ARX bullets – The ExhaustNotes Blog

By Joe Berk

I went to my indoor handgun range to try the ARX bullets in two .45 ACP revolvers, my 1917 redo revolver and the 625 Performance Center Smith and Wesson. The 1917 is the one you see at the top of this blog. It’s a beautiful N-frame Smith styled to look like the 1917 US Army revolvers with a 5 1/2-inch barrel and a lanyard ring. Smith also added a nice t0uch: Turnbull color case hardening. It really is a beautiful revolver.

6 ARX rounds in a star clip, ready for shooting in the 1917 Smith.

The 625 is a special number Smith offered about a decade or so ago. It has a custom barrel profile, ostensibly a smoother action, and better sights. It came from the Performance Center with a gold bead front sight, which I didn’t care for, so the revolver went back to Smith for a red ramp front and white outline rear sight. I thought the red ramp and white outline would be like what came on Smiths in the 1970s, but it wasn’t. The red isn’t nearly as vibrant, and the white outline is sort of a dull gray. Live and learn, I guess.

The Smith and Wesson Performance Center Model 625. This one wears custom grips.

I also added custom grips to the 625 (which I refinished myself, as I didn’t care for the red, birch, and blue clown grips that came with the gun). I know this Model 625 Performance Center gun to be an extremely accurate revolver. With 200-grain semi-wadcutters and 6.0 grains of Unique, this is one of the most accurate revolvers I’ve ever shot.

But enough about the revolvers. This blog focuses on how the .45 ACP ARX bullets performed in these two handguns. Everything we’ve written about the ARX bullets has been, up to this blog, about how the bullets performed in semi-auto handguns. I shoot .45 ACP in revolvers, too, and I was naturally curious about how the composite bullets would do in those.

Another 6 ARX rounds in a star clip and the Model 625.

Here’s the bottom line:

- - The ARX composite bullets are not quite as accurate in my revolvers as they were in the 1911 with two different loads. The groups were good (as you’ll see in the photos below), but they weren’t as good as they had been in the 1911.
  - Both revolvers shot low at 30 feet. The 625 shot about 3 1/2 inches below the point of aim. The 1917 shot about 5 inches below the point of aim. In the 1911, the .45 ACP ARX load was spot on, putting the shots right where I aimed.

Here’s the relevant load and chrono data:

And here are the targets I shot with each revolver and the two different loads. First, the Model 625 targets:

The aim point on this target was the 6:00 position on the upper orange bullseyes (as it was for all the targets shown here). The bullets hit 3 1/2 inches low. This is the target with the 8.8-grain Power Pistol load. The groups were nothing to write home about.

The Model 625 put the 7.0-grain Winchester 231 load in the same spot as the 8.8-grain Power Pistol load. The group sizes were about the same.

The next two photos show the 1917 targets:

The 1917 group with the 8.8-grain Power Pistol load was about 5 inches low. I wasn’t trying for head shots.

The 1917 seemed to like the 7.0-grain Winchester 231 load a bit better, but the groups were still the same 5 inches low. As with the above targets, the aim point was at the 6:00 position on the upper bullseye.

As you can see from the above data, velocities from the 1917’s slightly longer 5 1/2-inch barrel were a bit higher than from the 625’s 4-inch barrel. In the revolvers, the Winchester 231 velocities were higher than the Power Pistol loads (but not by much). The opposite was true in the 1911. Group sizes maybe were a bit better with Winchester 231 in both revolvers, but not as good as with the 1911. The 1917 has fixed sights, so my only option there is to hold higher on the target. The 625 had adjustable sights, but I don’t think there’s enough adjustment to make up for the 3 1/2-inch drop.

One more observation: Winchester 231 is a much dirtier powder than Power Pistol. I didn’t notice this with the 1911 comparisons I did earlier, but with a revolver, it’s quite noticeable.

One of the ARX bullets’ principal advantages is they keep the bore clean. There’s no lead or copper fouling. When shooting any kind of bullet with Winchester 231 in a revolver, though, you’ll get plenty dirty.

In my opinion, the 118-grain ARX .45 ACP bullets are much better suited for the 1911 than they are for a .45 ACP revolver. That’s my opinion only; your mileage may vary.

So there you have it. This is our 6th blog on the ARX bullets, and I don’t have any more planned. I think ExhaustNotes has the most comprehensive evaluation of these bullets you’ll find anywhere on the Internet or in any of the print pubs, and I feel good about that. I like these bullets, and I really like them in my 9mm Springfield 1911, my 9mm S&W Shield, and my .45 ACP Springfield 1911. I ordered a bunch of both the 9mm and .45 bullets, and they are what I’ll be shooting for the foreseeable future.

Prior ExNotes ARX bullet evaluations are here:

25 and 50 Yard ARX .45 ACP Results
Winchester 231 and Alliant Power Pistol .45 ACP ARX Results
Dialing In A .45 ACP ARX Load
9mm and .45 ACP ARX Load Testing
ARX Bullets In Two 9mm Pistols

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By Joe Berk

When you’re a retired engineer who likes to play with guns…well, read on.

After my great results with 8.8 grains of Power Pistol under the 118-grain ARX bullet in the .45 ACP, I learned that Power Pistol is no longer available. That was good news and bad news. The bad news is I that I can no longer get that powder. The good news is that I already have something like 850 loaded rounds with Power Pistol (those will last me for a while). More good news is that I have an excuse (not that I needed one) to find another load for my .45 with the ARX bullets.

.45 ACP cartridges reloaded with ARX 118-grain poly/copper composite bullet.

Winchester’s 231 worked great in the 9mm and I had some on hand, so that’s what I thought I would try next. Inceptor lists two load ranges; I stuck to the standard (i.e., non +P) range. With the 118-grain .45 ARX bullets, Inceptor showed the Winchester 231 propellant range to be 6.3 to 7.0 grains. I loaded at 6.8 and 7.0 grains. I test fired at 10 yards, just as I had done before with the Power Pistol loads.

In the full-sized Springfield Armory 1911, both 6.8 and 7.0 grains of 231 functioned reliably. The 7.0 grain group was noticeably tighter than the 6.8 grain load. The two targets on top were with 6.8 grains of 231; the two on the bottom were with 7.0 grains. The two 7.0-grain groups were right on top of each other if you look at both targets. There was one flyer in the first group, and that’s due to me. The second group was one ragged hole. This is a good load in the 5-inch Springfield 1911.

The top two targets were shot with 6.8 grains of Winchester 231; the bottom two were with 7.0 grains of 231. There are five shots on the bottom right target; they cut one ragged hole.

From a velocity and velocity variation perspective, the Springfield 6.8-grain load was tighter, but I’m sticking with the 7.0-grain load (it grouped better). If there was a difference in felt recoil between the two loads, I couldn’t detect it. Here’s the chrono readout for the Springfield and the 6.8-grain load:

Here’s the chrono result for the Springfield and the 7.0-grain load:

The 7.0-grain chrono results. The extra 0.2 grains of propellant bumped the average velocity 57 fps.

As a point of reference, the average velocity with the 8.8-grain Power Pistol load was 1299 fps, so this is only a little bit slower (16 fps, to be exact). The bottom line is that the 7.0-grain 231 load is a suitable substitute for the 8.8-grain Power Pistol load in the full-sized 1911.

I next turned to the Rock Island Armory Compact. It’s one my good buddy TJ of TJ’s Custom Guns worked over for me and it is superbly accurate and reliable with conventional cast and jacketed bullets. The Compact has a 3 1/2-inch barrel. The ARX bullets did not perform well with either powder (Winchester 231 or Power Pistol) in the Compact 1911. They tumbled in flight and they were not accurate. The 7.0-grain 231 load functioned the pistol reliably, ejected all cartridge cases, and held the slide open after the last round. The 6.8-grain 231 load worked the slide and it stayed open after the last round, but on the last round the cartridge case remained in the chamber. These factors (along with the poor accuracy and the tumbling in flight) showed the ARX bullets and 231 are not good in my Compact 1911.

I tried the ARX bullets with my prior 8.8-grain Power Pistol load in the Compact 1911 Everything on the gun functioned the way it should (I had reliable ejection and the slide stayed back on the last round), but the accuracy was poor and the bullets tumbled in flight just as they had with the 231 loads. The shorter 3 1/2-inch barrel just doesn’t give the bullets enough velocity to stabilize.

Here’s what the targets looked like with the Compact 1911. The left top is the 6.8-grain 231 load, the top right is the 7.0-grain W31 load, and the bottom two are with 8.8 grains of Power Pistol. Accuracy was terrible with all, and like I mentioned above, all loads exhibited tumbling. This is why we test loads. Some work, some work wonderfully well, and some don’t work at all.

Whoa! Things went to hell in a handbasket with the ARX bullets in my Compact 1911.

Here’s a closeup of the tumbling. It’s obvious what’s going on here.

The bullets tumbled in flight when fired in the Compact Rock. The lower left shot was flying sideways as it passed through the target.

These bullets need a minimum velocity to stabilize, and the Compact 1911’s shorter barrel isn’t delivering it. Here are the chrono results for the 6.8-grain 231 load (the chrono didn’t pick up a couple of the shots):

Lower velocity = less stability. Things fell apart with the Compact’s shorter barrel.

Here are the results for the 7.0-grain 231 load:

The chrono picked up a round fired by someone else. It didn’t matter; the results were not good at these lower velocities.

I didn’t bother chronographing the Power Pistol load in the Compact when I saw that those were tumbling, too.

It appears that the .45 bullets need something above approximately 1200 fps to stabilize. I’ll probably next test the 7.0-grain 231 load at 25 yards and 50 yards in the Springfield 1911 to see if the bullets are stable at those longer ranges. I don’t know how much velocity they’ll give up as a function of range and I’m not willing to stand downrange with the chrono to catch them as they fly by.

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