There's a challenge in describing the seemingly indescribable. Blended metal and powdered metal technologies in bullets is one area where the line between scientific development and alchemy seem to blur. It's one of those areas where empirical evidence - hands-on experience - is perhaps the only way to begin to understand -and explain- the science that underpins the whole concept. When you start looking at this science, it doesn't take very long to realize you've entered an area where the purported performance of powdered metal ammunition actually flies in the face of long-held bullet design and performance principles. As my friend Richard Mann observed, "it's a difficult thing to explain that with this ammunition that of bullet weight retention might not apply." When you speak of ammunition with the ability to wreak havoc on tissue, won't dimple steel or can actually be made to perform optimally at a set distance and fly into dust only a few feet past that distance, you start to sound more like a snake oil salesman than an ammo maker. This week, I'm in rural Missouri at East Fork Ranch testing Dynamic Research Technologies' ammunition. On Tuesday, DRT set up gel tests with their ammunition to demonstrate their claim that their smaller caliber ammunition is capable of the toughest tests of small-caliber ammunition - personal protection.

Irlene Mandrell demonstrating the DRT 380's unique capability of turning to dust when fired into steel at point-blank range (top). She also fired rounds into a test medium with no problem penetrating and demonstrating impressive performance characteristics. What's impossible to see is the performance in a hunting application.

During that testing, we watched as Earlene Mandrell (yes, that Earlene Mandrell) took one of Smith & Wesson's diminutive Bodyguard .380 pistols and cranked a couple of rounds into a gel block. In test media, it certainly appears that DRT's technological advances in powdered metal, cladding and overall composition delivers a level of performance that actually makes the smaller-caliber pistols very potent performers in the hands of a shooter who, under duress, might lack the skills needed to put careful rounds on target. Explaining that, however, remains one of the challenges. As I wrote before, it's difficult to explain performance characteristics in a bullet that disintegrates into powder and copper jacketing. There's really not much there to measure by traditional standards. When you make the claim that smaller caliber ammunition is capable of heavy-caliber performance, you're moving the needle -but you're moving into skeptical territory. That's the reason for the visit to East Fork. The goal this week has been to test DRT's ammo - in .223 - by harvesting whitetail in a management hunt. After all, despite the fact that many of our readers' primary uses for firearms is recreational purposes, it is a tool that is designed for personal protection or provision. Many of our recreational competitions point to that fact, but we're pretty sensitive about that acknowledgement. The proof, as it is said, is in the pudding. Or in this case, in the main course. So we took DRT ammunition and a variety of Smith & Wesson M&P rifles to East Fork's shooting stands to do some ammunition testing during a management hunt. A management hunt using only S&W M&P rifles in .223. At the end of the first session, we had done some culling with some impressive results. Seven shots; seven animals taken, all with .223 rifles. In our after-action reports, we realized that not only did none of the animals require a second shot, none of them ran far - under 75 yards- before the ammunition did its lethal job. And the pathology was, simply stated, horrifying in its results. For hunters, that's performance that guarantees the light-kicking .223 is capable for whitetail hunting. Despite claims to the contrary, there really are very few ways to actually stop something in its tracks. At the end of its tracks, certainly, but the idea of dropping an animal, regardless of its number of legs, where it stands is not really accurate. Hydraulic systems take time to shut down. A body - any body- will perform until it can't perform any longer. But quick stops like these certainly demonstrate the capability of the DRT .223 to perform as a hunting round for the average whitetail hunter. It's not until you start dressing the animals that you realize the challenge of describing the performance. There's nothing left to weigh or check for deformation or whatever else you might use to grade a bullet's general performance characteristics. There's a dead animal- and a mess where vital organs once functioned. In fact, explaining what this ammunition does in understandable terms was the topic of a dinner discussion. This ammunition is, essentially, a combination of powdered metals and a polymer binder crushed together under extreme pressure. That makes it fairly simple to explain it's ability to turn into dust when fired into steel plates-even at point blank range. But how do you explain its devastating hunting performance? After all, the exact same ammunition when fired into steel plates - at point-blank range- turns into dust. It doesn't even dimple the metal. When it is fired into tissue, however, it moves like a solid bullet until it hits body fluids. At that point, the additional pressures on the metal causes the bullet to literally disintegrate-sending a traumatic shock wave through the internal organs that means quick knock-downs. One suggestion was that blended-metal technology essentially stores and releases the forces that compressed it into a bullet to start with. That's simplistic, but it does describe what is the effect of a bomb on internal organs. The "shock and awe" damage adds to the lethality- making an AR-style rifle into a potent hunting platform for animals well above the size of a whitetail. DRT's owners have taken a variety of large animals using the .223, and it seems they have produced ammunition that is certainly capable of doing the job in the hands of a qualified shooter/hunter. The challenge may be in explaining just how it does what it does in marketing terminology. We'll keep you posted. ---Jim Shepherd