I just picked up a couple of boxes of Federal HST 45 ACP and I noticed a slight difference in the bullets. The skives on the round on the left are slightly shorter than the one on the right. They are both packaged in the newer boxes. Does anyone know which is the newest iteration?

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Bullet setback.

The caliper says otherwise.

As far as I can tell this is basically just lot variation and it’s been going on forever.

If you’re wondering, the bullets with the shorter skiving still seem to expand more or less the same.

Ogive appears to be different too, from the pics

Around 4-5 years ago they added a second canilure to the 147gr 9mm

It negatively affected expansion so my Dept tested new ammo from a few manufacturers to FBI protocol

I participated in the testing process and saw the change first hand.

We switched to HST 124+p 9mm at that time (124gr Gold Dot was a very very close second)

My point here is that ammo manufacturers occasionally tweak designs without notice or advertising

It took us noticing the performance during 3-4 OIS to address it and I’m glad we did.

We immediately saw better results in follow on shootings as long as bullets were placed where they needed to go.

After seeing Molon's thread about this, that's my concern. Will there be a performance difference between the two.

Those double cannelured bullets work great at 1275fps from .357 magnums

Go shoot a few into milk jugs.

I carry the 230gr +p but haven't bought any in like 5-6 years

To verify, the standard pressure 124gr Gold Dot was a close second? Not +p?

Probably the +P but I'm standing by also...

As to the question in the OP, it is possible that Federal is slightly modifying the bullet design, which they do sometimes (Winchester Ranger seems to change per box!). And they dont shut down the line for every minor change or modification and two bullet types will be mixed together.

It could also be some dies, or whatever mechanism forms the bullets, is worn or needs adjustment, so you get what you got in the OP.

It is frustrating when you get premium defense ammo that looks different box to box or inside the same box. I bet the terminal performance will be identical though.

The rounds are from different boxes and all the bullets in each box look the same. Shorter skives in one box and longer skives in the other. The length of the skives is definitely intentional. The boxes weren't purchased at the same time

Then I would lean towards an intentional modification so good news. Not as common with HST as some other brands but does happen. Now try to figure out which is the newer "improved" design...

I bought a bunch of 40SW LE trade-in ammo a while back and I got two slightly different bullet designs. Basically one with a deeper HP. I gave up trying to figure out which is newer...probably the shallower HP design since the last few years everyone seems to have been moving towards deeper pen. less expansion. But that is with the 9mm so maybe 40SW is the opposite.  

As a person who obsesses over ammo and tests everything, never mixes different types no matter if the same brand/load with slight variations, this gets very frustrating.

As mentioned before, this just seems to be random variation that's been going on forever. I observed it back in 2019 or 2018 and it was probably a thing before then too.

Case in point, take a look at this photo of .45 HST. It has the shallower skiving and that picture was sourced from an article posted in 2021. For all I know the photo could have been from an even earlier year.



Edit: Take a look at this. These skives are even shorter and that's probably a pre-2020 production lot. (Large pistol primer, no primer sealant, old box style.)