Original way of testing Bullet penetration...

[Kev18]

Back in the day ballistic gel wasn't a thing. In every article I have read from the 19th century or early to mid 20th century, factories and people alike have used pine boards to test the penetration of bullets.
Someone would stand at close range, somewhere between 10-15 feet and shoot the boards. And from the results they would have a rough estimate of the caliber's penetration capabilities.

Well... I tried it today. I took my 1886 chambered in 40-82 and aligned some half-logs that I had cut to make notches in a small log cabin im making. I thought that it would maybe go through 5-8 pieces of wood MAX.

I was wrong. I had 10 stacked up. Went through all of them and blasted out the back into the dirt. Never to be found.

These old cartridges have a decent amount of punch!
https://i.imgur.com/NVcRjCM.jpg?1

[Outpost75]

Yup! Very typical performance for black powder rifles.

Keith-type SWC handgun bullets cast 1:16 and loaded to about 1000 fps in the .38 Special, .44 Special or .45 Colt out penetrate modern JSP and JHP rounds and will perforate and exit 40 inches of gelatin tissue simulant without tumbling. A modern expanding bullet acts like a parachute and limits penetration, and is best for killing the Pillsbury Dough Boy or The Jello Man.

For through and through penetration of large animals, from any angle, with full caliber crush, Elmer was exactly right.

Read Sixgun Cartridges and Loads (1936) and Sixguns (1956).

[Petrol & Powder]

Whoa there, shooting the end grain is different than shooting a cross cut board. Not to take away from the 40-82 fired from a rifle barrel (which undoubtedly will penetrate a lot of boards) but splitting a section a wood with the grain will give a deceptive result of over penetration.

[Kev18]

Whoa there, shooting the end grain is different than shooting a cross cut board. Not to take away from the 40-82 fired from a rifle barrel (which undoubtedly will penetrate a lot of boards) but splitting a section a wood with the grain will give a deceptive result of over penetration.

I didn't shoot the end grain. I shot the half-logs/ flats that I cut from the notches. Like the "square" piece in the picture. I cut the top and bottom off of the log to fit them on each other.

[Froogal]

My very first target stand was built of salvaged, 2x6 deck lumber. I built it so the bullets had to pass through 2 layers of those 2x6s. Shooting factory 38 specials from a snubby. I figured that 2 layers would be enough to stop a .38. I was wrong. Most of them went right through.

[Speedo66]

On the other hand, one of my brother officers once got into a firefight in a hardware store during an attempted armed robbery. A coiled garden hose stopped a 158g .38Spl.+P from a 2" Chief. Another shot slid off a partially opened all thick glass front door.

[Outpost75]

In 1968 the New York State evaluated the .357 Magnum cartridge for State Police service, comparing the .38 Special Smith and Wesson Model 10 and .357 Magnum Smith and Wesson Model 19 revolvers, both models being equipped from the factory with four-inch barrels.

Testing was done with then current-issue .38 Special 158 Grain lead SWC standard pressure and the .357 Magnum 158 Grain JSP loads, both manufactured by Remington. Actual measured revolver velocity of the .38 Special from a 4-inch barrel, firing standard pressure Remington 158-grain SWC ammo was 789 fps, versus 1,238 fps for .357 Magnum soft-points of the same brand and bullet weight.

Penetration testing involved shooting through 12-inch square panels of 5/8 inch thick, five-ply plywood, spaced two inches apart, stacked one behind the other. The .38 Special penetrated 6 boards, whereas the .357 penetrated 9 boards.

[Kev18]

On the other hand, one of my brother officers once got into a firefight in a hardware store during an attempted armed robbery. A coiled garden hose stopped a 158g .38Spl.+P from a 2" Chief. Another shot slid off a partially opened all thick glass front door.

Sometimes its a 1 in a Million chance! :)

[Kev18]

In 1968 the New York State evaluated the .357 Magnum cartridge for State Police service, comparing the .38 Special Smith and Wesson Model 10 and .357 Magnum Smith and Wesson Model 19 revolvers, both models being equipped from the factory with four-inch barrels.

Testing was done with then current-issue .38 Special 158 Grain lead SWC standard pressure and the .357 Magnum 158 Grain JSP loads, both manufactured by Remington. Actual measured revolver velocity of the .38 Special from a 4-inch barrel, firing standard pressure Remington 158-grain SWC ammo was 789 fps, versus 1,238 fps for .357 Magnum soft-points of the same brand and bullet weight.

Penetration testing involved shooting through 12-inch square panels of 5/8 inch thick, five-ply plywood, spaced two inches apart, stacked one behind the other. The .38 Special penetrated 6 boards, whereas the .357 penetrated 9 boards.

I dont know if plywood would make a huge difference? SInce it have layers of glue in between? maybe....

[country gent]

The "give" in the coiled rubber garden hose ate up all the bullets energy Each individual layer compressed until the bullet could penetrate and then was repeated draining a lot the energy. A heavy bed sheet hung over a clothesline shot in the center or bottom half will usually stop most 22 rimfires. The sheet billows our until all the energy is gone.
The military did a lot of testing on live animals and cadavers also years ago. Wood has been used, wet phone books, clay, Ive seen testing done with oil impregnated saw dust. All depends on consistency for good results. One was a trough that held bags of water and shot into. Gallon zip lock bags filled to the same volume and held up right

[Outpost75]

I dont know if plywood would make a huge difference? SInce it have layers of glue in between? maybe....

The 5/8 thick, 5-ply plywood gives penetration results almost identical to the 7/8" pine boards used many years ago, but they are more uniform.

[Kev18]

The 5/8 thick, 5-ply plywood gives penetration results almost identical to the 7/8" pine boards used many years ago, but they are more uniform.

Il give it a try one day if I have scraps. Iv'e never been able to recover a fired bullet.

[longbow]

"Iv'e never been able to recover a fired bullet."

You need more wood! I've recovered hot smokeless loaded .45-70, .44 mag., 12 ga. slugs/round balls, .58 muzzleloader balls and minies, lots of .22's of course. Most of the .303 boolits I have recovered have gone through "stuff" then traveled down range far enough that I have found them laying out from 100 yards to 300 yards and in snow. Snow is a good boolit stopper but you need lots and generally don't find the boolits til spring.

I don't have ballistic gel but do have a Ballistics Test Tube which is a wax that performs the same purpose... more or less. Never shot anything but .22's into that though. It takes 2 or more of the tubes at about $60 each for typical rifle cartridges. They are re-usable by melting and recasting the wax.

Wet end grain wood does a reasonable job and has stopped some pretty powerful rounds for me. I like end grain softwood because it allows boolits to expand without breaking up as much as shooting them into dry cross grain wood (boards). Not terribly useful for determining performance on game but good comparable results for different alloys and loads.

Enough water jugs works too. I've caught a number of boolits in water jugs but the penetration comparison is pretty vague ~ boolit or fragments in the 4th or 8th or whatever jug.

I have a lengthy story about using basically bread dough which worked quite well but was a lot harder to handle than I anticipated and really wasn't re-usable because after shooting it really stiffens up... like super kneading! For single use it did a great job for expansion and penetration testing though. (that's the short version missing the preparation and getting the stuff into shootable form)

Hah! BruceB had a good story posted about a container of soaked rice he tried using as a test box for expansion testing. Do a search its pretty funny!

I like penetration and expansion testing. It's fun.

Longbow

[northmn]

Penetration testing is relative anyway in the sense that it is comparative. If one uses the same basic medium, whether they be pine boards or wet pack, they mostly just work best against a comparison. I wanted to test my 25 cal muzzle loader using round ball and did so against a 22LRHP. The LR penetrated a little more but the 25 expanded quicker with its pure lead ball. It was also chronographed at 1650 as compared to the 22LR at 1280. As the 25 is pretty deadly on squirrels I don't know for sure what I proved. Its kind of like that with most mediums. Comparison against a standard such as one bullet against another. Got into a discussion once on ballistic gel and bird shot. Basically game birds do not penetrate the same either.

Then you need to make sure the medium is a standard. Clear boards versus knotty ones and so forth. Its fun and interesting. Don't know for sure if anything has been developed that shows how well a bullet may or may not perform on game with any surety.

DEP

[Kev18]

Well penetration on different mediums is a little relevant in my books but really fun. I just wanted to test it for fun. Usually skin and muscle fibers are softer then wood. So penetration would be a little better on anything on the north american part of the world! :)

[jmort]

Wet news-paper is an excellent testing medium
Ballistic gelatin is an excellent testing medium
Water is really hard on hollowpoints
It opens up bullets that would never expand in real world
Agree, anything, water, wood, whatever is fun to shoot
The FBI and other entites are doing really good work that is improving mostly jacketed bullets for everyone.
Gel, drywall, glass, sheet-metal
Why not shoot wood for fun?????

[robg]

A friend gave me an offcut of stainless steel to use as a swing target,22rf hardly made a mark ,357 mag bullet put a small dent in it,308cast boolit went straight through it .5 mm thick ,I was impressed by the boolits performance.

[Kev18]

A friend gave me an offcut of stainless steel to use as a swing target,22rf hardly made a mark ,357 mag bullet put a small dent in it,308cast boolit went straight through it .5 mm thick ,I was impressed by the boolits performance.

I have a thick plate too. it stopped most rounds but I have some steel core 7.62x54r and the plate never stood a chance.

[Petrol & Powder]

Penetration testing is relative anyway in the sense that it is comparative. If one uses the same basic medium, whether they be pine boards or wet pack, they mostly just work best against a comparison. I wanted to test my 25 cal muzzle loader using round ball and did so against a 22LRHP. The LR penetrated a little more but the 25 expanded quicker with its pure lead ball. It was also chronographed at 1650 as compared to the 22LR at 1280. As the 25 is pretty deadly on squirrels I don't know for sure what I proved. Its kind of like that with most mediums. Comparison against a standard such as one bullet against another. Got into a discussion once on ballistic gel and bird shot. Basically game birds do not penetrate the same either.

Then you need to make sure the medium is a standard. Clear boards versus knotty ones and so forth. Its fun and interesting. Don't know for sure if anything has been developed that shows how well a bullet may or may not perform on game with any surety.

DEP

/\ Good Post /\

[Froogal]

I have a couple of swinging targets made from disc blades. 9mm, .38 special, .357 magnum, and .45 Colt all make a delightful ringing sound and set the target to swinging. None of those calibers will penetrate the disc blade. Grandson accidently hit it with a .223 from his AR15. The target barely even moved. Bullet went right through and left a tiny little hole.

[bedbugbilly]

Interesting thread. Would love to see photos of your log cabin you're working on - maybe you could post a thread and some photos of it in the "Our Town" section?

[Kev18]

Interesting thread. Would love to see photos of your log cabin you're working on - maybe you could post a thread and some photos of it in the "Our Town" section?

Oh man. Its really nothing big. I said "cabin" but people usually associate that with something super pretty and massive :/ Not the case. I really like the Hunter/ trapper style. One day I wish to relaod ammo on a bench in there :) Its 10x10. So Probably the size of your shed.

Keep in mind that there is a week or two between weekends that I go work on it. It would go fast if I would be there everyday. Its on the land my familly cottage is on. I did it at the back bordering another property. Its on 70 acres of land.

Planning:
https://i.imgur.com/LZW4E7p.jpg

Day 1:
https://i.imgur.com/qDHAXBh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/cwKpe7z.jpg

Day 2 :
https://i.imgur.com/XundPE7.jpg

[Petander]

Nice work,Kev.

About cast boolit penetration: My friend got a 20 gauge 870 last winter. He sort of thinks it's a mouse gun. He is an experienced hunter and competiton shooter.

I gave him some of my round ball "Economy slugs" to try, a single hard 575 ball in a cup 1350 fps or so.

Now he won't stop talking about the penetration he got in old,dry pine logs. No more mouse gun, he was completely surprised - and the recoil is mild,too. "These would go through a moose!"

Cast boolits efficiency is not easy to explain,I prefer to demonstrate.

[Ramjet-SS]

Angle a bullet strikes a steel plate has profound impact on the results. Take a 30 caliber steel core bullet shoot it a 3/8” A500 steel plate that is perfectly perpendicular to the bullet path it will zip right through it. Take that same caliber and bullet angle the plate down ward at a 45 degree angle to the bullets path and it will deflect the bullet downward with very little damage to the plate if any at all.

[Kev18]

Angle a bullet strikes a steel plate has profound impact on the results. Take a 30 caliber steel core bullet shoot it a 3/8” A500 steel plate that is perfectly perpendicular to the bullet path it will zip right through it. Take that same caliber and bullet angle the plate down ward at a 45 degree angle to the bullets path and it will deflect the bullet downward with very little damage to the plate if any at all.

Yeah I heard of that. The force of impact is directed downwards so the bullet itself deflects off of whatever it hits.

[longbow]

Not sure if I missed it further up the thread but the old pine board penetration set up used boards of specific size and thickness (1/2" IIRC), and spaced in a rack (like a dish rack) with a gap between boards. At least that is what I have read and if memory serves that was in my old Cartridges of the World... but I'd have to check.

I doubt this was considered as substitute for hunting (flesh impact) but simply a repeatable and cheap way to compare different cartridges and bullets ~ comparative penetration. My take is that the gaps allowed chips to escape instead of building up in front of the boolit and deflecting it or causing inconsistent drag. kinda clean punch through on each board.

Hah! Taking a look on the internet I fond nothing but anecdotal comments about this time of testing but no details. I'll check my Cartridges of the World.

Its always fun testing cast boolits for expansion and/or penetration! Solid. HP, soft alloy, hard alloy, deep HP, shallow HP... all fun.

Longbow

[Kev18]

Not sure if I missed it further up the thread but the old pine board penetration set up used boards of specific size and thickness (1/2" IIRC), and spaced in a rack (like a dish rack) with a gap between boards. At least that is what I have read and if memory serves that was in my old Cartridges of the World... but I'd have to check.

I doubt this was considered as substitute for hunting (flesh impact) but simply a repeatable and cheap way to compare different cartridges and bullets ~ comparative penetration. My take is that the gaps allowed chips to escape instead of building up in front of the boolit and deflecting it or causing inconsistent drag. kinda clean punch through on each board.

Hah! Taking a look on the internet I fond nothing but anecdotal comments about this time of testing but no details. I'll check my Cartridges of the World.

Its always fun testing cast boolits for expansion and/or penetration! Solid. HP, soft alloy, hard alloy, deep HP, shallow HP... all fun.

Longbow

yes the pine boards were all the same. I have an old page of a french advertisement that I found online about the 40-82 and they say how many boards it goes through.

[longbow]

I just took a look in my old Cartridges of the World and actually not a lot of info. In the BP cartridge section there is a page "Velocity, Enegery, Penetration And Trajectory Of Winchester Bullets and Recoil Of Rifles".

There is a table showing common rifles, calibers,barrel length, bullet weight, velocity, energy, penetration through 7/8" pine boards at 15', trajectory and recoil.

An example for the .45-70 U.S.G. with 500 gr. lead bullet penetrated 18 boards, the soft point bullet penetrated 15 boards and the full patch bullet penetrated 20 boards.

The .38-55 with 255 gr. bullet penetrated 10 beards with soft point and 23 boards with full patch bullet.

I am sure I have seen a picture of one of these test setups with the boards all lined up and held solidly but it may have been some specific company. In this case it was old Winchester info but my memory told me it was old military info... wrong!

Search as I might I am not finding any real info. The closest to what I recall reading about (and pics?) is:

https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-1-the-original-box-o-truth/

where he tests penetration through sheetrock all solidly held.

Just stacking up wood or shooting into blocks isn't going to be as consistent (I don't think) as shooting through racked up boards or something like sheetrock. Again, not a test for shooting into flesh/hunting but simply a repeatable inexpensive method of comparison between bullets, loads and calibers. Ballistic gelatin is nice but expensive to set up for many tests like if a guy wanted to test 3 or 4 different bullet designs in several calibers. Pine boards are cheap and easy.

Anyway, not a lot of help there. I guess the old memory is failing me.

Longbow

[Wayne Smith]

I believe it was 7/8" pine boards 1/2" apart held top and bottom in the rack.

[country gent]

For personal testing, Using the same boards and spacing in a rack should give consistent repeatable results. They may not conform with others testing. I think to over come the moisture variances in wood I would soak the test pieces for a day on edge covered in water. Again may not conform with others testing but for you it should be repeatable and constant. This was one of the reasons for water testing and the rise of 20% gelation at 68* temp repeatable test mediums. A simple rack with dados for the test boards to slide into gives exact spacing and holding force. then its cutting the test inserts to the same and grading the grain. A days soak and they should be very close from test to test.

[longbow]

I think its Glen Fyxell that uses a 2 liter pop bottle wrapped in duct tape end shot for flesh simulation for boolit expansion. Water is "hard" when boolits, or even bullets, hit so too much is not indicative of flesh and breaks boolits up... or at least HP boolits, but then that's different that penetration testing too.

I decided to make a rack that holds a bunch of Ziplock bags to try but that is mostly for expansion testing and boolit recovery. A line up of water filled Ziplock bags then a bucket filled with rags. Initial testing went pretty well but I've got to get it out again for some more testing and determining if it is telling me anything useful or if it is just fun. I do like recovering expanded boolits!

The penetration aspect may be useful too... "X" number of bags which should be consistent and not present too much water to cause boolit break up or excessive expansion. We'll see!

Longbow

[Kev18]

I just took a look in my old Cartridges of the World and actually not a lot of info. In the BP cartridge section there is a page "Velocity, Enegery, Penetration And Trajectory Of Winchester Bullets and Recoil Of Rifles".

There is a table showing common rifles, calibers,barrel length, bullet weight, velocity, energy, penetration through 7/8" pine boards at 15', trajectory and recoil.

An example for the .45-70 U.S.G. with 500 gr. lead bullet penetrated 18 boards, the soft point bullet penetrated 15 boards and the full patch bullet penetrated 20 boards.

The .38-55 with 255 gr. bullet penetrated 10 beards with soft point and 23 boards with full patch bullet.

I am sure I have seen a picture of one of these test setups with the boards all lined up and held solidly but it may have been some specific company. In this case it was old Winchester info but my memory told me it was old military info... wrong!

Search as I might I am not finding any real info. The closest to what I recall reading about (and pics?) is:

https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-1-the-original-box-o-truth/

where he tests penetration through sheetrock all solidly held.

Just stacking up wood or shooting into blocks isn't going to be as consistent (I don't think) as shooting through racked up boards or something like sheetrock. Again, not a test for shooting into flesh/hunting but simply a repeatable inexpensive method of comparison between bullets, loads and calibers. Ballistic gelatin is nice but expensive to set up for many tests like if a guy wanted to test 3 or 4 different bullet designs in several calibers. Pine boards are cheap and easy.

Anyway, not a lot of help there. I guess the old memory is failing me.

Longbow

It looks like the older slower cartridges go through alot more.

[longbow]

Most of the older/slower boolits are solid lead and heavy in comparison to modern high velocity boolits/bullets. A .45-70 shooting a 405 to 500 gr. boolit will have more mass and momentum compared to many smaller higher velocity bullets... less energy maybe but more momentum. That and the larger boolit tends not to deform as much or fragment as much as modern higher velocity bullets. More retained mass and less deformation = more penetration.

Longbow

[Kev18]

Why do they make light fast bullets then?I can see that they are better for long range but if the bullet isnt hard enough to stay together and go in "deep" whats the:veryconfu point?

[DonMountain]

I believe it was 7/8" pine boards 1/2" apart held top and bottom in the rack.

My current read, "The NRA Book of Small Arms, Volume I Pistols and Revolvers", dated 1946 by Walter H. B. Smith has listings for penetration at 15 feet of 7/8" soft pine boards. So I guess that was the popular means of testing penetration back around World War II and before. But they do not tell us what kind of "soft pine boards" they are. Or if they were kiln dried to 8% moisture content? We all know that recently cut soft pine is much less dense than the original trees they cut in this country and have a much lower allowable design strength for timber structures. I know some of the original pine boards in my house, built in 1905, is much stronger than the pine boards I get at the lumber yard now. I even put some sample pieces in the stress testing equipment at work and got more than 50% stronger of straight grained with no defects samples.

[longbow]

"Why do they make light fast bullets then?" Because:

- speed sells
- they provide flatter trajectory so easier to hit targets or animals at long range
- faster is better! They are more "modern". When smokeless powder became available in the late 1800's bore diameters shrunk, bullets got longer and skinnier (higher sectional density) and velocities got higher.Cartridges like .30-30 replaced cartridges like .40-40 for many uses.
- less smoke (that modern thing again)
- easier cleaning (if it got done anyway)... no BP fouling to clean up

It is hard to argue that cartridges like 7mm and 8mm Mauser, .30-06, .303 British and the like aren't effective cartridges and likely more useful for the average shooter and hunter than .45-70 loaded with BP. However, if faced with a large bear I'd rather have a .45-70 loaded with 400 to 500 gr. boolit even with BP or BP equivalent loads than any of those.

On the other hand the average shooter or hunter wants to be able to shoot Bambi at 500 yards and that's easier with the higher velocity cartridges. No, Elmer shouldn't be shooting at Bambi at 500 yards to begin with because Elmer likely can't hit a deer sized animal at 500 yards dependably... maybe, but not likely.

It is the Elmers that have driven factories to continually develop more and more over bored cartridges to get every foot per second of velocity they can. Speed sells.

Take a read about the .22 Savage High Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.22_Savage_Hi-Power developed in 1912 and considered magical at the time for its high velocity and shocking power. Big problem is bullet design with such high velocity rounds. For a small diameter bullet to kill well it needs to expand and slow down. It is quite a trick to design a bullet to perform well at 50 yards and at 500 yards on the same game... say deer. If the bullet is designed to stay together at 50 yards then it is likely too stout to expand properly at 500 yards. If it is designed to expand properly at 300 yards then it will likely explode like a varmint bullet at 50 to 100 yards. All dependent on terminal velocity of course but high velocity at the muzzle with a small bullet with high B.C.

To put it in perspective with common cartridges, look at say .308 Winchester shooting a 150 gr. bullet loaded for deer hunting at "normal" ranges of say 100 to 200 yards then put that same bullet in a .300 Winchester and shoot the deer at 100 yards. Do you think the bullet will react the same at impact? Not likely. That bullet will likely expand radically more if not break up. I am assuming typical factory velocities and copper jacketed bullets for both cartridges here.

Alternately put a 200 gr. bullet in the .308 cartridge and shoot an animal at 500 yards. The bullet is not likely to expand much if at all so punches a small hole through the animal.

For shooting paper the lighter faster, flatter shooting bullet is certainly an easier method to get the job done.

For hunting it gets more complicated because terminal ballistics matter... a lot.

Since the average game animal is shot at about 125 yards it seems odd that many hunters buy guns chambered in large magnum cartridges since they are simply not needed at "normal" hunting ranges and few of these hunters are capable of hitting a deer size target past 300 yards much less hitting the vitals. But... speed sells.

Big bore bullets like .45-70 don't really need to expand at all and while slow/low velocity in comparison to the modern high velocity rounds, they are generally loaded with heavy bullets that penetrate well.

Is .22 Savage High Power a better deer cartridge than .45-70? I sincerely doubt it but speed sells and that high kinetic energy sells as well. When someone can say that their .22 Savage High Power produces 3,100 ft/s 1,493 ft⋅lbf with a 70 gr bullet compared to .45-70 at 1,394 ft/s 1,748 ft⋅lbf with 405 lead FN it has to be a better deer cartridge... right? Speed sells.

On the other hand, if you want to varmint shoot at 300 to 400 yards, .45-70 is not a good choice.

My 0.02$ worth (okay, lots of words so 0.04$ worth).

Longbow

[owejia]

Believe the velocity has to be at least 2200 ft per second to get the shock way effect from it, if memory serves me right. Believe that is what the FBI testing determined. One of the old Army test was 58 or 68 ft lbs was considered a lethal force.

[Kev18]

I might try my luck this year bear and deer hunting. With my 1886 that is... For the first time in decades il be allowed females and bucks. Usually always bucks.