Both coconuts shot at 50 yards
17 grain VMAX resultsThe cartridge used was the 17 grain Hornady V-Max ballistic tip cartridge, this shot seems to be all surface damage, I could not find any evidence of the round penetrating the shell of the coconut, it transferred all it's energy to the surface of the 'nut, I would have to rate the 17 grain bullet as "marginal" on hard surfaces, all surface damage, no real penetration to speak of, a .22LR or .22WMR cartridge would at least penetrate the front of the 'nut
the hit from the 17 grain V-Max caused a fountain of coconut water to jump from the 'nut and it rolled a good two feet from it's resting place and a long trail of coconut water led to the 'nut's final resting place
20 grain resultsThe cartridge used was the 20 grain Hornady XTP hollow point cartridge
This shot definitely punched through both sides of the 'nut, the exit hole was slightly larger than the entrance hole, I was expecting a larger exit wound, I'd imagine that the tiny hollow point cavity filled up with either fragments of coconut shell and/or meat and since a coconut is hollow inside, didn't have anything to expand into, in this case, the hollow-point 20 grainer acted much like a solid point bullet, it clearly did much more damage than the 17 grainer though, I would have to rate the 20 grain bullet as "acceptable" against hard surfaces, it *did* punch through the 'nut completely, but did not appear to expand
the 20 grainer just caused the coconut to *collapse*, immediately after impact, the upper fragments just fell over, viewed through my scope which was set on 15x magnification, the coconut just appeared to "deflate" and collapse at impact, one moment it was coconut shaped, the next, it was "flat", it did not move from it's position, it just collapsed and the puddle of coconut water was barely larger than the diameter of the coconut itself
Had I removed the netting on the 'nut shot with the 20 grainer, I have no doubt that the 'nut would have exploded when hit, showering the area with tasty tropical shrapnel, it would be very hard to reconstruct the "corpse"
