Abstract: An improved incapacitating projectile to replace the conventional lethal bullet in the corresponding cartridges for various smallarms in general use, notably including police sidearms. In this projectile, propelled by a conventional smallarms powder charge, a suitable volume of propellant powdergas is admitted upon firing to a chamber inside the projectile, and is transmitted retained within the projectile chamber to the target. As target impact retards the projectile body, a piston in this chamber travels forward, impelled by its own momentum, ejecting this hot powdergas--further re-heated by compression and friction--through a "pinhole" aperture in the projectile's nose, upon its human or animal target.Because this arrangement incapacitates instantly by inflicting an intolerably acute localized burn, the projectile body may be made of material of mass low enough to prevent or minimize the possiblity of a serious penetrating or blunt-trauma wound.