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Thread: PC filled hollow points

  1. #1
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    PC filled hollow points

    The other day I took some 500gn (16 BHN) black PCed boolits and drilled our the noses with a 1/4” center drill. I then filled filled the space with red PC and baked again. When done they looked pretty cool, but how will they preform?

    Has anyone done this before?

    How can I tell how much expansion I’m getting? I don’t know how much it costs, but think ballistic gel is out of my price range. I’ve heard of wet telephone books. Any other ideas?

    How hard is PC? Do we know what it’s BHN is compared to the alloys we use?

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    bulk foods is your friend for gelatin to make ballistic gel, tatv on youtube has video on making it, very reasonable cost wise to do

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    Powder coat is very dureable. But not very hard. Actually its quite elastic like many polymers.

    For this reason I do not test BHN thru it because readings are always soft/lite/low.

    I dont really know how it would hold up as something to promote expansion but guess not very well. Lead esp something along the lines of 16bhn is tougher/stronger.

    At least thats my best guess.

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    Quote Originally Posted by brass410 View Post
    bulk foods is your friend for gelatin to make ballistic gel, tatv on youtube has video on making it, very reasonable cost wise to do
    Thanks for the info. I didn’t think it could be so cheap. I also enjoyed his video on making a rocket stove to melt lead. I’ve been thinking about using wood to melt range scrap instead of propane.

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    Quote Originally Posted by cwlongshot View Post
    Powder coat is very dureable. But not very hard. Actually its quite elastic like many polymers.

    For this reason I do not test BHN thru it because readings are always soft/lite/low.

    I dont really know how it would hold up as something to promote expansion but guess not very well. Lead esp something along the lines of 16bhn is tougher/stronger.

    At least thats my best guess.

    CW
    I agree with you that PC must be elastic to do what it does going down the bore of a rifle. Maybe the boolit will open up like a normal hollow point. I might try some with pure lead to see if it makes a difference. Perhaps even put a steel BB in it with the PC Thanks for your thoughts.

  6. #6
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    ive made gel from gelatin before, its alright it just isn't fun melting it every time you need it and it gets dirtier and cloudier, and do NOT let it go bad or it will smell like theres a dead horse in your house. as you mentioned, If you can get some source of phonebooks, newspaper anything that's soft paper you can use a stack of soaked paper that will do expanding well and leave an opening through it for you to see, followed by a waterjug or three to reduce velocity a bit more, and reduce how much paper you consume. then a box or bag of wrags, clothes ect. cause you don't really need more jugs once the projectile is slow. I like this way cause its easy and free if you can get free paper products.

    I don't know if I would intentionally fill hollow points with pc, ive heard some fill em with something rubbery like silicone or theres probably several things not sure whats best. do you mean filled flush after cured or is It cupped and still a HP

  7. #7
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    There is a slight cup after they are baked.

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    My thoughts would be a filled HP cavity would not impart the best expansion, if any at all.

    My reasoning is taken from actual ballistic tests performed on the effectiveness of hollow point bullets. What was found: assuming that one is shooting at a human body there is an 85% chance that a bullet is going to hit bone before penetrating the chest cavity. The cavity of a standard open hollow point bullet plugs with bone if it makes contact before expanding. Once plugged the ballistics then mirror the less effective FMJ. It is for this reason tests in ballistic gel without a bone plate overlay proves little as to the actual effectiveness on soft tissue, or at least 85% of the time.

    When I cast hollow points I powder coat, so I use pure lead or as close as I can find. Because the alloy is encased in a polymer jacket alloy hardness is not an issue with a properly coated & cured coating.

    I preheat my HP bullets at a high temp, spray PC, then cure regularly all on my "Bed of Nails", so the cavity remains uncoated. Then I size accordingly. This may not be a fix for a plugged HP cavity, but it won't be starting out plugged and at least what it hits will be hit with soft lead.
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  9. #9
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    Your bed of nails is a great idea. Makes me want to cast hollow points just so I’m sure they stay standing up.

  10. #10
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    Thanks Greg, if you decide you want a bed of nails I will tell you how I did mine, actually pretty simple.

  11. #11
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    have to agree. Anything in a hp usually stops it from expanding unless its harder then the lead and protrudes past the nose.
    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonheart View Post
    My thoughts would be a filled HP cavity would not impart the best expansion, if any at all.

    My reasoning is taken from actual ballistic tests performed on the effectiveness of hollow point bullets. What was found: assuming that one is shooting at a human body there is an 85% chance that a bullet is going to hit bone before penetrating the chest cavity. The cavity of a standard open hollow point bullet plugs with bone if it makes contact before expanding. Once plugged the ballistics then mirror the less effective FMJ. It is for this reason tests in ballistic gel without a bone plate overlay proves little as to the actual effectiveness on soft tissue, or at least 85% of the time.

    When I cast hollow points I powder coat, so I use pure lead or as close as I can find. Because the alloy is encased in a polymer jacket alloy hardness is not an issue with a properly coated & cured coating.

    I preheat my HP bullets at a high temp, spray PC, then cure regularly all on my "Bed of Nails", so the cavity remains uncoated. Then I size accordingly. This may not be a fix for a plugged HP cavity, but it won't be starting out plugged and at least what it hits will be hit with soft lead.
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  12. #12
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    A plugged HP doesn't expand is not my opinion, it is a fact proven by ballistic experts using commercial HP bullets. Of course they didn't test any pure lead cast bullets, which I would think would do better than a FMJ even if the cavity got plugged. Maybe I should do some tests just to see?

    This is also the reason I use Federal Guard Dog bullets in my carry handgun. They are high velocity light FMJ bullets, but the encapsulated nose is filled with soft polymer. When it hits there is nothing to plug so the nose crushes in on itself because the soft polymer gives in. It starts expanding immediately.

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    When I was developing loads for my hornet I wanted a test medium that mimicked flesh and what I found best was wool furniture padding compacketed and saturated with water. It's great to check for bullet performance but a pain in the butt to set up. I would cut a beer can open and stuff the wool into the can then saturate with water.

    I would fire straight down into the can, or cans, one on top of the other since I was getting full penetration of one can. Not a routine fun day at the range kind of test but very revealing. I'm sure one could come up with a more versatile way of setting up though that is range friendly.




    These bullets performed just the same on live critters so the medium is quite realistic. Penetration was the same as in the medium. Those bullets were fired at different velocities. To be realistic, the cans were placed in a steel tube, which I think may have made them more representative since the shock split the cans.

    Last edited by 303Guy; 05-03-2019 at 03:43 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by 303Guy View Post
    When I was developing loads for my hornet I wanted a test medium that mimicked flesh and what I found best was wool furniture padding compacketed and saturated with water. It's great to check for bullet performance but a pain in the butt to set up. I would cut a beer can open and stuff the wool into the can then saturate with water.

    I would fire straight down into the can, or cans, one on top of the other since I was getting full penetration of one can. Not a routine fun day at the range kind of test but very revealing. I'm sure one could come up with a more versatile way of setting up though that is range friendly.




    These bullets performed just the same on live critters so the medium is quite realistic. Penetration was the same as in the medium. Those bullets were fired at different velocities. To be realistic, the cans were placed in a steel tube, which I think may have made them more representative since the shock split the cans.

    Only problem is once I had enough "empty" cans I probably wouldn't be able to hit the little hole.

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    Silicone that doesn't shrink...remains pliable.
    And have the correct blend of Pb + Sn that is malleable, opens up and doesn't fragment, retains it's weight.



    I test in a water filled pipe...results are very close to the gelatin, just can't tell about the penetration depth but it'll show you whether the HP will open up and retain it's weight.



    Snubby tests...the top info is what the book said was the min/max...this snubby only developed 650fps if I remember correctly with the 3.2g's load but it worked well with the soft cast. The one on the left ricochet'd off the inside of the pipe and didn't open well.

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    Intresting...
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    I tested intentionally PC plugged HP cavities in ballistics gel awhile back. The expansion is marginally decreased but they still open up. The bullet on the far left of each series had the HP cavity filled completely to the top before baking. All the rest are unfilled for comparison. The pink material is the remnants of a doubled over shirt covering the gel that the bullets were fired through.

    9mm 128gr:
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    Last edited by KVO; 05-07-2019 at 02:00 PM.

  18. #18
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    My testing looks much like KVO. Did this early non too bad a computer crass took all the photos away before I had made a backup
    Started out doing my Hp's in hex nuts nose down and spraying . Worked great .. after finding dry tumbling did a lot of testing. Now all my hp's are shake and bake with not care for the hp cavity being filled or not..
    of course alloy hardness will play into expansion.. The softer the alloy the better the expansion ( info for the newer members here )
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    Quote Originally Posted by 303Guy View Post
    When I was developing loads for my hornet I wanted a test medium that mimicked flesh and what I found best was wool furniture padding compacketed and saturated with water. It's great to check for bullet performance but a pain in the butt to set up. I would cut a beer can open and stuff the wool into the can then saturate with water.

    I would fire straight down into the can, or cans, one on top of the other since I was getting full penetration of one can. Not a routine fun day at the range kind of test but very revealing. I'm sure one could come up with a more versatile way of setting up though that is range friendly.




    These bullets performed just the same on live critters so the medium is quite realistic. Penetration was the same as in the medium. Those bullets were fired at different velocities. To be realistic, the cans were placed in a steel tube, which I think may have made them more representative since the shock split the cans.

    Wetpack was often used before gel to test bullets by the bullet manuf. I still use it, but my supply of phone books is dwindling. It gives nearly identical expansion as gel or live game but about 75-80% of the penetration. My issue with water is it is actually too good for testing expansion & bullets that may not open in flesh will almost always open in water. Living targets are not that fluid.
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