Finally Caught a Nicely Mushroomed 640g Boolit

[375RUGER]

I made up some new ballistic stuff. it only cost about $5 to make 16-18 quarts. A lot cheaper than gelatin.
My first batch was too watery, the second was firm but a little softer than I wanted but it worked really well.
Gun: 500S&W, 8-3/8"
I've been trying to catch some of the 640 and 650g HPs, but the full power loads were tearing them up too much. I went back out today with reduced velocity loads(est. 900fps) and here is what I got.
Not sure how to put the pics in the body of the post.
The 640g mushroomed to 1.050". it penetrated about 28" of the ballistic stuff and retained 635g. I didn't recover the 650g Hex HP today, it hit low and grazed the edge of the second ballistic block and veared off somewhere.
The other boolits shown are from the other tests that were shot mostly in water jugs.
Then I have some of the stills posted of those first boolits when they impacted the test setup.
Got some great video too but they are way too big to post.
Thanks to my wife for the great action shots and Thanks to 69daytona for the slugs.

[stubshaft]

Good looking pics. What are you using for your test medium?

[375RUGER]

the test medium that I captured the nice mushroom in today was masa flour. I put 5# in the largest stock pot I had. Added boiling water while stirring till it is the consistency of thick grits. Lined a box with plastic sacks and scooped it in. Overnight at 32*F it sets up and makes a good cheap ballistic block. I left it in the box becasue I should add a little less water and colder temp would help too.
That red stuff in the pic above was a jello and shreaded news print mix. It worked good and it cost the same as the masa but only made about 3 quarts.

[stubshaft]

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I have had a hard time catching anything above my 454.

[375RUGER]

Today I had about 32-36" of 'the stuff' and I backed it up with gallon jugs of water just in case. I didn't reach the water today, but of course I was using a reduced velocity load too.

[375RUGER]

Stubshaft,
thought I'd mention the other thing I was going to try. Wheatbran that I get at the feed store, 50# for $11. This is about 25 gallons dry.
My thought was to either use the bran by itself or mix it with the masa to give it a good set, 50/50 by weight might be a good place to start, but you'd need a big tub to mix it in. That bran is bulky and I think it will take on water, and it's cheap.
I don't know how much it bulks up with water cause I feed it dry to the mule, but i know most horse people feed it wet.

[ClemY]

Reduced velocity? I would love to know what the velocity was. It should help with controlability when using a load like this in a shorter stopper gun.

[375RUGER]

It was heavy overcast the day I went to shoot these so I didn't even bother to take the chrono.
I used 36.7g BL-C2, to make the reduced load of the 640g and 650g HPs. You want to load 100% case capacity with out compressing when the bullet is seated.
The recoil was noticably less than the Lil'Gun and H110 loads.

[303Guy]

Wheat bran doesn't take in water. It gets wet but does not absorb it much. Mixed with wet wheat flour seems do-able for me.

It looks from the edge cracks that your alloy could do with a tiny amount of copper.[smilie=1:

Great pictures!