Expansion testing questions

[selmerfan]

Okay, so I want to deer hunt with my cast boolits next year as they are slung from my .308 Win. I've got the 311299 NOE GB mold, one HP cavity. I've killed many deer with cast boolits with a .454 Casull and .357 Maximum, but those projectiles don't rely on expansion for drill a big hole. I would like the 311299 to expand out of my .308 Win and .30-06 rifles for deer hunting. So...I've got four different lots of boolits cast up for expansion testing. Lyman #2, 50/50 WW/Pb, Dental X-ray lead (yes, I have a lot of dental foil lead - about 140 lbs. worth), and WW+ 2% tin, all air-cooled. I have standard 311299 profile and HP 311299s in each alloy option, all gas-checked. In your experience, what should I use for expansion testing to see what will mushroom and hold together. My goal is 1800-2000 fps for velocity. I regularly shoot in a sand/gravel pit and can recover boolits from there, but they are very, very beat up and I know it doesn't simulate a critter. Without spending the money for a ballistic gelatin test tube, what should I be using to check this out? Milk jugs of water lined up? And at what range should I test? 50 yds, 100 yds? I'm looking at a 200 yds max range for shooting at deer. I know some of you out there have done this, I'd love your advice. Or have any of you already done this so I don't have to re-invent the wheel? :grin:

[selmerfan]

Or I could also make the two-part alloy boolits, but that's a PITA and I'd rather just cast an alloy. But if two-part boolits are the best option, I can cast them up for hunting.

[buyobuyo]

I don't have first hand experience, but I've read quite a bit on here that wet pack newspaper is a pretty close simulation. I would test at the distance you plan on hunting. Also, water dropped 50/50 PB/WW, with the tin bumped to 2% or so, seems to be a very popular hunting alloy. I cast with 50/50, but I haven't had time to do the expansion testing that I want to do.

[waksupi]

First thing to do is rule out the hollow point for hunting. I wouldn't worry about the testing. Just go with your heaviest, most accurate boolit. With a good flat nose, you will have an exit wound of around 1.5". Perfect.

[zac0419]

When I was curious about this I came across this in my search. I have yet to test anything but wet newsprint does seem to be the best "inexpensive" way to test. Make sure you post results. I would add a layer or two since you're using a .308.

http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/Expansion%20and%20Penetration.htm

[Mk42gunner]

You can find well respected members here that have directly opposite opinions on hollowpoints for deer hunting; I certainly don't have the definitive answer, but I lean to the big boolit that will make holes on both sides of the animal camp.

I would test up close (25-50 yards) and at the max range you plan to shoot.

I don't think any test medium actually compares to flesh and bone, but if your family drinks milk like my kid does, milk jugs of water are the way to go. At least water is consistant, until it gets solid.

It really helps transportation if you have water available at the range to fill the jugs.

Robert

[Larry Gibson]

Probably one of the few times I disagree with waksupi, the HP with a proper alloy kills much better/quicker. A velocity of 2000 fps, even upwards of 2200 fps if all is well, with very good hunting accuracy is easily obtainable with the .308W and a 311299 bullet. You've a good selection of alloys to test but I would suggest another one; WW+2% tin/lead at 50/50 also air cooled.

Collect a stack of newsprint 20" thick. Tie it very loosely with cord and put it in a heavy duty garbage bag in a larger cardbord box or other suitable container. Fill the bag over the top of the stack of paper with water and let soak for a week or so. Pour the water out and take to range. Make sure water has soaked all the way through the stack. Tighten the cords and set the stack on edge. Back off to a distance of 25 yards.

Have 3 "control/reference" loads made up with 170 gr jacketed (Speer, Hornady or Sierra will work fine) 30-30 bullets. One that does 2200 fps, one at 1900 fps and one at 1500 fps. This will approximate muzzle, 100 yards and 200 yards. Shoot those 3 loads into different spots on the stack. The shoot 3 bullets of each alloy into different spots. Peel the layers of newsprint back comparing the "wound" cavities and the expansion of your test bullets to the same level velocity ones of the jacketed control/reference bullets at the same comparable velocity.

That will give you an excellent idea how your cast .30 cal HP bullets compare to the "classic" 30-30 SPs. I've conducted this test numerous times over the years and my HP .30 cal cast bullets perform almost on par with the factory jacketed 30-30 loads. BTW: I use a 311041 HP, a 311291HP and a 311299HP with equal success in various .30 cartridges.

Larry Gibson

[leftiye]

Or, one could anneal the noses of 50/50 WW/pure boolits that have been heat treated. Heavy flat nose boolits as has been said. I like my .375 H&H with about a 300 grain HPGC boolit. Annealed noses there too. Same with 270 grain devastator in .44 mag.

[waksupi]

I only base my opinion on results I have had on deer and elk with the .30 bore.

[44man]

I like Larry's idea of a comparison bullet. That looks like it would tell you a lot about your cast boolit performance.

[cajun shooter]

First, When I was doing bullet testing on the new Super Vel ammo in the 70's we used a product by the name of Duct Seal. It was sold in blocks for doing HVAC work. It was tauted at that time as being one of the best testing material to use.
They had that and a bullet gelatin that was mixed from two components.
I have had a mixed result using HP bullets on deer. I'm speaking of the factory type. Some would do so much damage that you lost good meat and others would just punch through and if no bones were hit, they exited the other side doing little damage.
A good weight rifle bullet made from a good alloy that is no harder than Lyman #2 should meet most needs. Deer are only hard to kill when the shot misses the heart or lungs. You then have to be a good tracker if this happens.

[fredj338]

Collect a stack of newsprint 20" thick. Tie it very loosely with cord and put it in a heavy duty garbage bag in a larger cardbord box or other suitable container. Fill the bag over the top of the stack of paper with water and let soak for a week or so. Pour the water out and take to range. Make sure water has soaked all the way through the stack. Tighten the cords and set the stack on edge. Back off to a distance of 25 yards.

Yep, wetpack testing was the bullet industry std before gello. It actually works quite well & is very repeatable. Bullets I have pulled from wetpack look a lot like the few I recover from large game animals. the only diff is penetration. Wetpack stacks in front of the bullet & slows it down sooner than gello. Figure about 75% of the penetration you would get in gello. Neither replicates the exact qualities of living flesh & bone though. You only need to soak it for 24hrs though IME. It really won't hold any more water after that.

[MtGun44]

Actually, I have done a lot of wet newsprint/phone book tests with pistols and always
get 1/2 the penetration of factory tests. So, at least for factory jacketed pistol bullets I
very consistently get 1/2 the penetration compared to gelatin tests done by the factories
with the same bullets, and the final condition of the bullet looks exactly the same.

Perhaps with rifle velocities, it changes, I haven't done it with rifles.

Bill

[fredj338]

Actually, I have done a lot of wet newsprint/phone book tests with pistols and always
get 1/2 the penetration of factory tests. So, at least for factory jacketed pistol bullets I
very consistently get 1/2 the penetration compared to gelatin tests done by the factories
with the same bullets, and the final condition of the bullet looks exactly the same.

Perhaps with rifle velocities, it changes, I haven't done it with rifles.

Bill

I sort of calibrate the wetpack shots using a known factory JHP load. Most come up about 65-75% of what the gello shots get, 9-12" for most loads that yield 12-15" in gello. So I should say avg 70% of gello IME. I so use phone books instead of newsprint, that could be diff.

[BABore]

Wet pack will do you just fine. It demonstrates expansion and wound channel well. It is a bit denser than deer flesh, so penetration will be a bit less than meat abd lungs. I have layered green rib bones and even beef leg bones a couple inches in when I wanted to test specific alloys for heavier critters. But, do as Larry suggests and establish a baseline with a equivilent weight jacketed bullet. If you use a baseline bullet, of known performance, then type of media is less important.

HP boolits do have their place and do work well if tested beforehand and done right. Alot of people shoot for the classic mushroom and IMO that is a mistake. While they look perty for pictures, they also limit penetration, can delfect on bone, and generally don't drive straight. Will anybody dismiss the effectiveness of the Nosler Partition? It's designed to rapidly expand and shed the nose up to the partition when ranges are short and/or velocity is high. The partition position in relationship to the OAL is there to give you a deep penetrating shank once the nose is gone. At longer range/lower velocity it will develope a smaller mushroom that will still penetrate.

Translated into a cast boolit, a HP with a cavity size, depth, and alloy tweaked will give you the same effect. Annealing the nose of a water dropped, 50/50 alloy boolit will perform the same. I've killed deer with both types in 30 caliber and above. Even on quartering shots, expansion and penetration is there.

[fredj338]

BA, I wouldn't say the NP is "Designed" to fragment & shed it's nose, but it can when impact vel exceed the design. This is the 210gr/338 NP fired @ 338-06 vel. It mushrooms nicely w/ an impact vel of 2700fps or a bit less. Out @300, I don't think it expands mcuh at all. Left is wetpack shot @ 25yds, Right is from a big 500# kudu shot @ about 100yds.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/210GRNP.jpg

[youngda9]

Doesn't take much to kill a deer. Punch a hole through one...broadside through the pump station, and evaluate the damage. Flat point would be good. Glenn Fryxell websight has a good article on hardness of lead vs velocity for expansion.

[Love Life]

I use milk jugs lined up. I use water with one packet of jello added in to give it a blood like consistancy/viscosity. If I put real effort into it I will stick a pine board in between milk jugs to simulate hitting a bone.

Fill milk jug halfway with warm water. Heat jello/water per instructions. Add to milk jug. Fill rest of way with warm water. Stick in fridge overnight. If you want to simulate skin as well then hang a piece of leather over the milk jugs.

[white eagle]

couldn't a hp act like a partition if the alloy were harder than what is normally thought of as a good hp alloy ??
whereby blowing the nose off after initial impact and continuing on its merry way

[tuckerdog]

311041 @ 1700-1800 25%ww 75% pure lead will expand well and = venison steaks.

as far as test medium try gallon freezerbags full of thick oatmeal it makes a mess but is as close as I've come without using road kill. it'll take about 15 of them or more depending on distance

[Oreo]

Has anyone tried rubber mulch? Will that stuff expand a hp or sp? Sure would be convenient on account of its reusability.

[snuffy]

If you're really REALLY serious, then this stuff is the ultimate test medium.

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=22956/Product/THE-BULLET-TEST-TUBE

The only problem is; the company seems to be tits-up, ballistic technologies, that is. Their website is still up, but they do not respond to questions or orders from their website.

http://www.thebullettesttube.com/

I got enough of the test tubes to be able to take 3 rifle test shots per range session. Since it's a single use platform, you have only one chance per day-per test tube.

Turn around is a 2-3 day scenario. It take about 4 hours to melt and re-cast on rifle size tube. Then a whole day for them to cool.

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/cannont2ifolder/websize/expansion%20test%20num2%20032.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/cannont2ifolder/websize/expansion%20test%20num2%20027.jpg

Above is the pistol test tube with speer gold dot factory loads. Below is a rifle test tube showing expansion of Nosler 60 grain partition out of a AR-15 @ 25 yards.

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/bullets/websize/expansion%20test%20003.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/cannont2ifolder/websize/IMG_0376.jpg

Above is more to the point of this thread, testing cast boolits. That's a Miha penta point 200 out of my SA 45.

Media is melted in a slow cooker. It must be poured in stages, like 3 pours about an hour apart, or it shrinks too much and can leave voids/hollow areas. Anybody that has made candles, knows how wax behaves when poured in molds.

Yes, the media is a soft emulsified wax compound. I wish I knew what the formula is for it. There's considerable expense involved, and a lot of work. Since the company seems to be kaput, they don't sell new tubes to re-cast. I found a place on-line that sells shipping tubes, they're NOT cheap! But I have enough tubes to last a good while.

[Larry Gibson]

Problem with that test media is it is good for one shot then must be remelted. This can take many, many trips back and forth between home and the range (for those of us who don't have a "home" range:cry:

The wet newsprint stack can take 6 - 12 shots with a hand gun or 4 - 9 shots with a rifle depending on the power of the loads.

Larry Gibson

[quilbilly]

A couple times every year our post office gets a whole bunch of extra phone books. They just tell me to take as many as I want so I take enough to make a stack 22 inches thick. At home I tie the stack up, stabilize it on the sides with a couple boards, then just set it out in the rain on a tall stump. I shoot at it from 40 yards. I believe this set up is good enough to simulate a deer.
As soon as we get enough rain I will be testing some 250-3000 cast boolit loads and my 223 cast boolit loads.

[JJC]

Check this one out http://www.realguns.com/Commentary/comar171.htm

[MtGun44]

I agree with Larry. I like being able to get about 9 tests on a stack of old phone books.
Of course, phone books are heading along the dodo birds route these days.

Bill

[303Guy]

fredj338, that is a nice photo!

[fredj338]

Problem with that test media is it is good for one shot then must be remelted. This can take many, many trips back and forth between home and the range (for those of us who don't have a "home" range:cry:

The wet newsprint stack can take 6 - 12 shots with a hand gun or 4 - 9 shots with a rifle depending on the power of the loads.

Larry Gibson
Thanks 303!
Exactly why I perfer wetpack to any other method. Water jugs; water is quite hard & can make a poor bullet show expansion that fails in wetpack or gell. You get one shot & done in water or gello. Wetpack, you can get 5-6 handgun shots in a phonebook size setup, 3-4 rifle shots. You only need 12" or so to stop most expanding handgun bullets, 20" for most rifle bullets. So with a couple of stacks I can test 10-12 shots per outing if needed. As Mtngun notes, phone books are getting scarce now, so I may have to resort to newsprint. About all most news papers are good for anymore.

[snuffy]

Two problems,(at least 2), with wet pack. 1, it's HEAVY! 2, What do you do with it after you use it? Oh and 3, if you can't get phone books, or news print, you can't test anything. Around here, we're required to re-cycle everything paper. 3-a you have to store the stuff until you're ready to use it. Dunno 'bought you, but I have no room for stuff like that.

I used to use milk jugs w/water, again storing them was a hassle to do a range session. The busted jugs could be recycled, were recycled. I suppose I could dump the used wet pack in the recycle bin, that means lugging that heavy **** home again.

While a hassle, my test tubes are infinitely recyclable even though it's a lot of work and time. They're rather light, no problem hauling or carrying.

[Larry Gibson]

I let the paper dry out and put into the recycle, no problem.

Larry Gibson

[fredj338]

Two problems,(at least 2), with wet pack. 1, it's HEAVY! 2, What do you do with it after you use it? Oh and 3, if you can't get phone books, or news print, you can't test anything. Around here, we're required to re-cycle everything paper. 3-a you have to store the stuff until you're ready to use it. Dunno 'bought you, but I have no room for stuff like that.

I used to use milk jugs w/water, again storing them was a hassle to do a range session. The busted jugs could be recycled, were recycled. I suppose I could dump the used wet pack in the recycle bin, that means lugging that heavy **** home again.

While a hassle, my test tubes are infinitely recyclable even though it's a lot of work and time. They're rather light, no problem hauling or carrying.

The cost & one shot only keeps me from using something like the shot tubes. A stack of phone books takes up little space. Yes it is heavy, waaaah. So is lugging water jugs. The convenience of 4-6shots per test is why I like wetpack & it's 100% repeatable, even ballistic gello has to be kept @ specfic temps & trnaported in collers to give repeatable results. To each his own, but I am not paying for bullet testing mat'l.:roll: I just drop them in my recycle bin, it is paper after all.

[BABore]

couldn't a hp act like a partition if the alloy were harder than what is normally thought of as a good hp alloy ??
whereby blowing the nose off after initial impact and continuing on its merry way

Harder alloys either fail to expand at all or when they do expand, the nose fragments into very tiny pieces and the nose rivets. Little fragments don't make good secondaries If you have to shoot a hard alloy for accuracy, then water dropping and annealing the nose is a good option.

[BABore]

BA, I wouldn't say the NP is "Designed" to fragment & shed it's nose, but it can when impact vel exceed the design. This is the 210gr/338 NP fired @ 338-06 vel. It mushrooms nicely w/ an impact vel of 2700fps or a bit less. Out @300, I don't think it expands mcuh at all. Left is wetpack shot @ 25yds, Right is from a big 500# kudu shot @ about 100yds.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/210GRNP.jpg

That 210 gr 338 bullet was designed as a light weight, high velocity loading for the 338 Win Mag. The 338-06 doesn't exist in Nosler's mind as it's a wildcat. In your 338-06 it mushrooms beautifully just as it would in a 338 win mag at 250+ yards. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work for you as is.

[fredj338]

That 210 gr 338 bullet was designed as a light weight, high velocity loading for the 338 Win Mag. The 338-06 doesn't exist in Nosler's mind as it's a wildcat. In your 338-06 it mushrooms beautifully just as it would in a 338 win mag at 250+ yards. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work for you as is.
Maybe. The Nosler manual has had 338-06 data in it for quite a while & they praise their 210gr as THE bulelt of choice in the 338-06. I have to agree, I have taken little Duiker to elk, kudu & zebra & many things inbetween. It's a very good bullet in a very good cartridge.[smilie=p: