The Glaser Safety Slug is a frangible projectile consisting of compressed bird shot in a copper jacket with a polymer tip. The idea was to produce a projectile that would have little or no penetration through sheet rock (dry wall) or sheet metal. According to the manufacturer, "[t]he Glaser Safety Slug® was designed in 1974 in response to the possibility of having to use a handgun on an airplane by the Sky Marshals. The concerns at that time were over penetration on soft tissue and ricochets on hard surfaces and possible excess penetration."
There are two varieties of the Safety Slug: the blue tip version which uses compressed #12 bird shot and the "silver" (actually grey colored) version that uses a #6 bird shot and intended to give slightly better penetration. According to the manufacturer, CorBon, its test of the rounds "achieved soft tissue penetration of 5-7″ with the Glaser® Blue and 6-8″ with Glaser® Silver, with the bullet completely fragmented inside the gelatin." CorBon also claims that the projectiles "will begin to breakup when encountering hard surfaces to minimize ricochet and danger to people in adjacent rooms and structures." When I was younger and my wife and I were still living in apartments, I had my "nightstand gun" loaded with several rounds of the Glaser blue rounds for this very reason. (The remainder of the rounds were regular hollow point, with my reasoning being that if the Glaser did not stop an assailant, I would have worked my way down to the standard self-defense rounds).
At that time, I could only find them sold in 6-round blister packs, but it appears that CorBon is now selling them in 20-round boxes, and the price per round is actually much cheaper. If I remember correctly, when I bought mine in the early-1990s, they were basically $2 or $2.50 per round--an exorbitant amount for the time--but the price now works out to be $1.30/round.
It used to be offered in quite a few calibers. However, in looking at the manufacturer's website, it only lists 9mm Luger (9x19mm) and 9mm Makarov (9x18mm). Also, they currently only list the blue versions for sale.
In the tests below using handguns with 3" and 4.5" barrels, shooting Glaser blue through denim into a clear ballistic gelatin, the penetration was 6.5" from both weapons with the energy dump being fairly quick--i.e., exactly as advertised. This obviously does not meet the FBI standards, but that is not what the rounds are intended to do. I would expect that the Glaser silver rounds (if you can find any) would have slightly better penetration.
VIDEO: "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet!...9MM +P CorBon Glaser Safety Slug Ballistic Gel AMMO Test & Review!"--Tools&Targets (15 min.)
Good to know.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a niche product. I would like to see tests of it against sheet rock/inside walls.
Delete