Two-Projectile Loads in Snubby for Self-Defense

[pettypace]

At today's Snubbyfest", I finally managed a two-projectile penetration test that eliminated the possibility of drafting.

With the gel set at about 20 yards from the muzzle I hoped for enough vertical dispersion to get one projectile into the gel and the other over the top. Unfortunately, I only had five rounds of the two 105 grain wadcutter loads with me. For the first three shots, everything went over the top of the gel. So, I only got two projectiles into the gel -- the lower striking projectile of shots 4 and 5. The picture below shows the two wadcutters in the right hand block after about 16" of penetration. The two "calibration" rounds are in the left hand block after about 8" and 10" of penetration.

Attachment 242246

I don't consider two rounds to be much of a test. But we did measure the velocity (653 ft/s and 686 ft/s) and the two shots gave almost identical penetrations of just over 16". Admittedly, the gel has not been calibrated since leaving Clear Ballistics and it has been re-cast at least four or five times. But the two JHP "pseudo-calibration" rounds (a 95 grain +P Silvertip and a 90 grain Hornady Critical Defense) still haven't penetrated past the first 11" block of gel.

At any rate, I'm certain that there was no "drafting" involved here because the two wadcutters in the gel are from two different shots. Although it appears in the picture as though they followed a single path in the first block, a view from the top shows the two paths are actually separated by about an inch horizontally.

[Michael J. Spangler]

I thought that the gel was good to go and didn't need to be calibrated? They send it with a calibration sheet showing its original consistency and I believe it's good to go from there on out.

Either way I remembered to bring my dial 75 grain wadcutter loads last night.
With a light charge (I believe 2.5 grain of clays) The projectiles penetrated about 12-13 inches. This was firing 5 or 6 into a block that was a little shot up already. So a couple went further. Most of them having landed in the 12-13 inch range though. A single made its way further along (probably followed an existing wound track) and one load acted like a 148 grain wadcutter because the two bullets did not separate at all so that went through the 16" block and into the second block about 4"

I'm a little too excited with the new gel to slow down and focus on one bullet. I think I shot almost all of my SD ammo to get some cool bullet art this past week. So I MIGHT slow down and get some proper tests done next week.

Oh and the double .360" round ball loads zipped through the 16" of gel and went off into the sunset. Backed up by a second block the balls were stopped about 4" in. so 20" total

The triple .460" round ball loads in the 45/70 ( Don't recall the velocity but I'm going to say maybe it was 850ish) Zipped through 2 blocks of gel and off into the sunset. I did manage to catch one ball in the rear block of gel
I was very surprised to get that much penetration.

[pettypace]

I thought that the gel was good to go and didn't need to be calibrated? They send it with a calibration sheet showing its original consistency and I believe it's good to go from there on out.

Yes. The Clear Ballistic gel comes with a calibration certificate. But I just wondered whether re-melting changes it. As far I can tell, there's been no change after about five re-melts. But I still enjoy seeing those "pseudo-calibration" light weight JHPs fail to meet the minimum FBI standard while the two-projectile loads sail right past them.

The triple .460" round ball loads in the 45/70 ( Don't recall the velocity but I'm going to say maybe it was 850ish) Zipped through 2 blocks of gel and off into the sunset. I did manage to catch one ball in the rear block of gel
I was very surprised to get that much penetration.

What's your load for three round balls in the 45-70, Mike?

[Michael J. Spangler]

Good point. It’s always good to keep a constant while testing.

I would have to check but I believe it’s 8 grains of unique with 3 balls.

[pettypace]

At yesterday's Snubbyfest there was lots of interest in gel testing tumbling bullets. But I did get a chance to fire a cylinder full of the "Two Aspirins" load -- two 70 grain wadcutters loaded base-to-base over a stiff load of 4756 to about 950 ft/s. This was one of the first loads I tried before I had any ballistic gelatin and still believed (mistakenly) that energy was the key to penetration. As things developed, I never got around to testing this load in the gel until yesterday.

Of the five rounds fired, eight bullets remained in the gel with these penetrations: 11", 12", 12", 12.5", 12.5", 13", 13.5", and 14".

Both MacPherson and Schwartz predict about 11" of penetration for a 70 grain wadcutter at 950 ft/s. So, once again, the wadcutters out-performed predictions. Whether this level of penetration is really adequate for civilian self-defense is open to debate. It was clear, however, that the load has plenty of horsepower. One shot stood the first block of gel on it's end and another shot knocked the first block of gel off the table and onto the ground. So, there's some serious momentum transfer when two full .36 caliber metplats at 950 ft/s hit the gel simultaneously. But personally, I'd rather see a load straining to get out the back door of the FBI 12" - 18" penetration standard than one straining to get into the front door.

[luvtn]

Back in the 1980’s I read of an deputy sheriff that carried a triple ball load in his BUG (.38 spcl snub). A criminal in a courtroom grabbed his duty weapon, and was subsequently shot in the chest with the triple ball load. Instant stop! I had a friend who reloaded, make some up for me, using the Speer plastic capsules, three #1 buckshot, with an unknown to me powder. I couldn’t load up a cylinder full due to the plastic breaking from the recoil. It rained buckshot ;(
luvtn
Three #1 (.30) x3=.90. Why do you consistently say that two .35 projectiles equal .50? Instead of .70?

[Michael J. Spangler]

Back in the 1980’s I read of an deputy sheriff that carried a triple ball load in his BUG (.38 spcl snub). A criminal in a courtroom grabbed his duty weapon, and was subsequently shot in the chest with the triple ball load. Instant stop! I had a friend who reloaded, make some up for me, using the Speer plastic capsules, three #1 buckshot, with an unknown to me powder. I couldn’t load up a cylinder full due to the plastic breaking from the recoil. It rained buckshot ;(
luvtn
Three #1 (.30) x3=.90. Why do you consistently say that two .35 projectiles equal .50? Instead of .70?

Area is different that diameter.

I sell food for a living and run into it with menu pricing all the time. a 10" pizza is half the area of a 14" pizza.
78 square inches vs 158 square inches.
I had an account price his 20" pizza double the price of a 10" personal pizza.
the 20" pizza is 314 square inches.over 4 times the amount toppings.

If you scroll back there was some math done on this.

[35remington]

Areas of a circle is Pi radius squared.

[luvtn]

You all must be using NEW math. Why are you using Pi R2 for an simple addition problem? This isn’t about toppings on a pizza. .30+.30+.30=.90; if I put 3 balls in a row and mic them it won’t be .50. In other words: three separate holes of .30=.90 collectively. I don’t understand why you are using area? Instead of diameter?
luvtn

[35remington]

Because diameter as you are using it is not relevant when comparing .30 to .50 as he did before. He is comparing frontal area correctly.

Three balls of .30” diameter do not have .90” of frontal area that impacts the target medium. Frontal area is measured in square inches.

Frontal area of a combined number of bullets is not found by addition of the diameter of the bullets.

Visualize this: four circles of .3” diameter fit inside a .6” circle. The .6” circle has about four times the area of a .3” circle. This is not new math, just correct math.

[35remington]

The frontal area of a .3” ball is not .3” as that lacks the correct unit of measure. It is around 0.0707 square inch. Three of them would have a combined frontal area of about 0.212 square inches, not “0.90” as you imply.

Doing the math, a 0.60” ball would have a frontal area of about 0.283 square inches. There is slight rounding error in the above but it makes my point handily.

The volume of a hole displaced by a bullet assuming the bullet maintains its diameter after impact increases disproportionately with increases in diameter. Keeping the math out of it, simple visualization of circles of various diameter will make this very evident.

Similarly, if you want to increase the displacement of an engine, more is gained by boring it an additional inch than stroking it an additional inch. The square of the radius explains why a small to moderate increase in the diameter of a circle increases its area significantly.

[luvtn]

So why do we use caliber, and not “frontal area” to describe the bullet? Seems like you all bait and switch, forget we are talking about apples? To me. When someone gets shot
No one says he was shot with a .283 frontal area bullet!
gramps

[Michael J. Spangler]

So why do we use caliber, and not “frontal area” to describe the bullet? Seems like you all bait and switch, forget we are talking about apples? To me. When someone gets shot
No one says he was shot with a .283 frontal area bullet!
gramps

Because most people don't know all the details or care to understand them. This is what separates the men from the boys in terminal ballistic discussions.

That's why we're doing all the math to figure out what diameter and shape does more damage. As pettypace noted a few posts back there is some math showing the crush of a bullet based off of shape and caliber.
Smaller diameter full wadcutter bullets can cause way more crush than a round nose of a larger diameter.
All good information and awesome learning on this thread for noobs and veterans alike

[luvtn]

I have enjoyed the discussions. Dead is dead, whether by round ball, LSWC, WFN, or LFN. Carry on.
luvtn

[str8wal]

Dead is dead, whether by round ball, LSWC, WFN, or LFN. Carry on.
luvtn

Some bullet profiles cause more internal damage than others, as well as penetration and course of direction after impact. Dead is dead, but some critters require more "killing" than others

[owejia]

Pettypace have you positioned a breast bone type material in front of the gelatin before trying the dual load projectile loads? Have not had a chance to do any more testing with the double ball loads in my Chiefs special. Have you tried a triple projectile load in the 38 snubby?

[pettypace]

Pettypace have you positioned a breast bone type material in front of the gelatin before trying the dual load projectile loads? Have not had a chance to do any more testing with the double ball loads in my Chiefs special. Have you tried a triple projectile load in the 38 snubby?

Haven't done any breast bone testing. But I think it's a good idea. Any suggestions on what might make a good breast bone simulant?

Three projectiles? Maybe not such a good idea. There's barely enough room in a .38 Special case for two -- unless they were those little coolie hat shaped things mentioned above somewhere. (See post #114).

[onelight]

I would try raw pork ribs but brassfetcher has some type of material to simulate bone.

http://www.brassfetcher.com/Bone%20S...ne%20Test.html
But a 38 snub in my opinion is in the marginal range of bullet performance (reliable expansion + penetration) to me that is what makes this multi bullet thread interesting if you can get both bullets on target with adequate penetration you have doubled the damage compared to one bullet that probably is not going to expand anyway . But I have no idea how larger bones like spine , legs and arms affect performance of any load from a snub 38 and different bullet weights. It kinda boils down to are two simultaneous hits from a 380 better than 1 hit from heavier 38.

[Michael J. Spangler]

I would try raw pork ribs but brassfetcher has some type of material to simulate bone.

http://www.brassfetcher.com/Bone%20S...ne%20Test.html
But a 38 snub in my opinion is in the marginal range of bullet performance (reliable expansion + penetration) to me that is what makes this multi bullet thread interesting if you can get both bullets on target with adequate penetration you have doubled the damage compared to one bullet that probably is not going to expand anyway . But I have no idea how larger bones like spine , legs and arms affect performance of any load from a snub 38 and different bullet weights. It kinda boils down to are two simultaneous hits from a 380 better than 1 hit from heavier 38.

I have to disagree with reliable expansion for this discussion. I think we have plenty of good bullets available today but more so because pettypace is relying on a non expanding full cylinder profiles for the highest crush without relying on expansions.
Also as far as penetration I shot a wadcutter target load from a 7 1/2” blackhawk into gel last night. The bullet cleared the gel and went off into the sunset.
158 SWC HP loads from a snubby we’re averaging 13” of penetration and quite a bit of expansion. These were old factory Remington swayed loads.
I’ll try to show some pics last night.
The dual ball load from the blackhawk cleared the 16” gel block

[onelight]

I have to disagree with reliable expansion for this discussion. I think we have plenty of good bullets available today but more so because pettypace is relying on a non expanding full cylinder profiles for the highest crush without relying on expansions.
Also as far as penetration I shot a wadcutter target load from a 7 1/2” blackhawk into gel last night. The bullet cleared the gel and went off into the sunset.
158 SWC HP loads from a snubby we’re averaging 13” of penetration and quite a bit of expansion. These were old factory Remington swayed loads.
I’ll try to show some pics last night.
The dual ball load from the blackhawk cleared the 16” gel block

Gel and water are very good at comparing bullet expansion in those mediums I don’t know if there is anything better to test bullet expansion. But they are not the same as clothing flesh and bone.
Brassfecher has his bone substitute in tests for a few calibers and the are only 2 or three type bullets that expand after passing through it. I think it would be hard to predict bullet expansion penetration from expanding bullets in the 650 to 850 FPS you normally get from 2” or less barrels in clothing flesh and bone but that is just 1 guys opinion we all get to have one. That is why I like wadcutters Or large flat point bullets , or possibly multiple projectiles.
Short barrels compromise power and performance.