You need to see this ! !

[Ben]

Today my friend Larry and I were talking about the .40 cal. 40043 Lyman bullet mold that I received a couple of days ago, HP'd by Buckshot. We were wondering if the HP's from the mold that Buckshot HP'd would expand in a similar manner to factory Winchester .40 S & W , 165 gr. HP, and the Speer Gold Dot, .40 S & W 165 gr. HP's ? ?

So we devised a comparison test and fired all three " test rounds " into a 5 gal. bucket of wet beach sand. The two factory HP's were miserable failures in the test medium we used today. For all practical purposes the recovered factory HP Win. and Speer bullets looked pretty much like they did BEFORE they were fire. The HP done by Buckshot was ANOTHER MATTER ENTIRELY ! ! ! It expanded to over .750 in dia. ( see photos below )

By the way, the alloy used in the Lyman 40043 HP's was straight WW's.

My friend Larry paid over a $1.00 per round for the Speer ammo, after seeing today's test Larry will be carrying the Lyman 40043, 165 gr. HP's :

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=685711

More photos of the .40 cal. 40043 HP :

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=29985

Thanks,

Ben

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/40%20caliber%20HP/PICT0004-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/40%20caliber%20HP/PICT0005.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/40%20caliber%20HP/PICT0006.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/40%20caliber%20HP/PICT0001-1.jpg

[Blammer]

Nice!

[badgeredd]

Hey! That is impressive! I need one of those too!:-D

[JeffinNZ]

MAN! Next time a bucket of wet sand invades your house its days are numbered! :-D

[runfiverun]

those winchesters look exactly like that when fired into snow also
i picked about 20 of them the other day and didn't know who made them.
they do melt down nice though.

[Ben]

You know, ...... the problem with all that is that a lot of people are counting on that bullet ( possibly with their life ) in a self defense situation. I wasn't impressed with either factory round today, both looked as if they were ready to be loaded and shot again....a poor testimony for an expanding HP .

I guess the moral to the story is that we should all pay more attention to our own actual test than what we read or what someone else is telling us about a bullet's performance.

Ben

[GabbyM]

In Speers defense.

The Gold Dot is I believe the FBI Spec bullet. The hollow point was expressly designed to plug and not expand when hitting things like leather jackets and a specified set of barriers. For their barrier penetration test. It's supposed to expand when hitting soft tissue. More to avoid over penetration and law suits.
Even when they don't expand they perform like a TCFP.

I'd like to see what the Speer and Winchester do when fired into water. Supposedly they expand in ballistic gelatin. After that I'd like to see if animal fur plugged the hollow point to prevent expansion.

No matter how they perform I'll carry a flat point TC bullet like I have for thirty years. :Fire:

[Ben]

I'm no ballistics expert, possibly the wet sand test favored my HP cast bullet .40's today and not the factory loaded Win. & Speer Gold Dot rounds. I don't know ?

My friend that was with me today when we performed the test wasn't impressed with what he saw in the performance dept by the " High Dollar HP's ".

Ben

[MtGun44]

Try the same test with extremely wet newsprint. I get very nearly
exactly half of the penetration in wet newsprint as the same bullet
is reported to penetrate in ballistic gel, and the expansion looks the
same as the gel bullets.

My bet is that wet sand does not behave much like gelatin or meat.

Bill

[leftiye]

After Lloyd Smale's recent experiences with sheep (LOL), I've begun to really wonder if them super umbrella mushrooms aren't more of a self defeating problem than an advantage in producing tissue damage. The idea I'm looking at here is that the resistance they produce to the boolit traveling through the target (whether deer or @$$H*!#), also known as penetration, is substantial. In Lloyd's case the penetration was insufficient to provide lethal wounds even thouth a 50 cal revolter was being used. Bad news is that while more velocity is needed to provide more energy one of two things happens (a) the boolit disintegrates, or (b) the velocity multiplies the resistance exponentially - lots more tissue damage, but maybe not lots more penetratration. This brings on the question as to if you want your animal pre made into hamburger or not if you get lucky (or find a tough enough alloy) and yer boolits hold together. It starts to sound to me like maybe somewhat less expansion producing less mess, and more penetration might not be a good thang?

[Lloyd Smale]

leftye this is a differnt deal altogether then a hunting bullet. Unless your trying to defeat body armor a hp is probably the way to go with a defense bullet. especially if your using a small bore like a 9mm or 40. You want a more tramatic wound that slows down or stops a man and a solid cast isnt going to do that. With an animal we have the option of watching it run 50 yards and dieing. In that few seconds a man with a gun can do alot of damage to you. I dont know if i would carry home made hps in my gun though. I have no probablem carrying handloads but id bet a jury would grab on to the fact that you made your own hollow points. Its cheap enough to buy a 100 factory hollow point bullets or even a box of ammo for my carry gun.

[44man]

Leftiye and Lloyd have explained it. I would not be too enamored with over expansion for hunting. It can cost you an animal.
Shooting into all kinds of stuff will not prove what a bullet will do in flesh either. Shooting into snow will not expand bullets unless the snow is hard and frozen. Some stuff can hold a bullet together so it won't expand. The only way to know a bullet is to shoot a lot of animals and evaluate each hit from lungs to bone to muscle.
For anything from deer up you are better off with a fairly hard, large meplat boolit.
However, those hollow points will be perfect for a carry gun unless the courts say you made them for maximum destruction. Seems to me the best thing is to drop a bad guy right now however they don't want you to hurt them bad either! :confused: I would want the jerk dead so he can't sue.
Maybe someday there will be a liberal season. :drinks:

[Ben]

We're shooting a 40 S & W here. Wouldn't it seem logical that you'd want a HP to expand in someone who is trying to kill you ?

A 40 S & W is used primarily for self defense. I suppose one could hunt with a 40 S & W but I'd think that 99% of them are purchased for self defense. Shooting large animals and penetration wasn't what my test yesterday was about ? I have rifles that will penetrate and do it well, if I was shooting a large animal and penetration was a concern I wouldn't be shooting a .40 S & W.

Ben

[Red River Rick]

Wouldn't it seem logical that you'd want a HP to expand in someone who is trying to kill you ?
Ben

Ben:

My thoughts as well. I would think that the whole intent is to deliver "MAXIMUM" energy transfer, and in order to accomplish that, the bullet shouldn't exit.

A bullet that exits would not transfer as much energy as oppossed to a bullet that remains within.

Years ago, I used to use 55 gr SP "J" bullets in my 22-250 Rem and found that most of the time the bullet passed right thru deer sized and smaller game and clean kills didn't always happen. I switched to 50 gr HP's and that changed everything, bullets worked as intended, never exited and always clean kills.

I don't know if my phlosiphy is right or wrong, but whatever preforms best and works well is OK by my standards, and if using a a large "HP" cavity to do so, then soviet (so be it). As long as I'm not on the recieving end.

BTW, Buckshot did an excellent job of converting your mould for you. You couldn't have asked for better "Workmanship", a true "Machinist".

RRR

[Ben]

RRR:

You and I are " singing from the same sheet of music ", my thoughts exactly.

Yes, Buckshot is a top notch individual , very skilled, and a super nice fellow to do business with.

Ben

[runfiverun]

only here would an argument about agreeing would ensue.

[OBXPilgrim]

The factory slugs' performance reminds me of my experience with the 44 mag Eldorado Starfire 240 gr slug.

I got "reeled in" on the advertisement photos of the hugely expanded Starfire & bought some for deer hunting - carried my 629 as a back-up. One day the deer were walking down the trail in single file - doe days- time for the meat to fall!! At about 15 feet (for the most part straight down), I shot a big doe through the top of one lung and out through the bottom of the other. That doe ran off like she wasn't even touched. I'd have sworn she should have had powder burns I was so close. She finally went down about 75 yards away. During the autopsy, on the cleaning rack, we could not believe how little damage was done. The exit wound was about identical to the entrance wound.

So much for advertisements.

[Ben]

Advertisements sell ...BUT....real life test will let you know where you stand with a particular bullet. Unfortunately the claims in the advertisements and the real life situation for you were near direct opposites.

We expected the Speer Gold Dot to really open up and expand , in our test it didn't ......in some other test the results may be different....I don't know ?

Ben

[Boerrancher]

I am not going to doubt the effectiveness of the cast HP. Though I do doubt the testing medium. Wet sand is not the most effective way to test bullets of any type. The Sand particles can actually fill the hollow point and with the external pressures of the wet sand on the out side of the jacket, can actually cause the HP to act as an FMJ. The reason the Cast boolit opened up so well is the sand caused a washing effect on the boolit. Had it been an SWC boolit there still would have been some mushrooming with the sand test. I have actually seen this happen quit often with all types and cals of bullets, in rifles as well as pistols. A more representative test would be something like an empty 5 qt oil jug filled with Jello and chicken bones. It might be difficult to retrieve the bullets, but first shoot it with an FMJ as your control, and then the factory HPs then your cast HP.

It is not that I am so smart, it is just that I have been down this road and have tried to find inexpensive ways to test bullet expansion and have had many, many failures.
Also, please feel free to disagree, as with someone else's point of view I just might learn something new.

Best Wishes,

CPT T

[Ben]

Boerrancher :

No arguments from me with anyone on this thread. I've stated that I'm no ballistics expert. The wet sand may have very well been a poor medium for the test of the 3 bullets.

I'm a science major with 3 college degrees, I'm smart enough to know from what little science that I've studied that the only thing I've proved at this point in time is that when shot into WET BEACH SAND the 3 bullets behave in the manner that you've seen in the photos.

What will they do in human flesh, I don't know at this point ( hope that I don't ever have to find out either .)

Ben

[Southern Son]

Boerrancher,
I think you are bang on with your idea about the sand putting external pressure on the bullets stopping them from expanding. Several Police forces in Oz are issuing the Winchester and (thank God there have only been a few shootings) they are happy with the bullet's performance. When recovered, they have all expanded. I think that a better test media than wet sand is out there, perhaps old playdo, not exactly science, but I think that playdo is closer to flesh than wet sand. I remember readin of one bloke who used a bucket of glue, animal based glue.

[GabbyM]

FBI Standardized Ammunition Tests
Test 1 - Bare Gelatin @ 10 feet
Test 2 - Heavy Clothing @ 10 feet
Test 3 - 20 gauge Steel @ 10 feet
Test 4 - Wallboard @ 10 feet
Test 5 - Plywood @ 10 feet
Test 6 - Auto Windshield Glass @ 10 feet
Test 7 - Light Clothing @ 20 yards
Test 8 - Auto Glass @ 20 yards

[BAGTIC]

HP bullets depend on hydraulic pressure from fluid being trapped in the cavity to cause expansion. That is why they often fail to expand normally when the cavity is clogged with dry matter such as clothing, wood, sheetrock, etc.

Energy transfer don't mean squat if vital anatomical structures are not destroyed.

[Bret4207]

Ben, I did some testing years ago on a cow carcasss. Bullets and boolits don't behave the same way on flesh as they do in sand, wood, water, etc. I got lots of expansion with designs that you wouldn't think would expand (SWC's) and little from some you'd think would expand more than the SWC, like RN HP. As one of the posters said earlier, if you're attacked by a bucket of sand, you'll do well. I think those tubes of ballistic geletin might be the way to go.

[Lizard333]

I made my own home made ballists gelletin a couple years back and this may be a good oppertunity for you to try this. The recipe basically called for the gelitin you use for jam and water. Nothing fancy. I made a mold block and sprayed the inside with sillicon to help the block be removed. Worked great. Back then all I shot was FMJ's, so I never tested any lead. We tested Hydrashocks, Silvertips, Gold Dots, and a couple of other rounds and they all worked great with all the slugs able to be recovered. The best part was that you could remelt this gel and start again. The initial cost is kinday high, like 40 to 50 bucks, but you can re-use it a number of times. I cleaned out two wal marts finding enough to make my block but it was worth it. My block was 8 inches square and 16 inches deep. A LOT of fun.

[bearcove]

What flavor?

[fecmech]

I shot a big doe through the top of one lung and out through the bottom of the other.

My guess would be the there wasn't much to expand that bullet from that angle. While it passed through the whole deer probably 90% of that deer was air(inflated lungs).

[shotstring]

From what little testing I have done together with what I have seen on the net, wet newpaper or phone books seems to be a better medium than wet sand. (of the cheap materials available) Clay or gelatin would be even better of course.

In wet paper, the Federal HST hollowpoints performed very well in all calibers.

Still, if the cast hp will do that in wet sand, it bodes very well for doing something as good or better when a more suitable medium is chosen. I just received one of mihec's hp molds in 40 cal and looking forward to seeing what it is capable of.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Gabby and BAGTIC hit the nail on the head.

I've done a similar test using wet, loose soil back in the 80s, and got a similar result. The problem is that the lead is more pliable with no jacket, so it expands even in mediums that are not conducive to good expansion, whereas the jacketed rounds need the hydraulic action of a fluid medium inside the cavity to cause expansion to occur. If you switch over to gel or water, I bet you'll find the cast load will fracture the nose off the bullet, if velocities get too high or if the walls of the nose that is left are too thin. 40's a pretty low-velocity round, though, so maybe not.

The cheapest, easiest, and best simulant of ballistics gelatin was published by the NRA a few years ago. They called it a "Fackler Box". Basically, they built a very sturdy wooden trough with some drain holes, which was sized to accept Gallon-size zip-loc bags. Fill the zip-locs with water and stack them in the trough until you have about 4' of water bags. There was a pretty consistent formula to convert the penetration depth in the water to what it would be in the calibrated 10% ballistic gelatin. If you can find the plans on-line or by calling the NRA, they will tell you the formula to convert the penetration too. I believe the water was "harder" than gel, so the bullets penetrated about 5/8ths the distance in water as it did in gel, but don't hold me to that - it's been many years since I read the article in Am. Rifleman.

I've got gelatin, a chrono, and a plan for testing some cast HPs that Buckshot has made me. Planned on doing it this last summer, but had too many family problems keeping me from getting to it. Also want my buddy there to video and photograph it.