Why We Cut Slits in the Nose of Our VX9
Look closely at the nose of a VX9 bullet and you'll see thin slits cut into the copper. They're small, and they do most of the work. They're how one solid copper bullet handles two very different hits: soft tissue, and something hard in the way first.
Solid copper, with the opening built in
The VX9 is a 96-grain 9mm hollow point machined from solid copper in Amarillo, Texas. There's no lead core and no jacket, so there's nothing to separate. That also means the way the bullet opens has to be cut into the copper itself. The slits control how it comes apart.
You can see what the slits add in our own lineup. Our CX bullets are turned from the same copper with no slits, and they're built to stay solid. Our VX bullets get slits, but they don't all use them the same way. Our rifle VX bullets shed their petals early by design, and the solid core drives on. Why that works is a post of its own. This one is about the VX9, our 9mm, which keeps its petals.
In soft tissue: petals that stay on
When the VX9 hits soft tissue, or the ballistic gel that stands in for it, the hollow point opens along the slits into petals. The petals stay attached to the bullet.
Both halves of that matter. A wider bullet makes a wider wound and slows down inside the target instead of passing through it. And a petal that stays on keeps its weight on the bullet. A piece that breaks off stops pushing the bullet forward, and it keeps moving on its own.
Against a hard barrier: the nose folds in
Glass, sheet steel and car doors are a different problem. A hollow point built only to open fast can plug, break apart or lose most of its weight on the barrier, before it reaches what's behind it.
The slits change how the VX9 meets something hard. Instead of opening into petals on the glass, the nose folds in on itself and the bullet mushrooms. It deforms in a controlled way that expands its surface area while holding together, and it drives through in one piece.
What the testing shows
The VX9 has been through the full FBI protocol: bare gel, then heavy clothing, sheet steel, wallboard, plywood and auto glass. Out of a Glock 17, at about 1,270 fps measured 15 feet from the muzzle, it averaged about 16 inches of penetration, inside the FBI's 12 to 18 inch window. It expanded behind every barrier, steel and auto glass included.
It also kept 99.7% of its weight. That's the number that shows the slits doing their job: the petals opened, and they stayed on. The barrier-by-barrier numbers are in our post on what barrier-blind means.
We built the VX9 for law enforcement, military and everyday carry, where you don't get to pick what's between you and the threat. If you're with an agency or buying for one, the full test data is available on request.
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