A shoulder blade test

[reloader28]

I'm not real sure where this should go, so mods, please move this to where it should be.

I was thinking of doing some deer or maybe elk or bear shoulder blade tests and aint found what I'm looking for yet. I could get the trac-hoe and dig up the dead pit, but I figure those bones are probly decomposing already and wouldnt be a fair test.

What would you guys think would be a fairly good substitute for a shoulder blade?
I was kinda thinking of 1/2" MDF board with a couple milk jugs then another 1/2" MDF board. I think that would be close for a deer, but would like other opinions.

Maybe some kinda plastic?

I dont intentionally shoot animals in the shoulders, but would like to test some different boolits out for curiosity sake and for penatration vs fragmentation. I've read all kinds of opinions on boolit alloys for this, but would like to test this for myself and for something to do.

[stubshaft]

Visit a butcher and see if he has some shoulder bones for sale.

[303Guy]

I'm not sure milk jugs of water are a good simulation of flesh. What does seem to come close is wool padding saturated with water. That gets loaded into cut open milk jugs and saturated.

[mooman76]

Some people use wet phone books. I would imagine wet newspapers would do about the same.

[Bullshop]

I have never tried it but have thought that using an old tractor or truck inner tube (hide) and filling a section of it with bread dough (flesh) and adding bones to taste would make a good boolit test media resembling a live animal.
Should be inexpensive too, 25 lbs flour and a dead inner tube.

[stubshaft]

Just remember the bones from a "live" or fresh animal are softer than ones that have been dried out.

[44man]

Old bones get dry and brittle. A fresh shoulder blade is flexible and can take a lot. I have seen them stop an arrow dead from an 80# bow. They act like a Chinese finger puzzle and grab things.

[Bass Ackward]

I use comparable (real) bone with wet news print in front of it the thickness of the non-bone tissue that must be penetrated until contact. Then spay paint the bone location over the news print.

The real test is up close cause of the velocity, but doing the longer range tests will sometimes provide conflicting data.

After decades of testing, I found that no two bullets will impact alike. Oh, it looks great for samples. But only of THAT bullet. IT does let me know what to expect from certain mixes / hardness.

I now only worry about penetration and the energy level expended inside the animal. I do that with water jugs that simulate the distance (angle of the shot) through the animal so that I know when the nose will quit cutting a larger than caliber hole. That is then my max range or determines what shots angles I will take.

[reloader28]

Thanks for the ideas guys.
I'm going to try a couple of these and see how much difference there is in them.

[44man]

The most amazing video I ever seen was a razor sharp broad head exiting a large buck. The hide pooched out a good 3" before it was cut.
We do not know how much flex, movement or energy absorbing happens when a boolit hits an animal. Shoulders are free floating. Do they stand solid when hit?
Putting a bone against a hard pack of soaked papers is just not the same.
Nothing you test with will ever duplicate a live animal, not even shooting a dead one on the ground.
Nothing we can do is other then fun, you still need to see results on actual animals.
I love penetration tests and blowing up jugs of water but opening a deer and seeing what happened is the only real way.
If you have a boolit that will go through 4' of paper, that is what you have, a boolit that goes through 4' of paper. The boolit that makes 12" might be a better killer and go deeper in an animal.

[truckjohn]

Yep....

On Beef - a Chuck roast is the Shoulder....
On Pork - it's called a Boston Butt or a Pork Shoulder..... Usually whole shoulders are found selling for around $1.19/lb around here.... so your outlay would be ~20.00 or so....

As a few others here have suggested - go find a local meat packer, deer processor, or butcher.... Most have no problems selling "Soup bones" on the cheap... Sometime, you can even get them free if you ask nice.....

Another source may be local game wardens - who can hook you up with people who are trapping and killing wild hogs..... Many of those guys have no desire to keep meat beyond the back straps.... especially if they happen upon a 400lb, 6yr old boar....

Thanks

[Lizard333]

I second the pork butt. Plenty of real meat and a nice big shoulder bone in the middle.

[Bass Ackward]

The point is to be consistent with what ever you use. Don't jump around on mediums or you lose your frame of reference. It can take a few years to develop depending on how many participants you have. You can use the results from others too if you can trust the information.

This way when you open an animal and you see what happened, you can equate those results to what you saw when you tested. Failures are just as important as successes so that you know what will not work too. And maybe why.

Those pork butts are going to get REAL expensive over the years as you test new bullets, loads guns. I probably go through a hundred jugs a year now. (it grows over time. :grin: )