So here's where I might go wrong as well but for what its worth I'll give you my understanding. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, this is just what I have always been told re hunting bullets
- A frangible hunting bullet is not made from a specific material (i.e. a powder etc). Rather it is designed to do a specific thing. That thing, is to basically shatter into razor sharp shards on impact. So you could divide hunting bullets (simplisitically) into solids (punch through an elephants skull and stay in one piece), expanding (softs, controlled expansion in various forms - think something that punches into a deers or pigs engine room, maybe after going in through the leg, expands to cause maximum damage, but aims to stay as much as possible in a single piece (max weight retention)), and lastly frangible.
The idea with the frangible one is to hit and shatter near the surface. Shreds rabbits, foxes etc. Hit a big heavy boned animal with one and depending on where it hits you cause a really nasty fleshwound and probably don't get to the vitals. So I use frangible bullets in my 223, and expanding ones in my 308.
This is a good article on the effective difference
https://ronspomeroutdoors.com/blog/fran ... -big-game/