Ballistic media

[PuppetZ]

Hi people, I want to run a test for different bullets, both cast and popular hunting J-words in 30 caliber. Got into an argument with a guy at my gun club about bullets and bone hit fragmentation and thought I"d find out for myself. I intend to shoot through damp newsprint but would like to also simulate a shot that hits a thick bone. I though about using a piece of wood put in front of the newsprint. Any suggestion on what essence to use? or maybe plywood?

[grouch]

As well as the newsprint, I'd try to get some heavy soup bones from a butcher shop - not for free but probably pretty cheap. Maybe try wrapping bones with newsprint. Please tell us how it goes.
Grouch

[dbosman]

Will your family eat a ham you shot?
Catch one on sale, keep it in a cooler before and after, and take lots of pictures before dinner.

[303Guy]

I've used water saturated wool furniture padding. Pack it tight and saturate it which means in a water proof container. It seems to closely simulate flesh. You might be able to make a bone simile using cement (not concrete, just plain cement and water). Might be cheaper to by dog or soup bones (and easier) although, if it works it would be easy to make a bunch in a mold. Two throw away plastic cups comes to mind, one inside the other with spacers. Marrow could be simulated too. Keep us posted, whatever you do.

[oldandslow]

PZ, 8/19/13

I've been doing a bit of experimenting with recovered rifle boolits and have found out a few things that work and many that don't. I'm recovering 30-30, 30-06 and .224 boolits in the 1800-2200 ft/second ranges. I tried sand, water, soaked newsprint and soaked paperback books. The easiest were the soaked paperback books (the larger format books from the Salvation Army store at $0.50 each). Books like "SAT Prep study book", "Federal Tax Code" and even a Jane Fonda autobiography- "My Life So Far." Soak the books for two days in a bucket. Don't crowd the books in the buckets as they swell up about half again their thickness and are hard to remove if wedged together. My rifle loads usually penetrate 16-19" of soaked books. If placed in buckets one in front of the other you can just look at the bucket for a hole to tell which set of books to inspect for the boolit. Then just pull out the books and flip through the pages and recover your boolit. It tells a lot about boolit toughness, recovered weight and expansion. If you wanted to hollow out one of the books and place a large bone you could find out the bone's effect on the boolit. Good luck.
'

best wishes- oldandslow

[mroliver77]

Most that use newspaper saturate it not just moisten. Bones are hollow and most are not very thick. I always figured something brittle like Masonite would simulate bone.

[Lead Fred]

A few years ago, I used elk bones and wrapped them in wet magazines to see what happened to them when using a 178gr A-Max @ 2880fps.

They turned the bones to dust. The Coroner called it bone jelification.

Cool beans