh with limited penetration. Obviously, this is impossible, right? Wrong'. As hard as it might be to believe, there are specialized rounds of pistol ammunition that will do exactly the above, and even more. The problem is that a lot of the folks who might need that kind of seemingly impossible performance do not know it is available.

Let me digress just a bit and state that, as a former Special Forces officer with excellent contacts in the Special Operations (Spec Ops) community. I know for a fact that the elite U.S. military counterterrorist units have been using such ammunition for years. Indeed, some of their ammunition can defeat both hard and soft armor, and still give reliable expansion and limited penetration in flesh. If I knew how it was constructed and how it worked (and I don't), I still couldn't tell you, because it is classified information. Quite rightly, the counterterrorist units do not want the ammunition or its technology' falling into the hands of the bad guys. When this special counterterrorist handgun ammunition was first made available, its control was deemed so sensitive that each round was serialized and signed for by the operator it was issued to, to keep absolute accountability. It is reassuring to know that our top military counterterrorist units have such ammunition available.

I also have excellent contacts in the civilian law enforcement community. It is not so reassuring to know that few, if any, civilian SWAT units that I am aware of, from the FBI on down are using such ammunition in spite of the fact that the many "gangbangers" and other criminals are starting to use soft body armor on a regular basis.

To emphasize this point, just recently, a couple of heavily armed bank robbers wearing body armor ended up having a running gun battle with the police in Los Angeles. While it appeared to be like a scene from the hit movie Heat, fortunately these lads were not nearly as competent and efficient as the fictional bank robbers, and they were eventually taken out by L.A.'s finest. Apparently the police used rifles and shotguns loaded with slugs. Ironically, the first reaction in L.A. after that incident was a cry to issue "more powerful" handguns like 45 autos, which are even less effective against body armor than the 9mms in use if conventional ammunition is used.

The L.A. incident just points out the fact that the criminal element has started to adopt the same soft body armor that the police are using. It was probably inevitable that this would happen, particularly since many in the illegal drug trade have plenty of money to buy anything they want. Also it seems that in this country the criminal element often gets its ideas on how to operate from watching the movies. When you have hit movies like Point Break and Heat showing criminals using body armor, it is inevitable that real criminals would start using it.

Some years ago, the popular media found out that there was armor-piercing handgun ammunition on the market that could defeat soft body armor, and federal legislation passed banning the manufacture and sale of these so called "cop-killer bullets." This was in spite of the fact that no cop wearing body armor had ever been killed with armor-piercing handgun ammunition. The net result of the passage of that legislation is that, for all intents and purposes, armor-piercing handgun ammunition ceased to be manufactured in the US. even for police use. The definition for armor-piercing used in this legislation was limited to hard, non-deforming projectiles made of certain designated materials, which was the state of the art at that time.

About twenty years ago, in an effort to increase the rate of incapacitation of handgun projectiles, an experimenter named Jack Cannon developed the first pre-fragmented modern handgun ammunition. This became the now-famous Glaser Safety Slug. Basically, the typical Glaser bullet has a jacket filled with #12 birdshot sealed with a plastic cap. To increase penetration, there are versions that use heavier #6 shot. Bullets are light for the caliber, while velocities and energies are very high.

This ammunition makes shallow but vicious wounds and is quite effective in many circumstances. Its major advantage is that it will not overpenetrate or ricochet. The penetration limitation applies to both human targets and such things as sheetrock walls. Consequently, the Glaser rounds are particularly suitable for use in small concealed carry guns to increase their effectiveness, and for home defense, where a missed shot will not kill a family member in the next room. It is worthless against body armor. Even heavy coats or such things as a leather jacket can cause the Glaser to open up prematurely and make only a superficial, ineffective wound.

The biggest weakness of the Glaser round is that it often does not penetrate far enough to be effective. Eventually, a small ammunition company called MagSafe, run by a friendly eccentric named Joe Zambone, developed a series of pre-fragmented-bullet rounds that were designed to correct the problems of insufficient penetration offered by the Glaser Safety Slugs.

Zambone's approach was threefold. First, he increased the shot size considerably, usually to #2 or #3. Then he placed the shot in the jacket in a specific pattern so that the bullet was balanced for better accuracy, offering more predictable performance. Finally, he sealed the shot into the jacket with epoxy. The shot is actually held in a hardened epoxy matrix. Like the Glaser, the bullet weights are light for the caliber, while the velocities and energies are extremely high. The net result is extremely successful. Penetration is excellent, typically 10 inches or slightly more. The wounds are truly large and effective. Heavy clothing, leather jackets, and such do not interfere with the bullet's performance. They rarely exit from the person who is shot, and they break up on hitting walls or hard surfaces, instead of ricocheting. The standard loads of this type are marketed as the MagSafe Defender loads.

Because of their lightweight bullets, the MagSafe loads lose a lot of their effectiveness at long ranges due to velocity loss. However, at normal combat handgun ranges, they are incredibly effective. Actual shootings with the MagSafe Defender rounds are limited in number, but of the several that I am aware of where there was a solid torso hit, the result was nearly immediate incapacitation in every case. In addition, I am personally aware of rather extensive comparative tests of a wide variety of handgun ammunition against human-size domestic animals, primarily large goats. In those tests, the Mag- Safe Defender loads consistently resulted in the fastest incapacitations of all the production handgun loads tested. While the MagSafe Defender loads may not be "magic bullets," they are the most effective rounds I am aware of, except for some of MagSafe's other rounds.

The Defender rounds make marginally effective calibers like the 38 Special, 380 ACP, 38 S&.W and 9mm Makarov extremely effective. They also make reasonably effective handgun calibers like the 9mm, 40 S&W. 10mm, 45 ACP, 357 Magnum, 44 Special and 45 Colt as close to 100-percent instantly effective as seems possible. My personal home-defense handguns and concealment guns are typically loaded with Defenders. However, the MagSafe Defender loads will not defeat most soft body armor.

In his experimentation, Zambone found there was a velocity threshold where bullets constructed along his principles would penetrate the typical Kevlar soft body armor available and then break up to make a substantial wound on the opposite side of the vest panel. He refined loads of this type in the major chamberings used by police and offers them as his Agent loads. Typically, these have bullets that are somewhat lighter than his Defender loads and have even higher velocities. These are the "Magic Bullets" of the title of this article because they do the impossible: penetrate armor and offer limited penetration against flesh. These are also the loads that I alluded to that are readily available for use by special organizations like SWAT, counterterrorist and hostage rescue units, but are not being used by them to any significant extent.

Zambone sells his MagSafe Agent loads strictly to military or law enforcement agencies or directly to law enforce- ment officers. He insists that dealers who carry this ammunition make a formal agreement with him to abide by the same sales restrictions, and he enforces that agreement strictly. In the ten years or so that this ammunition has been available, no police officer wearing a vest has ever been shot with it, and I am sure we all would like to keep it that way. However, it is important to understand that the MagSafe Agent loads are not in any way illegal to own, nor are they more restricted under federal law than any other handgun ammunition, since they are not armor-piercing handgun ammunition under the definition used in the federal law.

A typical MagSafe Agent load will blow through a Level II or higher Keviar protective vest like it wasn't there, and then penetrate 10 or more inches of flesh, making a huge wound. It is unlikely to overpenetrate, particularly since such vests typically have both a front and back panel. In the case of a typical front-to-rear hit, the back panel would completely stop any potentially exiting shot pellets.

Agent loads are not a good choice where there may be an obstacle between the shooter and the shootee, such as a glass window, a car door, a wooden door or a table. In such cases, the Agent bullet will normally penetrate the obstacle, then spray out the other side. Unless the person being shot is pressed right up against the obstacle, the effectiveness is largely lost. In such circumstances, conventional hardball, hard bullet armor-piercing, or even hollowpoint ammunition is superior.

The MagSafe Agent load is the ideal pistol round for counterterrorist teams, hostage rescue teams, bank guards, and armored car guards, since these are the folks most likely to come up against bad guys wearing protective vests and at the same time have innocent bystanders to worry about. Also, agents working the drug and gang scenes may find that the Agent loads might increase their survival quotients since the use of body armor is getting more and more common among these groups.

Another excellent application for the MagSafe Agent load is as the standard loading in a police officer's backup gun, though in most cases the Defender load would do just as well. I do not think that the Agent load is the best load for a regular cop to carry in his handgun for general duty use. There is an old saying among police that says, "Don't carry ammunition in your handgun that will defeat your own body armor." This comes from the fact that a high percentage of cops who are shot in the line of duty are shot with their own handgun. Quite frankly, that advice makes sense to me. However, I see no problem with a cop carrying a reload of Agent loads for use in situations where it would be appropriate, like the LA. incident previously mentioned. The ideal situation might be to carry a semi-automatic pistol loaded with high-performance hollowpoints or the MagSafe Defender load, with one spare magazine loaded with Agent loads and another spare magazine loaded with hardball or armor-piercing ammo. That way the officer is covered for all situations, from perps wearing vests to barricaded bad guys to road blocks.

MagSafe offers another type of load that will also defeat most Level II ballistic vests. These are called Spec Ops loads. They are similar to the Agent loads except that they use a full metal jacket instead of a hollowpoint-type bullet jacket. They were designed for use in jurisdictions like New Jersey, where it is illegal for non-law enforcement personnel like security guards to carry hollowpoint or expanding-point ammunition. These are more effective than the typical hardball loads, but not nearly as effective against flesh as the other MagSafe loads that fragment after impact. They will zip through most ballistic vests, but are not classified as armor-piercing under federal law.

MagSafe offers a number of other special-purpose loads, like the SWAT load that breaks up on sheetrock and will not penetrate even flimsy walls. There are also MAX loads that are loaded in several chamberings to a +P+ level. Neither of the latter two hold much appeal for me. I would prefer to use the Agent or Defender loads in virtually every situation.

Most of the MagSafe loads have quite low recoil because of the light bullet weights. In some cases, they will shoot to a drastically different point of aim than regular loadings. However, the zero with MagSafe ammunition is usually close enough for typical handgun ranges. I have never experienced a malfunction with MagSafe ammunition even though I have tried samples in a wide variety of guns and chamberings. Still, they are high-pressure loads and suitable for use only in high-quality handguns of good design. Semi-autos with overly deep feed ramps are particularly not recommended.

MagSafe ammunition is loaded in all the major defensive handgun chamberings, as well as in a number of oddballs and even in a few rifle chamberings. Rounds for the Agent load, which are restricted to military and law enforcement, are obviously only going to be available in appropriate chamberings. There are also special loadings for specific guns like the subcompact Glocks in 9mm and 40 S&W. A relatively complete listing of MagSafe handgun chamberings includes: 25 ACP, 7.62x25mm Tokarev (30 Mauser), 30 Carbine, 32 ACP, 32 S&W Long, 32 H&R Magnum, 380 ACP. 9mm Parabellum, 9x23mm Largo, 9mm Makarov, 356 TSW, 357 Magnum, 357 SIG, 38 Special, 38 S&W, 38 Super, 10mm, 40 S&W, 41 Magnum, 44 Special, 44 Magnum, 45 ACP, 45 Colt, 45 Win- chester Magnum. 454 Casull and 50 Action Express.

The biggest drawback of MagSafe ammunition is its cost. It is extremely labor-intensive to make, and consequently it costs a whopping retail of $23.88 per packet of six rounds. There are dealer, agency, and law enforcement discounts that will help many to some degree. Still, purchasing enough to make sure it will function reliably in your handgun, to check the zero of the load and to still retain enough to fill your gun could set you back 850 to $100 or more, depending on the capacity of your pistol. It would be money well spent if you ever needed to use it.