Deer Boolit Impact Simulator

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Over the years many of us have tried to come up with a "deer boolit impact simulator". Numerous ideas have been suggested and tried. Repeatability will always be an issue. Cost effective (cheap) is a big consideration seeing as we plan to "shoot it to pieces". So with these thoughts in mind why not start a thread that deals with Impact Simulators that "get close" to real impact results on corn crunchers.

Present simulator that I use is a multifunction rig of several materials. A gallon jug filled with water is the core to simulate the chest cavity. Have not yet tried to simulate a heart hanging down in there. A roll of duct tape is kept handy to repair the jug if needed or possible.

On two opposite sides is placed 3/8 or 1/2 inch plywood to simulate the ribs. Large deer have thicker ribs.

Around this is wrapped two or three layers of vehicle inner tube to simulate the tough but flexible skin. Large deer have thicker skin. Truck inner tubes are thicker. Car inner tubes are very hard to find in used condition in east ILLinois area. So generally two layers of truck / tractor tube are used. Again duct tape is used on both sides of holes. Two or three layers could be used over holes.

I generally only test the boolit I will hunt with. Usually this is a wide, flat nosed boolit. Target is fired on at 15-20 yards with velocity adjusted to simulate range.

If a heavy shoulder joint is desired as target a 1.5 - 2 inch square or round hardwood piece is added on the outside of the plywood. I have used limbs from trees. A chalk mark is added to the outside of the inner tube to get a clear target to aim at.
This rig is not perfect but repeatable and cheap.

Muzzleloader, pistol and shotgun are all ILLinois will permit us to use on deer. So far this simulator has helped me to understand what I can "expect" from a certain boolit on impact at the close distances my shots are taken down in east ILLinois river bottoms.

So add your "simulator" ideas. The above rig is the result from ideas read or told by other hunter / shooters.
Mike in Peru

[Hickok]

Mike I have thought about this experiment too for years. Great minds thinking alike,:bigsmyl2: I too had an idea with plywood and rubber inner tube for "skin" and then use a two appropriate size pieces of water soaked sponge to simulate lungs.

Never really thought about a heart until you brought it up. Maybe a rubber ball? Those hearts are mighty tough!

[missionary5155]

Sponges ! That is a dandy idea.

[Wolfer]

I have a box about 8"x8"x 4' long. One end is open and covered by an inner tube. Box is full of a mixture of black dirt and rotten sawdust. I put a piece of cardboard about every 6" so I don't have to dig thru the whole box. I can quickly see which compartment it stopped in.
I got this idea from Bob Hagel. Bones can be inserted into the sawdust if desired.

I generally hunt any particular game with a gun that has enough oomph that I don't worry about hitting heavy bone. My big concern is what happens if I hit behind the shoulder and possibly miss a rib going in. Will my boolit still mushroom?

A method I've used in the past that works quite well if all required ingredients are handy. I take a dead deer that I've just shot. Roll it up on its belly with a hump or hillside behind it. Back off a suitable distance and shoot through the ribs behind the shoulder. I don't lose any meat, I can examine the wound channel and exit hole. I've always been able to dig my boolit out of the dirt.

This requires that I have the gun in question close by because obviously I used a different gun to shoot the deer. Generally I've shot the deer with a rifle and am testing a new HP in a pistol load or some such.

The closest thing I've found to simulate a deers ribcage is a deers ribcage.

Sometimes when I hunt here by the house I use a gun that is possibly questionable. It's a 7x57 pushing the RCBS 168 gr at about 1600 fps. I'm quite sure it will work but I have a dog here that will trail on a leash so if I didn't get a blood trail I could still recover the deer.
These loads mushroomed nicely in my recovery box and they did a good job on a bobcat so I'm certain they'll work. I just usually hunt with larger calibers.

[nagantguy]

I've had luck, fun and got off cheap with old carpet with padding from remodel jobs (I'm a contractor) with water melons in the middle. When I lived down the road from a butcher shop the very nice lady who ran it whom I dubbed "Lady Meatsworth" would from time to time savee me beef, pig and or lamb shoulders. I tape the shoulder to the melon, wrap carpet around it and set it on the berm with sandbags behind it. If the carpet is really wet there have been times I've found my boolits and jwords just on the other side of it. So only cost is the mellon, this year used pumpkins cause we had a bumper crop. I feel it's a pretty good repeatable poor man's way to simulate hide/flesh, bone and water bearing organs/tissue.

[Blackwater]

Very good and creative simulators, guys! I'm impressed. Back when I was doing a fair amount of this, time was always a factor, so I just used wet newsprint inside a plastic garbage bag, often with some glossy magazines in the front to simulate shoulder muscle. The glossy paper is much denser than newsprint. I've used wood to simulate bone, but never thought it was really very "realistic, so abandoned it pretty quickly. When available and quick to access, I've used real bones between layers of the glossy mags on the outside of the garbage bag full of newsprint, and all of it inside a pasteboard box for integrity. I thought it worked reasonably well for a test medium, and bullets that worked well in this setup at least seemed to work on real, live deer. I'm not sure how much difference it made, but I always liked to tie up the newsprint with nylon twine before wetting it. This seemed to densen it up a bit, but I'm not sure how much difference that really made. What worked in one worked in the other, so I've come to just accept a simulation as just that, though with a lot more pains than I had time to mess with would surely do better. I mostly learned that a real deer was tougher than my test medium, but not by a whole terrible lot, and if it worked in the wet newsprint tied tight and wetted, with glossy mags about 1.5" thick or so in front, it always seemed to work in deer too. Mushroomed bullets that I've taken out of deer have regularly been mushroomed more on one side than the other due to angle of impact, but not by a terrible amount. I've autopsied upwards of 300 deer, and it's very interesting what that can teach you, and the main thing I learned is that bone can and does mess up those neat, pretty little mushrooms that the bulletmakers like to show off in their ads. They still do the job, though, if the shot is placed right, and that's the main thing I learned - that shot placement trumped just about everything else. It's really interesting to do, though, and significant things can be learned from it if you notice sharply, and work up a "conversion factor" for comparing your test medium's results to what you see in actual deer kills. And that ain't no small thing, either. Most folks rely on what they read, but if you get out and do some good testing, you're way ahead of the game. Nothing trumps experience, even if it's not quite apples to apples, so long as it's close and consistent. That's my view, anyway.

[nagantguy]

Very good and creative simulators, guys! I'm impressed. Back when I was doing a fair amount of this, time was always a factor, so I just used wet newsprint inside a plastic garbage bag, often with some glossy magazines in the front to simulate shoulder muscle. The glossy paper is much denser than newsprint. I've used wood to simulate bone, but never thought it was really very "realistic, so abandoned it pretty quickly. When available and quick to access, I've used real bones between layers of the glossy mags on the outside of the garbage bag full of newsprint, and all of it inside a pasteboard box for integrity. I thought it worked reasonably well for a test medium, and bullets that worked well in this setup at least seemed to work on real, live deer. I'm not sure how much difference it made, but I always liked to tie up the newsprint with nylon twine before wetting it. This seemed to densen it up a bit, but I'm not sure how much difference that really made. What worked in one worked in the other, so I've come to just accept a simulation as just that, though with a lot more pains than I had time to mess with would surely do better. I mostly learned that a real deer was tougher than my test medium, but not by a whole terrible lot, and if it worked in the wet newsprint tied tight and wetted, with glossy mags about 1.5" thick or so in front, it always seemed to work in deer too. Mushroomed bullets that I've taken out of deer have regularly been mushroomed more on one side than the other due to angle of impact, but not by a terrible amount. I've autopsied upwards of 300 deer, and it's very interesting what that can teach you, and the main thing I learned is that bone can and does mess up those neat, pretty little mushrooms that the bulletmakers like to show off in their ads. They still do the job, though, if the shot is placed right, and that's the main thing I learned - that shot placement trumped just about everything else. It's really interesting to do, though, and significant things can be learned from it if you notice sharply, and work up a "conversion factor" for comparing your test medium's results to what you see in actual deer kills. And that ain't no small thing, either. Most folks rely on what they read, but if you get out and do some good testing, you're way ahead of the game. Nothing trumps experience, even if it's not quite apples to apples, so long as it's close and consistent. That's my view, anyway.

Very well stated, my home brew "test crash lab deer" may or may not be a realistic medium but it gets us shooting more, looking at recovered projectiles and examining "wound channels " did I mention it gets us shooting more , from field positions focusing on that one little spot, controlling our breath and smoothly manipulating the trigger!

[Wolfer]

Well said Blackwater. Many times my experiments are just for curious sake. Just because I find it interesting.

I also have found that if I put the little hole in the right spot it doesn't much matter what I put it there with.

[Idaho Mule]

missionary5155, Thanks for the VERY interesting thread. I have been thinking of building my own simulator for testing my own boolits, but still have a square tooit. Everyone has had some great ideas so far. JW

[Indiana shooter]

I usually just use waterlogged phone books with a 1/4" HT wooden slat from a skid about an inch in to simulate ribs. I tightly compact the first and last couple couple inches of the wet pack and either spread out the middle layers or replace it with waterlogged corrugated cardboard. (I found the cardboard to be a more accurate representation of lungs) And when available I wrap the package with salted deer hide from the falls kills. (It'll stay somewhat soft for a few months when salted and rolled up) If I want to simulate a heavy bone strike I make picrete in a 1 1/2" pvc pipe and place it where I usually put the ribs. Usually by the time I get to the range the picrete will be thawed enough that it just slides out of the pvc but still be hard at the core. I usually place a box of sand behind my test media to catch the boolit/bullet.

[phonejack]

I've done the same thing "wolfer" has done with pistols. It gave me a different perspective on what I need for a self defense round. I've used hogs also.

[Love Life]

I used to put a packet of jello in the 1 gallon jug to thicken up the liquid.

[44man]

I find real deer tell the tale best but gallon jugs of water will give you an idea. I feel you must blow up at least 2 and then not recover the boolit in as many as you can stack. My .475 drops deer best and it will blow 4 jugs, split 2 more and go through 17 jugs which is all we had.
I watched a video where they shot balloons of water and actually caught the bullet in number 4, sure not my deer bullet!

[GLynn41]

I have butchered both my deer and other for years-- and tend to use the carcass for testing
example a .41 cal 170gr busted up the upper leg bone on a 150 # 6pt but the bullet was turned to powder
Of course I do not always have a carcass At work get some of our mail in a stretchy
plastic envelope -- I put magazine in then newspaper then mags again about 6" worth then test at 50 - 75 yards for handguns or farther for rifles--I almost never catch a boolit-- but I have Mihia mold and the hp expanded to a button with a gc on it -- I shot a doe kinda length ways and under the skin of the hip was my hp a button with a GC--- load was 1630fps for a 208 gr bullet- from my .41/454

[quilbilly]

A couple times every year my local post office receives stacks of hundreds of one inch thick 8x10 business phone books. Most usually end up at the recycle after a couple months. I made a three sided wood trough to fit these phone books and stack 18 of them horizontally tied up with strong cord on a stump out in the rain. The rain swells them up and compresses them against the cord. The stump is 40 yards from my covered porch. Viola!! a terminal ballistics test media.

[44man]

My .475 with a 420 gr will do 37" of soaked phone books. The .44 RD 265 will do 33" and my 330 will make 34" but a Rem 240 only does 11". Guess what I hunt with?
Penetration counts but you need to place energy in the deer, not after a pass through. I made many mistakes with hard boolits too fast where deer did not understand they were shot and need to drop. It is true you can waste energy after shooting through an animal so you need to find what works ALL the time. I was not thinking when I figured more velocity was the answer.
How to figure the energy transfer from any gun where needed? It comes from both success and failures. I use very hard boolits in some calibers but they fail in others but even then you will never see me with a HP, soft cast. I still work to regulate the alloy as calibers change. I still make mistakes. But I have learned a lot. I still will not tell you anything wrong.

[missionary5155]

Greetings everyone
Some good ideas and thoughts.

[missionary5155]

Greetings everyone
Some good ideas and thoughts.
Back in the early 1900's the US Army ran some tests on at least 10 cadavers (human), numerous cows and pigs. Their goal was to see about what could be expected from the numerous rounds the Army was equipped with.
There is no substitute for "the real deal" is very evident. Imagine if we had access to unlimited "corn crunchers" to test on. If nothing else we sure would eat well for a very long time.
Mike in Peru

[44man]

I wish I could say "use this or that." I can't. Just with revolvers i have seen utter destruction to losses based on my stupid choices of boolits. But the same happens with poor choices of jacketed too.
i know what works in the .44, .475 and what fails in the 45-70 revolver but I went over board in the .500 JRH. It failed with hard so I softened half the nose. My God what would a HP do? You would be nuts!
Sadly, only the animal will tell you what works.

[Hickok]

Mike one thing I have found out in my years of hunting, I want complete penetration through and through. Bow, hand gun, rifle, cast or jacketed, one hole in, one hole out, always worked better for me. "Two for the price of one," one shot making two holes.

This new trend with Berger "Hunting" bullets that go in a couple of inch and completely disintegrate is definitely not what I want in a hunting bullet. May be the ticket for some, and I am happy they like it that way, but I would never fire a bullet like that at a big game animal. Goes against everything I have learned and experienced in my lifetime of hunting.

[44man]

Mike one thing I have found out in my years of hunting, I want complete penetration through and through. Bow, hand gun, rifle, cast or jacketed, one hole in, one hole out, always worked better for me. "Two for the price of one," one shot making two holes.

This new trend with Berger "Hunting" bullets that go in a couple of inch and completely disintegrate is definitely not what I want in a hunting bullet. May be the ticket for some, and I am happy they like it that way, but I would never fire a bullet like that at a big game animal. Goes against everything I have learned and experienced in my lifetime of hunting.
You are one smart man!

[Digital Dan]

While I appreciate the sentiment(s) associated with terminal ballistics analysis in the thread, it is important to understand before the fact that a contrived test medium is just that and nothing more. It may provide comparable information between different bullets in THAT medium, but it cannot replicate living flesh and bone, nor the variable aspects of target presentation in a meaningful way. Fella wants to explore this world I'd make a couple of suggestions. Do your own diligence when processing your deer/hog or whatever. If your community has a processing business for big game, make some new friends and compile your data. Talk to the hunter, find out what was used, then follow the bouncing ball as the critter is processed.

Water jugs aren't deer, neither are wet phone books. Terminal ballistics is the closest thing shooters have to black art, the variables are near infinite in number.

[6pt-sika]

This new trend with Berger "Hunting" bullets that go in a couple of inch and completely disintegrate is definitely not what I want in a hunting bullet. May be the ticket for some, and I am happy they like it that way, but I would never fire a bullet like that at a big game animal. Goes against everything I have learned and experienced in my lifetime of hunting.

I'm not sure where that bit of info came from !

I've used Berger VLD Hunting bullets in a number of 6.5mm cartridges for over five years now and have killed a dozen or so deer . And none of those have kept the bullet inside them . Heck just this year I popped a doe at 90 yards with my 26 Nosler and the bullet went thru the deer with a nice sized exit hole . And if this bullet acted the way you stated my load which Chronyed at 3500 FPS with that load should have darn well blown apart in that deer if it were the case .

I've had pass thru on a number of deer with the 6.5-06 , 264 Win Mag and 26 Nosler using the Berger 130 VLD Hunting bullet . Never has it come unglued so to speak inside the animal .

FWIW , I've been doing this for 45 or so years so it isn't like I've only killed a few deer . I like big chunks of lead for deer and jacketed speed demons sometimes !

[Hickok]

This info came from the Berger Site. They are promoted as fragmenting bullets, shedding 40 to 90% of their weight.http://www.buybergerbullets.com/Hunting-Bullets_c_8.html

Just going by what they say about their own bullets. Sounds like a hand grenade.

If they work well for you, that is great.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
That Berger sounds like a good two legged predator bullet.
I concure with "two holes" in big game. I like leaking exit holes. One of the reasons I test my cast to be sure it will exit. Same reason a 475 Linebaugh resides in my storage box waiting to tag corn crunchers. My hours of crawling about happily and enjoying the challenge on hands and knees looking for those tiny little blood mist trains has faded in the past couple of years.
Mike in Peru

[Indiana shooter]

I too prefer to two hole deer, and agree that whatever test media you use isn't comparable to the real thing. That being said it does allow you to compare and contrast the difference in penetration and expansion between various bullets and alloys. This in turn allows you to make a educated decision on what to take in the field and have the confidence to "test" it out on live media.

I also agree with 44man in the fact that velocity isn't always your friend. The hard alloy I use in my 44 mag failed to create a substantial amount of damage at the 1900 fps it travels out of my muzzle loader so I had to adjust the alloy accordingly. My testing with my adjusted alloy in my muzzle loader showed acceptable penetration and expansion in my test media but the two deer I shot this year with it it had failed to pass through. Time to make some minor adjustments there.

The point is if I was to have used my harder alloy in my muzzle loader I may have lost a deer, and being new to hunting with cast probably just wrote off cast as target only. I feel it is important for any serious/ethical hunter to have some sort of testing media they rely on to know what the bullet/boolit does. You wouldn't want to use a rapidly expanding "grenade" type bullet with a raking shot on a deer but that same bullet may be what some people want for a behind the shoulder broadside shot. And I feel it's our responsibility as sportsman to know the difference before we put the bullet/boolit to the real test.

[Rick Hodges]

Mike one thing I have found out in my years of hunting, I want complete penetration through and through. Bow, hand gun, rifle, cast or jacketed, one hole in, one hole out, always worked better for me. "Two for the price of one," one shot making two holes.

This new trend with Berger "Hunting" bullets that go in a couple of inch and completely disintegrate is definitely not what I want in a hunting bullet. May be the ticket for some, and I am happy they like it that way, but I would never fire a bullet like that at a big game animal. Goes against everything I have learned and experienced in my lifetime of hunting.

Amen, I want two holes to let the air in and the blood out. All that talk of wasted energy is just so much theoretical BS. My experience says that two holes make for better and shorter blood trails.

[GLynn41]

I always want no more nor no less than 2 holes in Deer

[Don Fischer]

Love this post. In one of P.O. Ackley's books he has an article by Col Frank T. Chamberlin on gun shot wounds. They were looking at the wounds trying to figure out how to better care for the wounded combat soldier. The target they used was mules heavily sedated. All the fluids right there and the fresh bone and fresh skin. They were using FMJ bullet's so I've no idea how they kept bullet's in the mule. Been a long time since I read it.

The idea of shooting another shot through a fresh killed deer make's perfect sense! Nothing could be better but, how do you keep the bullet's in the deer?

I tried mushroom and penetration test's years ago with jacketed bullet's. Used a whole lot of wet magazine's stacked about 2 ft long. I'm not so sure it said one thing about how a bullet would act when shot into a animal but it did show how different bullet's preformed relative to other brand bullet's of the same caliber and weight. Somewhere years ago I read about this subject but don't recall the materials used other than a skin to represent the skin of an animal. Only problem was I think they used an older dry skin, not gonna react the same way as fresh wet skin. Don't recall how they trapped the bullet but probably wet news print, it was popular back then. Then the wet paper in a long enough pile would catch the bullet. I'm sure some still do that to catch the bullet. Don't under stand hoe a single (?) milk jug of water will retain the bullet. I was going to try that some years ago with six jugs full of water on a stand I'd made, got distracted.

When I first saw this thread I though, why sot replace the water with jello? Thicken up the consistency pretty good but maybe not many shot's per jug. I've pretty much given up chasing bullet performance other than looking at the damage inside an animal killed. The overwhelming amount of bullet's over the years have all penetrated completely. Those that didn't were to light a bullet and wasn't much of the bullet left to say who it worked.

[MBTcustom]

I was researching how to make ballistic gelatin recently, and decided to see what You Tube had to say. There's a show on TV called mythbusters, and I found that they use a lot of the stuff, and they cast bones into the molds with the gel to get it closer to real life. I have to say, what they demonstrate in the following video is exactly what I am looking into doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=023Ho--XPts

[Wolfer]

Don
When I use a deer to test I get a suitable dirt bank behind it. With HP revolver boolits, 45 colt, 44 special the boolit is usually no more than a couple inches deep. This tells me they are running out of steam.
Once after shooting a deer directly below me with a 58 rem loaded with the Lee 452-200 RF @ 700 fps hitting directly between the shoulder blades and was found below the knee in the leg. It dropped on the spot and I tapped it again behind the shoulder.

I pushed a thin stick down the hole in the black river bottom dirt at least 12" before hitting the boolit. I didn't dig that one out. Heavy solids that don't expand will penetrate into next week!

I generally hunt with HP in my pistols. Most will exit unless they break shoulders or are shot lengthwise. I have a few I've recovered in the deer. All of the solids I've recovered have been dug out of the dirt behind them. I often hunt from a tree stand and can find the boolit strike pretty easy.

[44man]

I was enamored with the 240 XTP in my .44, mainly from such tremendous accuracy. I shot 3 deer with them and each was down in about 60 yards but I seen them fall. Yes they worked but I back track all deer I shoot and there was not a single drop of blood on the ground. I found all three bullets, perfect mushrooms against off side ribs, no bone hits.
Now it gets real thick here and a deer will be out of sight in one bound so that stopping a bullet had to go away. If I was to again use the XTP, I would go to the 300 gr. I went instead to the LBT WLNGC, 320 gr and things turned around with huge blood trails but deer dropped in less then 30 yards so no need to track at all. I hear them crash. Then the Lee 310 works like a charm and so do my home made mold boolits.
Now with my larger bores I have made huge messes of some deer and boolits do not stop, might take 4 deer or more to catch one. It is crazy what a revolver can do. But get it wrong and you have a loss just as quick. The wrong energy transfer will poke a hole all the way through so fast, nothing gets disrupted inside. I firmly believe in energy but not book figures, only what I see. Adjust and it is why cast works, you can change them. Never, ever would I use a light HP.

[Hickok]

a 58 rem loaded with the Lee 452-200 RF @ 700 fps

That is something that interests me. Never had much luck with conicals in the cap and ball revolvers, but this sounds like great performance. Any trouble loading the boolit straight in the cylinder?

[Wolfer]

That is something that interests me. Never had much luck with conicals in the cap and ball revolvers, but this sounds like great performance. Any trouble loading the boolit straight in the cylinder?

Yes, no, sort of. I ended up fileing a little out where my boolit swung under the loading ram. When loaded straight these are quite accurate. When loaded slightly crooked they are quite not accurate.

When loaded straight mine is considerably more accurate than round balls. It shoots round balls pretty good.

Years ago I had a conical mold for a Ruger old army. My cylinders mic .450 the standard Lee conical molds were too small. The Ruger mold cast at .457 if memory serves me right. Even with the step they were difficult to load. Broke my loading lever once.

However, six shot groups at 25 yds with no paper between the holes was common. Mind you the total group size might be pushing 2" but all holes connected.

[mike69]

I am new here and only been casting bullets for about a year or so I hunt with a 454 casull and shot a 280 gr lbt wfn bullet was thinking of getting a 300gr hollow point mold for it to hunt with I shot to deer this year and it seemed to just put a bullet size hole in them with vary little damage both where neck shots. don't want to lose any if its just going to shot straight threw them. Over think a lot of stuff like this and just wanting some advice from people that know a lot more about this than me.

[Cowboy_Dan]

I am new here and only been casting bullets for about a year or so I hunt with a 454 casull and shot a 280 gr lbt wfn bullet was thinking of getting a 300gr hollow point mold for it to hunt with I shot to deer this year and it seemed to just put a bullet size hole in them with vary little damage both where neck shots. don't want to lose any if its just going to shot straight threw them. Over think a lot of stuff like this and just wanting some advice from people that know a lot more about this than me.

Mike, that wfn is putting a .45 caliber hole through Mr. Deer. Sure a hp would put a bigger one on the exit side, but it should not be needed. Plus a wfn should disrupt a lot of tissue on its way through. Of course, on the other hand, acquiring more bullet moulds is just another aspect of this addiction.

[Don Fischer]

Don
When I use a deer to test I get a suitable dirt bank behind it. With HP revolver boolits, 45 colt, 44 special the boolit is usually no more than a couple inches deep. This tells me they are running out of steam.
Once after shooting a deer directly below me with a 58 rem loaded with the Lee 452-200 RF @ 700 fps hitting directly between the shoulder blades and was found below the knee in the leg. It dropped on the spot and I tapped it again behind the shoulder.

I pushed a thin stick down the hole in the black river bottom dirt at least 12" before hitting the boolit. I didn't dig that one out. Heavy solids that don't expand will penetrate into next week!

I generally hunt with HP in my pistols. Most will exit unless they break shoulders or are shot lengthwise. I have a few I've recovered in the deer. All of the solids I've recovered have been dug out of the dirt behind them. I often hunt from a tree stand and can find the boolit strike pretty easy.

I went out yesterday and tried my 32 Long again into gallon water jugs and dirt bank behind them, ten yds. the dirt is frozen but I just wanted some idea of what was happening. Bullet went through both jug's and into the dirt farther than I could dig! Later this spring O'll get some soaked news paper of magazines and do it again. Years ago shooting jacketed bullet's I did the test's with wet paper. i don't know how accurate the result's would be in flesh but it was a good test to determine what different bullets were doing. Actually I'm not so sure the bullet's I'm using in my 32 might be to hard. Hard time with them penetrating two gallon jug's of water then losing them in a frozen dirt bank.

[Viper225]

I have always liked to play with a Fackler Water Box.
My last one was a Trough built from pine 2" X 12" boards.
Stack in however many 1 Gallon Freezer Bags filled with Water.
For self defense ammunition normally you would put clothing in front of the first water bag. A deer hide might be better for testing hunting bullets.

The Correction Factor to closely replicate 10% Ordinance Gelatin is Bullet Penetration Depth in Inches Divided by 1.8.

I have always played with Hollow Point Self Defense ammunition which does not penetrate very deep. I am not sure that you could keep a Cast Heavy Bullet straight in the trough far enough to stop it.

If nothing else the Fackler Water Box is fun to play with. I pitched them a while back, but I did have a wicked assortment of expanded Hollow Point Bullets from the top of the line ammunition from 15 or so years ago.

Bob R

[44man]

I am new here and only been casting bullets for about a year or so I hunt with a 454 casull and shot a 280 gr lbt wfn bullet was thinking of getting a 300gr hollow point mold for it to hunt with I shot to deer this year and it seemed to just put a bullet size hole in them with vary little damage both where neck shots. don't want to lose any if its just going to shot straight threw them. Over think a lot of stuff like this and just wanting some advice from people that know a lot more about this than me.
So true, you are shooting too fast with the 280. Be careful of a HP though or you need a sponge to pick up meat and can lose a deer as fast with a stopped boolit.
My best killer has been a cast softer nose. It CAN be more destructive then a HP but they never stop either.
A hard boolit like the LBT should run in the 1300 fps range, less or more and you need to initiate some expansion to slow the boolit in passage. Too slow lacks energy so some expansion helps, too fast and energy is beyond the animal. Sure, I do not believe in ME but energy in the animal is what kills them faster. Your job is to make a boolit to expend as much energy inside an animal and still get an exit hole, darn sure not easy.
If you think I don't get it wrong, look at the entrance hole from just a little softer nose on a deer shoulder. Yes full penetration too. I also ruined the neck.157556
Never, ever would I make this boolit a HP!
Don't jump too fast, too far.

[OnHoPr]

Well how about this idear. Components, first layer carpet, second layer clay (gotta a lot of clay in cornfields in MI) 5 gallon bucket should do, 3/8 by 1 by 16" plywood slats for ribs, a piece of plywood for the blade, a couple of oak sticks for the humerus and one over the blade, plastic garbage bag, cardboard box of about 16 by 16 by 10, bubble wrap, water. Start with clay mud and rib slats on box on outside of box, then form shoulder and humerus with clay mud and oak sticks, mud inside of box for rib meat, do the same for opposite side of box, then put bubble wrap in plastic bag and put inside the cavity, fill bubble wrap plastic bag with water, then lay carpet over box and shoot. The mud could be free and reuseable, the carpet is free and should take many shots, the oak sticks are free, water is free, boxes might be free or a buck something at wally's, the bubble wrap might be free (but could have a cost). Play doh time might be fun, don't forget to wash your hands artisans aka Michelangelo's. This should give a rough idear of what a deer's ribs might look like after a shot. Though, you won't probably get any nice mushroom pictures of boolits to show just like in real life. It will not look as cool as a water jug blowing up either. It might show impact damage through the front side, actual like lung type media, and backside though of what a boolit might do. This is just for broadside shots and raking shots or imperfect front body shots will be excluded.

[OnHoPr]

This info came from the Berger Site. They are promoted as fragmenting bullets, shedding 40 to 90% of their weight.http://www.buybergerbullets.com/Hunting-Bullets_c_8.html

Just going by what they say about their own bullets. Sounds like a hand grenade.

If they work well for you, that is great.

Along with your previous post

Those bullets are not for the hills, hardwoods, and hollers where off angle and raking shots can be the norm. They are long range bullets to where speeds of even the magnums are getting low. They are for hitting just rib cages and lungs. If you are in that type of terrain you shouldn't have to track and you should see your game go down within sight. There is a ole country boy gent gunsmith down there in the south named Jarret that started making Bean rifles a couple/few decades back where his rifles were basically set up for 200 to 800 yd shootin, The Jarret Rifle. Those type of bullets are made for his type of rifles and what they are suppose to be used for. A lot of coventional bullets won't perform at those speeds and ranges.

[mike69]

So true, you are shooting too fast with the 280. Be careful of a HP though or you need a sponge to pick up meat and can lose a deer as fast with a stopped boolit.
My best killer has been a cast softer nose. It CAN be more destructive then a HP but they never stop either.
A hard boolit like the LBT should run in the 1300 fps range, less or more and you need to initiate some expansion to slow the boolit in passage. Too slow lacks energy so some expansion helps, too fast and energy is beyond the animal. Sure, I do not believe in ME but energy in the animal is what kills them faster. Your job is to make a boolit to expend as much energy inside an animal and still get an exit hole, darn sure not easy.
If you think I don't get it wrong, look at the entrance hole from just a little softer nose on a deer shoulder. Yes full penetration too. I also ruined the neck.157556
Never, ever would I make this boolit a HP!
Don't jump too fast, too far.

I am pushing that bullet fairly hard it loaded over 27 gr of imr 4227 haven't shot it over my chroograph to see how fast it is. Measuring the bullets with my lee hadness tester im getting around 13.5 bhn. Do u think just slowing it down some would help? I do know it will shoot threw about a 6 inch thick tree at 100 yds. and still looks fairly good not much change to the bullet after going threw tree.

[44man]

At that hardness, darn it should work. Mine run 22 BHN. The .44 and .475 kill deer fast with that but the 45-70 and the heavy boolit from the .500 JRH suck, one too fast the other too heavy.
The .44 is 1300 or so and so is the .475 at 1329.
I have neck shots with the .44.157635 and then the .475. 157636
Crazy that the .44 was worse. But when the same alloy is driven to 1630 fps in my BFR 45-70, it pokes a hole like a pencil. The 440 gr in the .500 JRH will give a deer run of 100 to 120 yards with no blood trail found. Softening the nose in the JRH has deer drop at the shot.
Each caliber still needs tailored and the .454 is a great gun so you have to sit and think about results and change something.
Even two holes will not mean a blood trail if a boolit has failed to disrupt internals. I believe in two holes always but you need to bust up stuff in passage.
I do not own a .454 because it is fast and needs more work.

[mike69]

I have only had my 454 for a year and this was the first time hunting with it and cast bullets. Just started hand gun hunting 2 years ago with a tc encore with 15 inch barrels in 30-06 and 460 s&w mag. the 460 used 240 xtp bullets it realy tore up the deer I shot would a cast hollow point be as bad as the xtp or could I control how they expand. And thanks for advice I have read a lot on here when I started casting bullets and figured it was time to just ask some questions.

[44man]

When you see a handgun make more damage then a .300 mag you see how hard it is. i am still working at it. i have 182 deer shot with revolvers so far and each one is a lesson but a loss is never forgotten. I do NOT like to ruin meat but the distance between ruined meat and a loss is an inch. I would err on the side of ruined meat but get it wrong and a revolver can ruin half a deer.
It surprises many but it is true. I really hate the saying "make a big hole." it just does not work that way. A .45 is larger then an expanded .30 is a hoax. A .45 can go through a deer so fast it does nothing.
In my lifetime off hunting deer I have well over 550 and I still work at it.

[OnHoPr]

You eat pretty good 44man. I thought 3 to 5 deer a year was good eats. What no small game or fish.

[Indiana shooter]

Personally I wouldn't hunt with a HP, just to much risk of over expansion. I have killed deer with a solid out of the 44 mag with devastating results, but that same boolit was horrible at my inline ML velocities. I just figured out exactly what I needed to do with my ML boolit.

If you want to keep the boolit fast I feel the best option is a shallow cup pint mold. Run a high tin low antimony alloy with some copper in it. Get the air cooled BHN around 12. Heat treat your boolits then anneal just the last bit of the nose.

Here's the results of the different processes:

157650

Both boolits are the same alloy, both boolits went through a deers shoulder from the same gun at nearly the same range. Difference? Boolit on the left was air cooled, and found in the hide of a nearly broadside shot. Boolit on the right was heat treated and the nose portion was annealed by placing the boolits base down in a pan of water, the water line where I wanted the annealing to stop, and heating the nose portion with a torch. This boolit struck the deers shoulder, travelled through the deer long ways breaking the hip and exiting with just enough force to go about an inch in the dirt.

[mike69]

Yea I would rather lose some meat than a whole deer and I think that I did lose one this year shot at it and really thought I saw it go done but could find no blood spent half day looking and really hate to lose dear. The one I sot threw the base of the neck was the firs neck shot deer watched run and not drop on the spot but the rest where shot with a rifle. think I am going to find me a good hollow point mold a give that a try next season. going try the cast in the encore 460 too do you think I could get by with the same bullet for the 454 and 460?

[mike69]

Personally I wouldn't hunt with a HP, just to much risk of over expansion. I have killed deer with a solid out of the 44 mag with devastating results, but that same boolit was horrible at my inline ML velocities. I just figured out exactly what I needed to do with my ML boolit.

If you want to keep the boolit fast I feel the best option is a shallow cup pint mold. Run a high tin low antimony alloy with some copper in it. Get the air cooled BHN around 12. Heat treat your boolits then anneal just the last bit of the nose.

Here's the results of the different processes:

157650

Both boolits are the same alloy, both boolits went through a deers shoulder from the same gun at nearly the same range. Difference? Boolit on the left was air cooled, and found in the hide of a nearly broadside shot. Boolit on the right was heat treated and the nose portion was annealed by placing the boolits base down in a pan of water, the water line where I wanted the annealing to stop, and heating the nose portion with a torch. This boolit struck the deers shoulder, travelled through the deer long ways breaking the hip and exiting with just enough force to go about an inch in the dirt.

Could I do that with coww lead sounds like something id like to try I do like to shot it fast and accurate as I can

[44man]

We hear boolit "placement" all the time but if you hit behind the shoulders, in the shoulders or neck the boolit must work even if no bone or bone is hit. some claim to shoot deer in the eye every time but but I am a normal hunter and to claim that would be stupid. I know hunters and to even hit a deer anywhere is a chore. I side with a hunter and never a BR shooter with a rest.
You will never see me say "you should have hit here"
That is why a boolit needs to work no matter.

[Indiana shooter]

Absolutely, but the antimony % is to high with COWW and the nose will shear off instead of expand in my testing. You could try a 50/50/2 mix of COWW/Pure lead/tin and see how that does.

My alloy is now 93.7/5/1/.3 (Pb/Sn/Sb/Cu). I also PC these boolits and give some to a friend that uses thim in his Marlin 44 mag with great results (but thoes are just air cooled). This is an expensive alloy to make but I don't mind it for hunting bullets and I just leave the tin out for practice.

[mike69]

I agree I just want my bullet to work and try to make good shots thanks for the comments and advice gives me some things to think of and try. this is why I joined here I have reading on here since I stated casting and learned a lot things you can do with lead I wlould have never known thanks

[DanWalker]

Aim to break shoulders and problem is moot. I always wait until the angle is right, to give me either one or both shoulders to shoot through. If you can't wait for that, then you probably don't have an ethical shot in the first place. Break bones and they go down. I learned this the hard way after several ugly kills, shooting antelope behind the shoulders. Break those shoulders and they don't go far. Usually it's straight down.

[44man]

You eat pretty good 44man. I thought 3 to 5 deer a year was good eats. What no small game or fish.
Oh yes, I was a fisherman first with tons of perch, Walleye and blue Pike. I love Bluegills.
Then rabbits, pheasant, quail and squirrels. Back then in Ohio we had no deer to speak of. I was at the lake every day. Also the rivers. I hunted rabbits where guns were not allowed and used a slingshot or bow to take 16 a day. Yeah, had to sneak them to the car, I broke the law.
We shot tons of carp with bows but I could never cook them. Chuck hunting all the time, not a single day was spent home. We were all over the state. Then ducks and geese on the lake or Resthaven wildlife area.
I shot 3 deer the first year bow hunting, 1 each in Ohio, PA and MI. Then deer were caught at Plumbrook and put throughout the state. Deer exploded with huge bucks too. I had free tags at orchards to shoot all I could. Many farms to hunt and even stayed in their homes next to the fireplace at night. What great people and memories.
We went to PA to hunt birds and found a farm with a sign to hunt, co-op with the state. We went to the house to ask when we did not need to. They had us come in for coffee and home made donuts.
My life is full of wonderful people that bring tears with the memories. I still have it here and can hunt anywhere without asking.
I consider all of you as friends too. i might rub some wrong now and then. Please forgive me.