Unfortunately the outcomes were bad but there were some REALLY interesting take-away points.
First up, I saw a red flag with using the Hornady LEVERevolution in a snub-nosed revolver. You see this ammo was actually designed to put spitzer-type bullets into tube-fed lever guns. You see since the rounds are end-to-end in a lever gun tube, a pointed spitzer bullet runs the risk of dimpling the primer of the round in front of it during recoil. This is why bread-and-butter lever-gun rounds like .30-30 WCF, .45-70 Government, .444 Marlin among others have fat, flat-point or round nose bullets seated, when similar rounds for bolt-action or semi-auto rifles, or lever guns that feed from a box magazine will generally have pointed bullets.
Generally when loading a handgun round for a rifle or carbine slower-burning powders can be used to get better velocity over the longer bore length. When you take a round like this and stick it in a short handgun, much of the powder might still be burning when the bullet leaves the bore, meaning all that powder energy is just making a muzzle flash rather than pushing a bullet.
But in this case those rounds are still going pretty fast.
Still despite this the round performance in the gel is VERY poor. That first round looks like it could almost be reloaded. The others are expanding less than the bargain-type JHP ammo you find.
Sad that the performance was that poor, especially in gel where the homogenous nature of the medium makes for textbook expansion that you might not see in living tissue.
The LeveRevolution rounds are, IIRC, heavier-jacketed than “normal” bullets for the caliber, as they ARE intended to be driven as higher velocities. What I’d like to know is, what’s Hornady’s recommended operating velocity range for the bullet he was using, and how fast was he actually pushing it?
I haven’t seen the video – yet – but I’ll take a look at it this evening, see what numbers he claims, and do comparisons to loading manuals (if he gives load data) and to Hornady’s published operating range for the bullets he’s using.
FWIW, though, if he’s using LeverRevolution out of a snubbie .357, he’d be better served with a plain old lead slug or jacketed hollowpoint. The LeveRevolution bullet is a hunting round, not a self-defense round. The two roles ARE very similar in some respects, but it’s not quite the same thing.
Slow burning powder optimized for ~16″+ barrels. Bullets designed to expand in a controlled fashion at a certain velocity may not expand at all going 200fps or more slower.
Hm. My last sentence fell off. Add “I’m not all that surprised.” to the previous comment. 😮