Black talon ammo?

[glockmutt]

Speaking of movies, wasn't this the basis of the "cop killer bullets" in one of the Lethal Weapon movies? 9mms shooting through bulldozer blades, etc?

-- Sam

According to my 1972 "Law Enforcement Handgun Digest" the bullet your referring to was a KTW. Tungsten core penetrator with a Teflon coating. I think they were actually green in color. Later versions went to a hardened steel core. This stuff would pass through twice the thickness of anything a regular factory "armor piercing" round would. Body armor would not stop them. Bulldozer blades??? Maybe and maybe not. Hollywood hype!

 

[M'BOGO]

Professor, I agree with you too, I recall a Ruger 9MM that you mention it. Horrible messed up ugly.

 

[SDPEC]

I believe the medical community lobbied hard against those because of the threat of the Aids virus while operating on potential HIV positive patients who were shot by the police. I lived in Baltimore during that time and I can't recall any suspicion about those being "Cop Killers", just "Slicers and Dicers".

We were a Winchester law enforcement distributor when the Black talon came out. We never had any medical community concerns. Any PR issues came solely from the press.

Little trivia....the original name for the round was supposed to be "Black Widow".

Seriously.....

At least wiser heads at Winchester stopped that one.

And today's SXT rounds from Winchester aren't the same as the Black Talon, they're much improved.

 

[SDPEC]

Speaking of movies, wasn't this the basis of the "cop killer bullets" in one of the Lethal Weapon movies? 9mms shooting through bulldozer blades, etc?

-- Sam

According to my 1972 "Law Enforcement Handgun Digest" the bullet your referring to was a KTW. Tungsten core penetrator with a Teflon coating. I think they were actually green in color. Later versions went to a hardened steel core. This stuff would pass through twice the thickness of anything a regular factory "armor piercing" round would. Body armor would not stop them. Bulldozer blades??? Maybe and maybe not. Hollywood hype!

Correct. The KTW rounds came out in the 50's or early 60's. They were marketed to LE for shooting at cars, as soft body armor was a non issue in those days. Winchester and Remington both marketed rounds for the same purpose. In the 70's, some reporter saw "armor piercing" and assumed they meant body armor. There was a national news story, and the term "Cop Killer bullet" was coined. As far as I know, no police officer was ever killed by the KTW, "cop killer" bullet. But the press's, and some politicians fascination with the idea, certainly got cops killed by all the publicity they generated on police wearing concealable body armor. I'm aware of at least one subject, just in my local area, who shot a police officer in the head, because he said he saw news coverage about police wearing body armor at the time.

 

[M'BOGO]

I am all for the free press, and thankful we have a semblance of one. But it angers me to no end when they give details, to give the story some meat, that tells bad people how to avoid the police next time, too the hazard of the general puplic.

 

[Saltcreek]

The old Black Talon is not the same bullet as the PDX1. The profile is about the same, but the PDX is a bonded bullet similar to the way Gold Dots are bonded. The Black Talon, while being evil and scary, was designed before they were bonding the bullets. You can see this by looking at a mushroomed Talon. It has the scary pointy razor like petls that are separated from the lead. If it was bonded, the jacket would not cleanly separate from the lead.