According to the manufacturer, it stands for “Dynamic Research Technologies” but the acronym more popularly stands for “Dead Right There”. Of course, this is no accident, the makers obviously want people to make that connection, but testing indicates that perhaps “Don’t Rightly Trust” or “Didn’t Really Test” may be more accurate names for this snake oil. Like many other gimmick ammo makers, DRT seems to be either unaware of the currently accepted and FBI recommended 12” minimum penetration standard or they just arrogantly ignore it.
As with previous tests of DRT, this 10mm version of their fragmenting pistol ammunition performed exactly as advertised. Unfortunately, the penetration is far too shallow to reliably reach vital organs. Invariably, the response to this criticism is that an average chest is only 8”-10” thick and the heart is less than 6” deep, even in a very large person, so 7” of penetration should be more than enough to reach the heart. The problem is that if you shoot a person in the middle of the chest who is standing motionless with their arms at their sides, that’s called “murder”. It may surprise some people to find that bad guys actually prefer not to be shot and they tend to move and shoot back at you when presented with the option. In doing so, that puts their arms out in front of their torso and that means that a bullet is very likely to strike a limb before impacting the torso. The fact that both parties to a gun fight are likely to me moving, ducking, perhaps even kneeling or prone on the floor also means that bullets tend to hit the torso at odd angles. If a bullet has to traverse diagonally through 6” of arm before even reaching the torso and on top of that, strikes the torso at an oblique angle, 12” of penetration might not even be enough, but it usually is enough, which is why that is the minimum standard. DRT can make an ugly wound, but it should not be trusted for defense.
