Penetration testing ??

[Harter66]

I know I've seen the question asked about 20 ways ,it always causes a ruckus.

What boolit by general design gives the best penetration/energy dump for a given task?

I've 1000s hrs of reading on the subject. My best conclusion is that a heavy wadcutter is it.2nd would be a semi of nearly bore ride nose dia.

Has anyone done an actual side by side of say 3 bullets/boolits 1 velocity ,1 cartridge,1 gun,1 medium? My example 38/357 w/a nominal boolit weight say 158gr at 1000 fps with a RNFP,SWC, TC,and a full WC. For that matter same designs in "nominal","standard" loads for say 9mm,45 FMJ ball(125/230). I do know that in some cases its apples/oranges,454 to 45AR or a 380 to a 38super.

I've at my bench the ablity to shoot for this test 38s from a Ruger Sec/6 and a S&W 38 RNFP,TC,SWC and fmj ball of about 130gr. I'm formulating this as I go. My trap would be 7" of fur w/an 1/8 crs backer and a 3/4 ply facer. I'm game to try it with 45Colts except that I've only 200grn RN and a 200 SWC for ACP or a 255 RNFP. I could cut the nose or base down to make it a 200gn WC or RNFP.

If somebody has done this please share if not agg me on.

[Larry Gibson]

I've done that many times. I most often used stacks of news print (news papers and Sfotgun News) that were thoroughly water soaked. I would shoot a cartridge/bullet combination of know performance into it as a "reference" to compare the performance of my reloads.

For Example;

.38 special +P cast bullet loads. I used 3 shots of Winchester 150 gr Lead HPs as a reference. Then into the same stack (different spots) the test loads are fired from the same revolver. All the loads are also chronographed at the same time so the actual velocity of the test shots is known.

Same thing with the 30-30 for examole; I shot a Federal, Winchester and Remington 170 gr factory load as "reference". Then I shot my 311041HP of various alloys, HP depth and velocity into the same test media from the same rifle. By reducing velocity to expected down range retained velocities you can also determine at what ranges the bullets cease to give preferred terminal performance. That gives me a max range to use my cast bullets with depending on cartridge.

With either I could then compare the test load penetration, expansion, velocity and "wound damage" (shows up quite readily from pulp radial damage) to that of the known performance cartridge. I've done this with numerous handgun cartridges and rifle cartridges to develop and compare the terminal effectiveness of my cast bullets. Using such developed and tested loads has proved to be 100% correct and effective on game such as pigs, deer, elk and bear.

Larry Gibson

[44man]

"Energy dump" and "Muzzle Energy" are myths to sell stuff!
Penetration tests also tell nothing to speak of. Take one boolit too fast and another slower that gives the same penetration in soaked paper, say 30" or more. One can zing through an animal with just a poked hole and the other can destroy internals. The boolit that did the most damage still has a tremendous amount of energy left after passage.
A bullet that expands and stops fast in paper with a lot of destruction can go through a buffalo without stopping.
Penetration tests are fun and if you are going to test real revolvers you better have 4' of soaked papers. A .44 mag boolit can go 33" to 36" yet kill an animal with a great deal of internal damage. A faster boolit can go less deep yet not do any damage in an animal except a little hole.
Some good .44 jacketed will stop in 11" yet kill poorly.
The idea of wood, fur and wood will tell you nothing as does all the other tests and I don't think a boolit can be recovered in that media.
I ran short of papers and phone books once and had a .475 boolit go through 36" of paper, a 1" backer board and half it's length in seasoned oak firewood. This boolit will knock a deer silly.
This boolit blew up 4 gallon jugs of water sky high, split 2 more and penetrated 14 jugs total, never to be found. A long time spent gathering jugs, filling them, setting them up just for one shot.
If you want to test boolits, go hunting and do a necropsy on every animal. Never tell me that what your boolit does in test media is good or bad.
It really is fun.
Even a 577 Nitro Express had poor penetration but I assure you that a deer would be a rag and a hunk of hair plus a red mist! [smilie=1:

[Omnivore]

Yup. After hunting for a few years I've totally abandioned the idea of predicting what will happen with a certain bullet at a certain velocity, whithout actually shooting a few deer with it.

Example; I've read about heavy 44 Mag JSP bullets expanding nicely, about other bullets being too fragile, and so on. Then I load a soft, swaged lead round ball into a 50 cal rifle and fire it at 1900 fps, hitting a deer at 25 yards, and the ball goes clean through, leaving an exit wound that looks exactly like the entry wound. No significant deformation. I recovered one ball from under the skin on the far side, and it was in good enough shape to reload. Another 50 cal ball hit the center heart and blew the heart wide open, into a pancake, like it had had an M40 go off inside, and the ball still exited through a little clean hole. A jacketed 7 mm VLD round at about 2500 detonates inside the animal, seemingly no matter what it hits.

John Ross wrote about testing terminal ballistics by shooting beef carcases. There's a pretty good test. I wouldn't begin to rely on any other.

[Junior1942]

I did side-by-side wet newspaper testing of several j-word bullets through my 10" 7mm TCU. Sooner or later I'll add a test with the group buy 7mm soupcan.

See http://www.castbullet.com/shooting/7tcu2.htm

[Harter66]

All which reinforces the theory that a full wadcutter is the perfect tissue disruptor.

Like the question was phrased a while back "HP or TC". Well HPs plug up and become ball in pistols,I've seen it in several traps and on film. Flat noses make shock waves.

My Dad shoots a 25-06' w/100gr Partitions that rarely exit ,I've seen it happen once in 33 years 28 deer,it was a little dumb 1 at about 75 yards. I fixed up what I thought would be fairly reactive rocker targets and was very frustrated by "missing" with a load id had tuned and dialed in the ol' Sec/6. 158 plated SWC about 1000fps , passed right through that plywood and 4x4 . The next target I shot was with some 85gr gold dots for a 380 (yd sale freebees). No exit and knocked the rocker clear over backwards.apples/oranges. I'm not shooting bowling pins w/a 357 and HPs intended for a 9mm Kurtz/380auto..........all side tracked here.

Side by side if we just want to make a deep hole in a given media douglas fir in this case(not coyote) and provide a reference point to say in my test a WC went deeper than an FMJ ball straighter too ,for example,and the 9mm GIball stopped x short of 45 GI ball 7 of 10. Not to take or give unfairly.

If my quest was only to wreck tissue i'd dumdum a HBWC outta ACWW.

[Spartacus]

A well placed .22 round is as effective as a 50 cal. I've dropped many a deer with a fatal headshot through the eyeball.

Anyway, here is my favorite penetration site (that is not X-rated anyway). Hope it helps.

http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Self_Defense_Ammo_FAQ/index.htm

[1Shirt]

An arguement that I doubt will ever end! That said, I like 44Mans response!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[gray wolf]

I agree, lot of fun but inconclusive.

[Harter66]

Let me try it another way . Shorter blunter.

Have we tested side by side , for your best boolit shape in a handgun cartrdge?

Jusy feels like too hard a question now .......................................

[MT Gianni]

I did side-by-side wet newspaper testing of several j-word bullets through my 10" 7mm TCU. Sooner or later I'll add a test with the group buy 7mm soupcan.

See http://www.castbullet.com/shooting/7tcu2.htm

Nice write up Junior. I trimmed 311413 with a 264 Win trim die and did not had the accuracy I hoped for. It may have been the loads at the time [1990 and still a novice with cast in a rifle]. It is interesting that your groups were still good. I may have to revisit the concept. There is a Harbor Freight store only 200 miles away. I find it a good idea that when I buy anything electronic there to open the box and plug it in before I leave town.

[geargnasher]

I agree with 44man as well. Here's a perfect example from some years ago when I did more hunting: .30-'06, 208 grain pointed boolit, 1850 fps, straight air-cooled wheel weights: Two kills, neither did more than stumble sideways and fall, maybe a twitch or two when shot in heart/lung area from the side. One had a large exit wound and the other had a nicely mushroomed 200-grain blob imbedded in the far-side shoulder blade. Both had mush for chest cavities and broken shoulders on the entry side. Same boolit, wdww at 2350 fps, punched clean hole straight through one, including the aorta, deer bolted and ran for almost half a mile before it bled out. It wouldn't have run so far but the boolit failed to break any significant bones in the shoulders. I didn't have any questions about what to do in a .30 caliber after that, and I think boolit shape had very little to do with it. Larger calibers, yes, but alloy, velocity, and nose shape have everything to do with killing power with larger calibers, and the best answer is there has to be a balance between the three.

Gear

[Harter66]

Gear
You pushed the same boolit faster but also hardened it and the results went from stelar to terrible. I'm sure that this is a place where we have examples to support every conclusion. Smirking here . I have an example of 2 bullets from the same box in the same deer . Both at 2700fps ,1 from a 1-12 308,1 from a1-9 06'(best guess a special order in 65'),both from 75yds , the 06' left the deer in full standing lock-up with a half dollar hole in the enrty ribs and a baseball exit,hence the follow up. The 308 penciled through with just a quarter sized exit 6"above. I could argue that fast twists make bullet/boolits blow-up or somehow expand better.I don't know that anything was learned from that day.

Not yet having a load that I would challange athority with and feel good about a 200 yard,as well as 50ft shot, I have no cast big game stories and only a couple of rabbit conclusions.

My random conclusions tend toward only my cheater collection trap outlined in the op . Lots of users,many guns and loads , nominal bullets for cartridge by style share depth , shallow to deep WC,ball,SWC,TC. My intent was to see if this had been specifically put to a controlled test,rather than my random public range obsevations.

That trap design has stopped 12ga slugs and about every pistol bullet put forward short of the S&Ws cannons,yeilding around 300# of lead in 2years.

[btroj]

I could see testing as a way to see how 2 different bullets do in the same medium. Made to compare, in your gun and medium, two different alloys. This would give a qualitative comparison but not a quantitative one.
The trouble comes in when trying to say how much penetration means what. Does 15 inches means a better killer than 10 inches?
I view it more as a test of the alloy, bullet shape, velocity balance. Does the bullet hold together? Deform? It let's me know if my hollow points are too brittle but not much else.
The biggest problem is when I try to extrapolate my results to your medium and your results. My comparison is relevant to me but to no one else. And it needs to be looked at for what it is, a guide. Not precise science but a way to compare two loads in a given medium.

I tend to do little of this kind of testing because it is too time and labor intensive. I just dig bullets from the berm and it tells me how they respond to impact on a pretty harsh medium. If they hold together in our clay soil when it is dry I know they will stay together on bone in animals. That is enough for me to know.

Brad

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
Well lots of experiments have been done over the years. Hatcher's tests on livestock, the 1978 green papers by the NRA, the FBI tests, as well as the constant testing by bullet & ammo manufactures.

Jeff cooper's, Elmer Kieth's, Verel Smith's, Gates's,etc. tests all lead to similar conclusions.

Pistols work best with blunt (lg. medplats) noses, at 1,000'/s or better. Heavy bullets penetrate better than light bullets. 40 cal. or bigger are the best killers/fight stoppers.
Rifles work in a similar pattern, but with higher velocities allowing smaller cal. to be effective. German terminal velocity impact tests, 1970's, indicate a effective alklinic nervous system (sp) shock effect (not hydrostatic shock) at 2800'/s ( jacked bullets).
HP sometimes do work spectacularly (thus making smaller cal. bullets very effective) & sometimes do not work. they always trade expansion for penetration.
Two holes are better than one. They leak better. Big holes are better than little holes , they leak faster. But two holes means some energy was wasted on the mountainside (another trade off).

44 man's, Larry Gibson's, Jerry Lister's, Lloyd Smile's, & J.J. Hack's EXTENSIVE PRACTICAL HUNTING EXPERIENCE lends heavy weight to what they have to say. Listen to what they say. If they say it works you can bet it does.