Bullet Recovery Ideas Needed.

[fjrdoc]

Hi All
I have decided to ask members on Cast Boolits for ideas for how to try and recover hollow-point cast hunting boolits to check expansion. I have been working up nice hunting loads for my 9mm and 9.5 mm Mannlicher Schoenauer rifles. These boolits are 200 and 250 grs respectively.
I would like to shoot these at my range into some form of backstop that would allow me to recover them and examine their level of expansion. I understand that range testing won't exactly simulate actual hunting effect but it would be better than nothing.
Thanks in advance.

[deces]

Steel plate inside of a truck tire would be a good start.

[BLAHUT]

Wet news paper; Water bath, 55 gal drum full, will stop and collect; Ballistic jell;

[Outpost75]

On a hot summer day stand on the end of the diving board and shoot into the deep end of the pool.

[fjrdoc]

I can make some ballistic gel. I have no idea of how much penetration to expect. I will need to shoot at 25 yards in order to keep things near the back stop. Newspaper could be placed behind the gel.

[country gent]

"Fluff" up wet sand with a shovel 24-30" deep. Or damp/ wet sawdust. These mediums will give an idea of performance. Steel plates will give you a cloud of dust and a small disk. Ive heard ground rubber will do okay but never tried it.Plain water tends to over do expansion do to the hydraulic effect.

You might try digging out a 2' square tunnel 3' deep then work the dirt with a pitch fork and loosely shovel it back in place

Another trick is to drop the velocity of the test ammo making it easier to catch and examine.

[Sasquatch-1]

Modeling clay

[Wheelguns 1961]

Newspaper is harder and harder to come by. You can buy bundles of cheap computer paper. They work kind of like phone books.

[atfsux]

On a hot summer day stand on the end of the diving board and shoot into the deep end of the pool.

This works extremely well. Although the lifeguards tend to freak out a bit.

[jmorris]

Bags of sand give pretty good expansion.

When I wanted to see how the coating was holding up after being fired, I used my swimming pool to recover them.

When I was a kid and found that sand bags gave the best expansion (better than wet newspaper and phone books) my Father filled up a 55 gallon drum with water and it worked, if you don’t put a trash bag over the top and shoot through it, your going to get pretty wet though.

[Soundguy]

Hi All
I have decided to ask members on Cast Boolits for ideas for how to try and recover hollow-point cast hunting boolits to check expansion. I have been working up nice hunting loads for my 9mm and 9.5 mm Mannlicher Schoenauer rifles. These boolits are 200 and 250 grs respectively.
I would like to shoot these at my range into some form of backstop that would allow me to recover them and examine their level of expansion. I understand that range testing won't exactly simulate actual hunting effect but it would be better than nothing.
Thanks in advance.

My friends and I built a box out of 2x8 and 3/4" plywood. 2x8 sides, bottom and hinged top. front and back faced with plywood. On the back we placed a piece of 1/8" steel sheet. On the front we contact cement glued a truck mud flap. box was 2' square. We then filled with sand. It's heavy.. but lead handgun and rifle bullets do not exit the back. Jacketed handgun bullets do not exit the back.. and we have not tried jacketed rifle on it because we presume it will penetrate. We dump it periodically onto a frame with 1/4" square hardware clot to sift the lead and then refill with sand. the metal backstop is undamaged from cast.. and you can see an occasional minor ding from jacketed handgun.. but the 8" sand really slows stuff down nicely.
The mudflap is self healing and prevents sand loss. we reclaim out lead this way when shooting. we have bullets that have been thru many lifecycles the last 2 years...

[405grain]

Even with cast loads a 9.5x57 MS should have plenty of penetration. Back when I lived near a range I used to band up piles of newspaper into stacks 8 to 10 inches thick, then soak them in a wheelbarrow full of water until they were wet all the way through. For bullet testing I'd place three stacks together and shoot into that. I would usually put a piece of 3/4" plywood behind the first stack to simulate bone. Though not an exact duplicate of Bambi or Porky Pig, it did give me an estimate of how much my bullets would expand, and how far they would penetrate. This was useful in adjusting the hardness of my alloys. If a bullet passed all the way through the stack (like a 500 grain slug from a 45-70), then I could use the "wound channel" to gauge it's effectiveness. Sadly, the two main sources of material for these targets; newspapers and phone books, are harder to find nowadays. I have noticed that there always seems to be free news stands full of papers selling everything from cars to real estate in the front of some local supermarkets, but I'd be reluctant to just take all of that (would be funny though). If you can find it on the cheap wet newsprint, or some other reasonable facsimile, works well.

[fjrdoc]

I still need to consider what options are available. Although some options mentioned seem good, the difficulty would be moving it to and from the public range. I understand about the shortage of newspaper. Even phone books are hard to come by these days. I wonder if floor mats cut up into pieces and stacked on themselves would be a viable option.

[fjrdoc]

How about carpet remnants cut into squares and placed in cardboard boxes. Maybe multiple boxes end to end would work?

[pettypace]

I'd try a milk carton full of water to expand the bullets and cardboard boxes full of pillow stuffing to catch them.

[Lionel Allen]

I use a window washer jug box filled with flyers and free newspapers.
I get the boxes free from work and they are 10”x12”x16 ish long.
If you give the box a wrap or ten of duct tape or packing tape it will hold up to handling.
There isn’t much difference between wet and dry when it comes to performance, but
dry boxes of paper are easier to lug around.
I have a 300 yard range out my back door, so I don’t have to carry them far.
A 458 Win Mag softpoint will not penetrate the full length of the box.
FMJ won’t penetrate any further than a softpoint, but they do tumble/ turn sideways.
The only thing that will punch throug 2 boxes, and then some, are some sort of
South African solids in 303 British flavour. Those suckers do not deform or deflect.
Just my $.02

[wilecoyote]

I still need to consider what options are available. Although some options mentioned seem good, the difficulty would be moving it to and from the public range. I understand about the shortage of newspaper. Even phone books are hard to come by these days. I wonder if floor mats cut up into pieces and stacked on themselves would be a viable option.

you probably go to the public range by car. and probably in this car you can stuff a square board with four wheels and a length of rope_
any wheeled cart, even d-i-y, can solve the problem of weight and of moving it_

[GhostHawk]

I'm with Outpost, lots of water.

[William Yanda]

Steel plate inside of a truck tire would be a good start.

How would that not interfere with determining expansion?

[dverna]

Catching a bullet is not difficult.

IMO the challenge is evaluating the effects of different alloys, size/shape of meplat, depth of HP and diameter of HP. Will what happens in water, dry paper, wet paper, rubber mulch, or sand be representative of hitting flesh/bone? Gell mimics hitting flesh and seems the most reasonable medium for testing bullet performance even if it is not easy or cheap to use.