Soft-point bullet

By the late 19th century, lead-alloy bullets were being enclosed within a jacket of stronger mild steel or copper alloyed with nickel or zinc to reliably impart stabilizing rotation in rifled barrels.

Enclosing the lead or alloy within a hard jacket cuts down on these tendencies despite the greater velocities employed, and this in conjunction with the typically smaller calibre created a greater tendency for the new rifle bullets both to create a smaller wound and to pass through, rather than lodging within, the anatomy of the target whether human or animal, thus increasing the probability of wounding rather than killing.

For this reason, full metal jacket rounds are considered more humane for military purposes, since it is only necessary to incapacitate enemy soldiers to neutralize them on the battlefield; conversely, they are less effective for hunting animals where killing the quarry swiftly is the objective.

To produce a smokeless-propellant round that would engage in rifling efficiently but also match or exceed the lethality of the old, low-velocity ammunition it was necessary to invent the soft-point.

The process was not difficult: reversing the direction of jacket placement leaves the lead-alloy core exposed at the forward tip of the projectile creating a soft-point bullet.

Bullets intended for big-game hunting are designed to increase their forward diameter while remaining intact to penetrate deeply enough to damage internal organs likely to cause rapid death.

Since late 2005,[3] newer bullet designs with polymer tips offering improved ballistics have become available for safe use in tubular magazine rifles.

An assortment of .30-caliber (7.62 mm) round-nose bullets illustrating the exposed lead tip characteristic of soft-point bullets.
Some soft point bullets have a more aerodynamic contour like these spitzer boat-tail bullets
This image illustrates the jacket placement difference between full metal jacket bullets on the left and soft point bullets on the right. Both bullet types are 220-grain (14 g) .30-caliber. The silver-colored cupronickel jacketed bullets on the left have an enclosed rounded point with a jacket opening on the flat base, while the copper-colored gilding metal jacketed bullets on the right have an enclosed flat base with a jacket opening on the rounded point. If these bullets were loaded and fired in the opposite of their intended direction, the full metal jacket bullet might expand like a soft point, and the soft point bullet might perform like a full metal jacket.
Four .30 caliber (7.62 mm) hollow point bullets. Each of the three round-nose bullets on the left has a small cavity at the jacket opening on the leading tip of the bullet. Such bullets are sometimes called open-point bullets, as opposed to soft-point bullets where the lead core extends forward of the jacket. The jacket of the very-low-drag bullet on the right provides an aerodynamic windscreen enclosing a void so the center of mass of the entire bullet remains within the full diameter portion of the bullet, to minimize misalignment with the bore axis.
.357 Magnum rounds. Left: Jacketed flat/soft point (JFP/JSP). Right: Jacketed hollow point (JHP) . JSP is a semi-jacketed round as the jacket does not extend to the tip. The notches on the tip of the JHP assist in the expansion of the bullet on impact with soft tissue.