Special purpose firearms projectile

Claim 1

A small arms bullet with controlled flight characteristics, said bullet having: a light weight generally cylindrical bullet body adapted to be fired from conventional small arms at a supersonic muzzle flight velocity, a blunt forward drag face providing a high aerodynamic drag configuration for said bullet at subsonic flight velocities and rapid impact energy transfer, said drag face being substantially flat and extending over substantially the entire frontal area of said bullet, and a non-ablative, integral spike tip fixed forwardly of said drag face at a fixed distance in the flight of said bullet, said spike tip having a much smaller effective frontal area than said drag face, said spike tip being adapted to form a supersonic shock wave cone at the forward end of said bullet during the flight of said bullet, said spike tip and said drag face being positioned with respect to one another on said bullet so that for supersonic flight of said bullet said drag face is inside said shock wave cone formed by said spike tip, thereby providing a low aerodynamic drag configuration for said bullet at supersonic velocities, whereby said bullet maintains a high supersonic flight velocity for a preselected initial combat range after firing but then rapidly decelerates due to high aerodynamic drag after the bullet slows to a subsonic flight velocity, thereby reducing said bullet''s danger to objects and personnel outside of said combat range and reducing said bullet''s range.