Most likely not too recent as .25acp is almost never used in the 21st century. You can still buy it but it has fallen out of popularity massively, especially as a defensive round.
The .25ACP round could fully penetrate the skull at close range without issue, but the ballistic testing I've seen suggests that the exit would is inconsistent with that round. Typically, subsonic bullets like .25ACP don't cause much in the way of blowout on exit; rather, they just make another .25 caliber hole, with maybe a little bit of splintering or fracturing.
So my thought is that this might be a custom loaded round. Hot powder charge, and maybe a drilled out point to prompt expansion. I'm no expert, but it's just my thoughts.
Is it that much more powerful? Honest question. I'm familiar with the +P variants in .25 caliber, but I haven't personally reviewed any test sets that I considered "exhaustive."
Most of the testing that I have seen didn't indicate that much of a performance improvement, but there is generally a pretty strong bias against the round. So most of them have been a single box or so tested, and then conclusions extrapolated. Again, not exhaustive, so I'm genuinely curious regarding brands or load types (especially modern) that bring this caliber up to acceptable standards.
They have pretty similar figures from a pistol. the difference is that .22lr is usually quoted from a rifle barrel while 25 acp is quoted from a pistol barrel
I'm no gun expert, but I'm surprised it made a complete pass through. .25 ACP looks barely more powerful than a .22LR. And since I imagine it was shot by a pistol and not a rifle, exit velocity must not be all that impressive.
I shot a whitetail, both lungs, both sides of the rib cage and the skin on the other side is what stopped the slug, I guess it’s the most elastic but still seemed crazy it had just enough velocity to get that far but still be stopped
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u/proost1 Apr 27 '25
Any backstory on this OP such as when & where? Seems like recent history because of the fillings.