No surprise to me, I've never bought into the hype of these new tangled "snake oil" bullets. In this video, he fires both rounds from a 20 and 29, and the X-P got embarrassed.

Side note, that 220 HC though! Exited 4 blocks of gel with ease!

I dont remember who I got in the discussion with about using Xtreme Penetrators for woods defense. But here is a video that shows the X-P is not even half as good as a 220 grain Hardcast. He tried it in a 20 and 29. The Hardcast exited from 4 blocks of gel. The Lehigh only did half that.

https://youtu.be/qVwbZ0m2llQ

Depends if your looking for .40" hole through 5 feet of penetration. 
The HC is exactly what I use in my 10mm for personal defense when in
Brown Bear country.  Outside that very specific application or maybe if
I was Moose hunting with a 10mm, the need for 5' of penetration doesn't
come up for me very often. 

Otherwise the Extreme Penitrator/Hunter/Defense might have some merit and advantages
with the additional wounding & shallower depth (not that 2.5' of penetration is shallow imo) YMMV....  For hunting medium sized game (whitetail & hogs) that's
about what i'm looking for.  Also respectable for woods defense anywhere in North
America with possible encounters with Black Bear and down sized predators. 

Well, as long as we can remain friends, I'll some what disagree with you. I don't have any elephants that need killing so penetration of anything over 24" is more than I'll ever need. We do have some free ranging buffalo down here that tear up fences as they go but nobody, for whatever reason, has hunted them. I don't see the need for 5 feet of penetration. The old rifles used lead heavy weight bullets as most were designed for the military. The military used a rifle like they did canister from a cannon, heavy lead in the air that will penetrate and keep going and hopefully hit another target. To call some of the newer bullet designs "snake oil" I think is unfair. Look at the 9mm, for an example. Can't tell you how many 115gr HPs I've taken out of yotes and they were almost reloadable. The newer HP designs are an eye opener and roll back like blossoms. Kinda reminds me of my older brother who is a trapper. We've hunted together all our lives and his motto was always "you don't need penetration when you blow half of one side off". He's notorious for loading past any data and back in the day, the Hornady bullets would literally go off on the hair of a yote. So penetration isn't everything in any bullet design. But I will agree with you, if you need extreme penetration, you're looking at either hard cast or a copper solid. Fortunately for me, I don't NEED either one.

I will say you don't need a bullet that cost a dollar apiece plus to hunt with unless you live in the commie state of California where lead is restricted when lead is a common element in the ground.

I use a lot of cast bullets because they are cheap to load and shoot and will work to hunt or self defense if needed...so for pennies a shot because of primers and powder cost it makes for economic cost savings!  Oh and these cast bullets from COWW work well even as HP designs or solids and with proper sizing and lube can be driven to the same velocities as jacketed projectiles...

The problem is there has still not been any evidence of the xtreme series causing any additional wounding potential than a solid round. Lehigh has used this as a marketing claim and relied on folks to see gel disturbances as evidence of tissue damage when in fact it does not correlate. I've chatted at length with Dr. Roberts and "Brass Fetcher" about the Lehigh bullets and they both have the same conclusion - it's not possible the flutes have any "fluid transfer damage" or other unique wounding potential. They damage what they physically touch nothing more. They may have some purposes, but they are not as effective as a modern expanding bullet nor a heavy flat solid for each of their respective purposes. And both Lehigh and Underwood have lost the respect of folks who are inclined to understand this while now waiting several years for either company to test their own revolutionary marketing claims.

I don't have a dog in this fight so my opinion doesn't matter. I handload everything I shoot except 22LR. The Lehigh is far too expensive for anything I'll ever hunt or shoot. While I have shot them and still have some, they've gotten far too costly for this old country bumpkin. But here's a vid showing their performance tests. I'd hate to get hit with either one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnFwr2ycgXk

Quote from: SPDSR on November 02 2018 01:15:37 PM MDT
The problem is there has still not been any evidence of the xtreme series causing any additional wounding potential than a solid round.

With all due respect this blanket statement about "not been ANY evidence" Doesn't hold water. 

Intelligent people may have a different point of view.  A number experiments (3rd party) can be found if anyone else cares to look, additionally the hunter reviews are starting to pile up and I for one have seen enough to make me curious.  I have observed enough to note differences between FMJ & WFN damage in tissue & other media (not simply the 10% FBI grade ballistics gelatin cracking your referencing) than what is evident with Lehigh projectiles.  Be that as it may, I'll test them for myself before using them in hunting situations. 
Additionally in one of your next long chats with Dr. Roberts and Brass Fetcher, please ask them to utilize their well respected platforms, websites & writings to document their testing and findings for the Lehigh projectiles so we can see them for ourselves and won't have to rely exclusively on hearsay.  A search of their websites & writings doesn't yet turn up anything on the topic.

It's real simple: If they don't float your boat, then don't buy them. 
No doubt Underwood & Lehigh are losing sleep worrying about all their lost respect.  In the meantime the marketplace seems to be responding favorably to their products, so apparently they'll have to make due with successful businesses. 

I have seen many YouTube videos of them as well. Is that what third party evidence you refer to? The problem is for a solid projectile those tests show two things: penetration and trajectory. That's it. The disturbances in gel mean nothing, so what positive information could you have observed in all these third party tests? They had an amazing trajectory lol?

I did ask both previously if they were going to test them but no government agency or DOD has requested testing with the bullets which is when they do the tests.

Quote from: SPDSR on November 02 2018 09:47:23 PM MDT
I have seen many YouTube videos of them as well. Is that what third party evidence you refer to? The problem is for a solid projectile those tests show two things: penetration and trajectory. That's it. The disturbances in gel mean nothing, so what positive information could you have observed in all these third party tests? They had an amazing trajectory lol?

I did ask both previously if they were going to test them but no government agency or DOD has requested testing with the bullets which is when they do the tests.

Your statement was "there has still not been any evidence of the xtreme series causing any additional wounding".... and as I said, it's not particularly hard to find.  Now, you might not find them up to your standards but to suggest "no evidence" exists is simple not correct.

Now with respect to your comment about no governmental agency or DOD studies looking at the Lehigh Xtreme products...
Perhaps you overlooked this one. 

2016/17 Joint Agency Ballistic Test For Defensive Handgun Ammunition: (you'll need Adobe reader to view the document)
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A05774d28-6f7c-4a03-a547-20431de28326

Key passages quoted below for any without Adobe:
The Underwood XD uses the Lehigh Defense Xtreme Defense Technology bullet. They are the same bullet and in some cases Underwood uses slightly higher pressure which produces more velocity. The radial flutes increase tissue pressure and direct the tissue outward to increase wound diameter. There is one main characteristic to XD performance. Velocity. The faster this round goes the larger the wound diameter. We tested the 9mm XD, 9 +P, 9+P+ and the 357 SIG in multiple tests in gel and tissue. That's 4 of the exact same projectiles with the only difference being velocity. The wound channel size increased exactly in proportion to increase in velocity. Unlike hollow points which are designed for a certain impact velocity to best perform as designed, the XD always works better when faster.

The data sheet shows results from Phase 2/3 with enormous wound diameters. The radial flutes work perfectly in fluid/gel. Calculated PWCs are the largest ever recorded in all calibers!

Many of our testers wondered if vectoring real compressed tissue sideways into tissue would actually destroy that adjacent tissue that is not directly in the path of the projectile. For those who think this will only work in a non-compressible fluid like gel as we initially did, we can confirm that this technology works extremely well in actual animal tissue with or without barriers. Remember that hollow points expand because tissue which fills the hole in the hollow point is compressed to such a point that the outward pressure inside the bullet pushes and tears the metal and forces it outward where friction then takes over to complete the expansion. If tissue can be compressed to the point of tearing metal (hollow point) then tissue can certainly be compressed to the point of tearing tissue. The Phase 4/5 tissue tests confirmed that in over 100 shots the measured wound channel was not only larger than that of an FMJ but in most cases was the largest wound channel produced in that caliber compared to all other rounds to include fully functioning hollow points.

a. Penetration. All rounds in all calibers tested penetrated 15 to 20 inches with and without barriers.
b. Reliability and Consistency. Every single shot did roughly the same thing. There is a 0% chance of failure to function because there can be no failure to tumble or expand (because they don't) and no chance to fragment. This was the most Reliable and Consistent round tested.
c. Barrier Performance. The XD round, the 5.7 mm rounds and FMJs were the most barrier blind rounds tested. Not only did barriers not deflect the round it didn't change the wound diameter much and only slightly reduced penetration depth. XD Barrier degradation was approximately 5%.
d. PWC, permanent wound cavity. In the Phase 4/5 realistic tissue tests the XD produced the largest wound areas and with the incredible penetration depth exhibited in the Phase 2/3 gel tests the XD recorded the largest overall PWC in all calibers. As noted the PWC numbers are inflated in the Phase 2/3 gel tests due to non-compressible gel, but the penetration depths are more realistic to compare.

Overall: This was by far the most impressive round tested. After over a year of testing this round became the most requested round to test after some of the agencies reviewed draft shot data. In continued testing this round became the most measured and compared round in this test. We had more XD data points than any other round. Because the XD relies so heavily on velocity the results showed that the 357 SIG, 10mm and 9mm were the best calibers in this round followed by the .45 and then the .40, the exact opposite of the hollow point results.

The 9mm ammo made a huge leap forward between the v1 version of the Lehigh Defense self defense rounds and the V2, which had similar muzzle velicity, but far less penetration.

I have not seen a v2 of the .400 self defense version, but I don't follow them closely.

I will say this.  Even the Lehigh Defense rounds that over-penetrate by FBI standards penetrate less than comparable solids without the fluted noses.  If they have similar muzzle velocity and weight, but penetrate less without deforming, that extra energy had to go somewhere.  And the obvious somewhere is into additional tissue damage.  This validates the concept.  The rest is just engineering to find the ideal nose flute shapes and profiles.

There is little doubt in my mind that this style of bullet is likely the future.  And it's performance characteristics are so different from traditional ammo that I wonder if the standard protocols are adequate for testing.  We imply that a large wound cavity was created because we know how much energy it takes to deform the nose of a hollow point round, and we know that a similar proportional amount of damage had to be done to the tissue.  And we know that damage has to occur in 12-18" or it wont' be occuring in vital organs.  All of the existing protocol is designed around implying damage to tissue based on what we know about how lead/copper expanding hollow point bullets behave.  Using the same protocols to test non-expanding projectiles would be like using torque to measure a rocket motors output (instead of thrust).

Certainly interesting.

Holy crap, Toto! Did you catch the velocities posted for the 45 ACP XD Super 120gr ammo. Who would ever believed that a 45 ACP could get near 1600'ps. Test firearms were the Sig 227E and a Glock 21. Penetration at 20" and 15.1 cubic inches of permanent wound channel. That must be real close to being hit with a 105 howitzer at point blank range. The 115gr Lehigh 10mm bullet out of Underwood ammo was almost identical to the 45ACP. The 9mm XD 90gr +P was no sleeper. Penetration at 17.5" and 12.4 cubic inches of permanent wound channel. That certainly brings the 9mm out of the closet. One glaring fact though looking over the results of their testing is that the Lehigh bullets loaded at high velocities which is easily done considering their lighter weight, penetrates as good as any jacketed bullet they tested. What jumps off of the chart is the wound channel in cubic inches. The Golden Sabre ammo I was so proud of in a 9mm using the 124gr has 13" of penetration and 3.5 cubic inches of permanent wound channel. Makes me feel like I could do that by throwing rocks. The Underwood XD +P ammo has 3 times the wound channel of the Golden Sabres. Looks like the boxes of Golden Sabres I have are going to be loaded for varmint hunting and retired for carry ammo.

Interesting read. It's a long read but well worth the time if you have any concerns about how your carry ammo performs. The charts are amazing.

So Rojo, what you're saying, is I should trust the Xtreme Defenders and carry them in my 29?

Overkill338,
What are you looking for?  Are you looking for 4 or 5 feet of penetration?  If so, my follow up question would be are you concerned about grizzly or brown bear encounters?  If the answer is yes, then I would and do personally choose the hardcast ammunition.

If you're looking for a woods defense where no brown bear are present, then Underwood Extreme may be the answer you looking for. From terminal ballistics standpoint.  However, from a cost per round stand point or bang for your buck; I also wouldn't  feel concerned at all walking around anywhere in contiguous US with a 10mm G29 with hardcast loade 

I posted this topic because I ran across that video. I was considering using the Xtreme Defenders for my SD carry load. Currently I'm carrying 200 grain Noslers from Underwood, which chrono 1170's from the 29.

200gr Nosler by Underwood is very good medicine for personal defense
IMHO.  Used it to take a large hog couple years ago fired out of G20. 
Worked like a lightning bolt on that occasion. 
Not sure what recoil would feel like for follow up shots using your G29 but
Its a very potent round. 

While undoubtably intrigued by the Underwood extreme defense series potential, I'm
not quite ready to walk around the street with it just yet.  2'+ of penitration is
still pretty deep for everyday around town situations imho and still gives me pause.