Are hollow points legal? The state-by-state reality

Yes, hollow points are legal to buy, sell, possess and ship through most of the United States. Federal law does not treat the hollow point as a category. The handful of real restrictions are state-level, one of them is severe, and a great deal of what is repeated about the rest is wrong.

The state-by-state reality is shorter than the internet believes.

Federally, there is no hollow-point rule

Nothing in the federal provisions that govern ammunition — the age rules at 18 U.S.C. 922(b)(1) and 922(x), the prohibited-person rules at 922(d) and 922(g), the recordkeeping at 923(g) — classifies ammunition by bullet construction. Those statutes ask who is buying, who is selling, and from what kind of firearm the ammunition is for. They do not ask whether the nose is open.

The one category federal law does single out is armor piercing ammunition, defined at 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(B) as a projectile or projectile core that may be used in a handgun and is constructed entirely from tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper or depleted uranium, or a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 calibre designed for use in a handgun whose jacket weighs more than 25 per cent of the total projectile weight. Paragraph (C) excludes shotgun hunting shot, frangible target projectiles, projectiles the Attorney General finds primarily sporting, and industrial projectiles.

A conventional lead-core jacketed hollow point is not inside that definition: the core is lead, not one of the named metals, and the jacket test is written around full metal jacket designs. This is also the only ammunition category that carries a federal record duty — 27 CFR 478.125 requires a two-year record of the date, manufacturer, calibre, quantity, and the non-licensee’s name, address and date of birth. There is no federal Form 4473 for ammunition and no federal NICS check for ammunition. If a shop tells you it must run a background check on a box of 9mm hollow points, that is store policy or state law, not federal.

New Jersey is the one that bites

New Jersey is not a quirk in a footnote. Possession of hollow point ammunition is a fourth degree crime under N.J.S.A. 2C:39-3(f), with an exemption at 2C:39-3(g)(2)(a) for transport “from point of purchase to their residence”. A mail shipment involves no such journey, which makes the interaction between that exemption and an online order a genuine grey area that our research could not resolve.

Two other New Jersey features make it harsher than people expect. First, the state defines handgun ammunition by interchangeability, which is the opposite of the federal approach: N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3.3(a) sweeps in ammunition intended for any other firearm and interchangeable between rifles and handguns, which catches .22 LR, .223 and 5.56 among others. Second, the Attorney General has used the public nuisance statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:58-35, against remote ammunition sellers — including a Nevada company selling into New Jersey. This is not theoretical enforcement risk; it has already happened to out-of-state sellers.

If a delivery address, a route, or a range day puts you in New Jersey, do not treat this post as clearance. Verify with official New Jersey sources before a hollow point is ordered or carried in. The shipping picture for New Jersey — permitted, but with heavy data duties — sits inside how ammunition ships.

Connecticut is the reversal

Connecticut gets grouped with New Jersey in a great many retailer blogs, usually as a state where hollow points are restricted, the age is 21, and every transaction is face to face. Reading the statute against the official Connecticut General Assembly text reverses that picture on the points we could check.

There is no in-person, face-to-face or dealer routing requirement anywhere in chapter 529. C.G.S. 29-38m(c) requires only that the buyer present a qualifying credential — one of five permits or certificates, including the ammunition certificate under 29-38n — together with government photo ID showing date of birth. The age is 18, not 21: “No person, firm or corporation shall sell ammunition or an ammunition magazine to any person under eighteen years of age.” The claims that Connecticut requires 21 or a face to face transaction are wrong on the statutory text and trace to retailer blogs.

On hollow points specifically, the honest position is narrower than a clean bill of health: no Connecticut hollow-point provision was located in the sections we read. Absence of a citation is not a legal conclusion, so if Connecticut is your destination, confirm with the official statute before relying on it. What the text does establish is that the two claims most often repeated about Connecticut — 21 and face to face — are both wrong.

The remaining limits, briefly

• New York City. Handgun ammunition may only be disposed of to a person licensed for that calibre, and rifle or shotgun ammunition requires the buyer to exhibit a permit together with a certificate of registration matching the specific firearm. Hollow point rifle ammunition is caught by that second limb.
• District of Columbia. Ammunition must be of the same calibre or gauge as the firearm on the registration certificate, and the sale or transfer must be made in person. Bullet construction is not the issue; the registration match is.
• Maryland. Sale of ammunition solely designed for a regulated firearm to anyone under 21 is barred. That is the whole of the seller’s burden as documented — no permit, no routing, no shipping prohibition, no records.
• Most of the map. Illinois, Colorado, Virginia, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and the rest of our checked open band impose no hollow-point-specific rule that we could document. They may still impose credentials, ages, or carrier duties; those belong in age and ID to buy ammunition.

Washington is worth a special mention because it is the state most often cited for ammunition restrictions that do not exist: the widely repeated claim that RCW 9.41.122 requires ammunition to route through a dealer is false. That statute concerns Washington residents buying long guns out of state and does not mention ammunition.

The decision rule

Outside New Jersey, and the narrow New York City and District of Columbia matches, a hollow point is a bullet choice rather than a legal one. Federal law does not restrict it, does not record it, and does not background-check it. Buy the load that performs in your gun — which for 9mm at $0.27 a round for practice against a bonded defensive hollow point is the decision covered in the 9mm buying guide — and keep the one state with a possession rule, plus the two cities with a registration match, firmly in mind whenever the delivery address or the itinerary changes. For .45 ACP shooters the same rule applies at $0.43 a round.

And before anything is ordered into a gated state, the general mechanics of getting a legal parcel delivered are in buying ammunition online.