expanding bullet
Sign in to saveAlso known as dumdum bullet, mushroom bullet
bullets that expand on impact
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- bullet
- Said to be same as
- soft-point bullet
Show 2 more facts
- different from
- Dum Dum
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Drawings from 1870 of a hollow point express rifle bullet before firing (1, 2) and after recovery from the game animal (3, 4, 5), showing expansion and fragmentation Leg wound by an expanding bullet
Expanding bullets, also known as dumdum bullets, are projectiles designed to expand on impact. This causes the bullet to increase in diameter, to combat over-penetration and produce a larger wound, thus dealing more damage to a living target. For this reason, they are used for hunting and by police departments, but are generally prohibited for use in war under international humanitarian law. Two typical designs are the hollow-point bullet and the soft-point bullet.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “expanding bullet” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.