Ballistic Media

[WardenMike]

Hey all, newby to forum, wondering what home made medium I could make to test some .44 mag Bullet Barn 320 gr. SWC i reloaded this week. I am looking for a good bear Grizz/Black defense load only I will not be hunting them, just fishing in their backyard. Any suggestions appreciated ( other than get a bigger gun !!) great site, found lots online searches end up here. Years ago I tested some .270 and .338 mag loads, Hornady and Nosler ( Hornady performed just as well, and were half the cost), anyways I used 2 x 8's and a steel plate to simulate the bone (skull) but I think with the .44 that might be asking too much.... Great site BTW, on researching where to buy bullets, this site came up lots !

[Ozark mike]

Find some elk or cattle bones/skull or use hardwood like oak or hickory. 44 mag wirh a 310 is a bone cruncher i seen one go thru a 12 inch post oak then proceed to go thru a 150 lb doe this was back in the 80s

[StuBach]

Welcome to the site. Agree with Ozark Mike, hard wood posts will give you a good indication of penetration short of finding the actual animal they will be used against.

[WardenMike]

Thanks Mike and Stu, might try some hardwood planks, then easier to dig them out and weigh for seeing how they mushroom and end weight...btw haven't seen any 310's but Canada pretty limited on **** especially nowadays with all you Yanks buying up our stock LOL ! Cheers. M.

[Ozark mike]

This is what i use for a grizz/moose stopper but a custom plainbase https://leeprecision.com/mold-6-cav-c430-310-rf.html
The reason we buy everyone elses crap is because the govt has ran all the jobs to china with their bull

[lar45]

At the Linebaugh Seminars they use water soaked newspaper to simulate flesh. They also had some big Beef knuckles from the butcher shop to stack inbetween the wet paper.
My moderate 454 loads of a 350 at 1350 went about 2 feet after the bone because the nose rivited up slightly. I had some harder 320s at the same speed that went about 8" farther.
On a side note, some guy had an old 9.3x57 Mauser with solids that went about 5 feet.
A 475 Linebaugh with hard cast 400's going 1400fps went about 5 feet also.

FWIW

[mdi]

I looked into ballistic gel a while back and making it is too involved for me, and I don't have frig or freezer large enough for 8x8x16 block. I have used water jugs, wet newsprint and magazines taped together but in reality these only are good for comparing how different bullet/loads act in a specific medium, rarely equating to animal body/flesh (a hard wood block? Not condemning those that use hardwood, but that would only tell me how my loads acted on hard wood blocks. Bears are tough, but flesh/bone/organs as hard as oak?). If I really needed to test my loads for performance on game (and I had the money) I'd get a pig carcass or beef carcass and stuff the cavity with oranges or watermelons. Otherwise it's just ???

I did see a target/medium that impressed me as "realistic"; "a meat target" consisting of two layers of t-shirt, leather jacket material simulating skin, pork chops, pork ribs, water melon "lung tissue", more pork rigs, pork chops, leather skin and more t-shirt material. For simulating larger game two layers of leather followed by beef roast, beef ribs and two water melons, more beef ribs, meat and two layers of leather. I haven't tried any but they are interesting...:roll:

[Ozark mike]

I usually jus go out in the woods and find a tree stump with a large girth and thats solid for example i get about 3 ft of penetration into larch with a.458x500 grain wfn @ 1500 -1600 fps with water dropped coww . i can push that same boolit to almost 1800 fps and get a little more. This will kill any thing on earth as far as i am concerned. Never tested my 44 but i have Faith it will penetrate one of them there ugly critters.

[44Blam]

I looked into ballistic gel a while back and making it is too involved for me, and I don't have frig or freezer large enough for 8x8x16 block. I have used water jugs, wet newsprint and magazines taped together but in reality these only are good for comparing how different bullet/loads act in a specific medium, rarely equating to animal body/flesh (a hard wood block? Not condemning those that use hardwood, but that would only tell me how my loads acted on hard wood blocks. Bears are tough, but flesh/bone/organs as hard as oak?). If I really needed to test my loads for performance on game (and I had the money) I'd get a pig carcass or beef carcass and stuff the cavity with oranges or watermelons. Otherwise it's just ???

I did see a target/medium that impressed me as "realistic"; "a meat target" consisting of two layers of t-shirt, leather jacket material simulating skin, pork chops, pork ribs, water melon "lung tissue", more pork rigs, pork chops, leather skin and more t-shirt material. For simulating larger game two layers of leather followed by beef roast, beef ribs and two water melons, more beef ribs, meat and two layers of leather. I haven't tried any but they are interesting...:roll:

Paul Harrel does this...

[44Blam]

Back story on this was I took my dad to the range and he had not shot a gun in 20 or 30 years. We shot trap on the shotgun range and then moved to the pistol range. I had my Ruger Redhawk and we setup some steel targets at 25 yards. I let him shoot the trail boss load, the unique load and then the W296 load.

Then I shot a couple of those 296's at the steel. He looked at me and said "You think it would blow up the 2x4 that is holding the target?" I told him "Probably not, but we can try.". So I aimed, and took a shot in the middle of the 2x4. Well, I didn't see the whole and I saw a big dust up behind the target and no wood flying about... So, I figured I missed. I just told my dad, well maybe if I could hit it... He laughed.

Not long after the range went cold and we picked up my target...

Wood, at 25 yards with a 240 grain boolit under 23.5 grain of W296:
2x4 front:
266950

2x4 back:
266951

[Ozark mike]

Ya should of put 15 more behind it then youd be really impressed. 44 mags generate a lot of penetration power. Thats why elmer liked em

[44Blam]

Ya should of put 15 more behind it then youd be really impressed. 44 mags generate a lot of penetration power. Thats why elmer liked em

It made a 44 caliber hole through with little or no expansion. Just punched through.

[44Blam]

Ya should of put 15 more behind it then youd be really impressed. 44 mags generate a lot of penetration power. Thats why elmer liked em

It made a 44 caliber hole through with little or no expansion. Just punched through.

[lar45]

Way back when, I had a SuperRedhawk 44 mag and loaded some 330s to 1500fps. (I am not suggesting that this was safe, nor am I suggesting that anyone try to push them this hot)
They would punch through 18" of live green pine tree.
I've since moved on to bigger and better things ;)

[fredj338]

Long before ballistic gel was the norm, bullet manuf used wetpack to test bullets. I still do because it is cheap, repeatable & easy. You can use old phone books or newsprint. To stop a 44mag solid, you will need at least 20". For expanding bullets, wetpack delivers almost identical expansion to gel. Gel will have show more penetration but wetpack is a good test media. Bullets I have recovered from game look amazingly like the ones from wetpack.

[megasupermagnum]

I think you will be surprised to find that 44 magnum load will likely penetrate more, substantially more, than either the 270 Winchester, and very likely the 338 Lapua as well. Realistically testing expanding bullets is hard, as what you use can greatly effect the results. For looking at just penetration alone, at least with solid bullets like that 44 magnum, it isn't as much of an issue. I like to use water jugs, as they are cheap, and consistent. Does it in any way simulate tissue? No way. All it is, is a consistent test bed for COMPARISON to other rounds.

A 270 Winchester only goes through about 5 milk jugs of water, I've never tried a 338 Lapua, but I don't think it will be substantially more, maybe 6-7 jugs. That 44 magnum load on the other hand should go through 12 jugs or so. Since you presumably consider a 270 Winchester to penetrate well enough, your 44 magnum load will surely do the trick.

[WardenMike]

These are awesome examples guys. Much appreciated. I ended up using a box stacked front to back with: 2 x 6, beef leg bones, then poplar wood ( 3-4" thick) and then 2 sheets of 1/2 ply.
4/6 penetrated to the last piece of poplar after exploding through the 2x6 - NB 1.5 inches of wood) then the bones. the other two went further, one into the first plywood sheet and the final through both to a 3" thick piece of polplar ( i think this one missed the stack of bones..)
all the bullets were between 230-240 gr (originally 320 gr. 25 brinell hardness). they were not expanded as much as I would have liked hardly at all in fact....- maybe too hard a lead ?? Thoughts ?
Oh I used 20.5 gr H110

[megasupermagnum]

A solid bullet like that would need to be way softer to expand. Something like 30:1 alloy, which i would guess around 8 BHN hardness. GT bullets sells the following 305 grain hollow point that may work for you. Their alloy is not ideal, but many have success. They also sell a 250 grain Keith hollow point that is a classic.

https://www.gtbullets.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=8&products_id=19


By the way, how do you intend on legally carrying a handgun in Canada? That's one the the reasons I refuse to hunt there.

[charlie b]

About 40 years ago my father-in-law and I did some testing such as you want. Different goal. He had a 'new' 3.5" barrel .45acp and wanted some hollow points that would reliably expand at the lower velocity from that short barrel. But, we needed a medium.

First we tried plain gelatin. It was just too expensive. Even the cheapest stuff we could find, and then it wasn't dense enough.

So, we went with a 3 step plan. For initial testing we would just use wet newspaper or phone books. The 'trick' was they had to be soaking wet for the test. So, a garbage can was filled with paper and water. We made a wood box to fit the paper (drain holes on the bottom). When it came time to shoot we'd put the paper out of the can, stack it in the box, and then water it down again just before the shot. Cheap, repeatable and easy to set up and evaluate, ie, dig out bullets. Hint: get some manilla folder material and put one in the stack every 5" or so. Makes it easier to find how far the bullet went :)

Next step was to put a layer of (motorcycle) leather jacket material and two layers of denim in front of the paper stack. Verified the hollow point performance when 'stuffed'. Most commercial hollow points in those days failed that test.

Last, if everything worked the way we wanted with that bullet design, we'd do a 'flesh' test. Two layers denim, leather, stack of pork ribs, a beef roast and a gallon water jug (no, this was not cheap :) ). We'd usually try and get 2 or 3 shots into this stack (bullets in different places).

It worked. We ended up with a really nice hollow point design cast with wheel weights that fully expanded with a 800fps muzzle velocity and penetrated through the roast. (note: the answer was basically what Winchester used in their Silvertips).

PS penetration in the meat was almost identical to the wet paper (unless the bullet hit a bone).

[fcvan]

Years ago, I would shoot a box of drywall taping mud, cardboard box line with plastic. It worked well, was a consistent density, and it was cheap. Then it became more expensive so I bought bags of dry taping mud, mixed it to the specs, and lined a box with a plastic bag. Then the dry mix got more expensive.

It was fun testing but I outgrew it. I haven't shot anything living in quite some time, but I know a RF or TC designed boolit in the boiler room works every time. Never found a boolit in an animal deer sized, all pass through shots. All of the shots in the taping mud showed decent expansion with 50-50 wheel weight and soft mostly pure lead. The HP boolits showed perfect mushrooms, I prefer RF or TC for the penetration and their holding up to heavy bone.

[WardenMike]

Thanks, will check that out, I know another outfit sells 300's with BH of 18 I think I might try them too. Thinking of moving to Alaska....Hyder, or Skagway like the coast. Crab and prawn, salmon ...but lots of bears too...which I love to watch, I used to fish across the river from a sow and thre cubs for years, watched them grow up. Then they tried to break into a native fellas smokehouse up rover and he shot two of them I think. Sad, but we like to hang out in their turf... we used to have an agreement though, we fishermen stayed on the east side of the river, the mon and babes on the west. Worked fine for me, but I smoked my sockeye in town....Thanks for the help eh.

[WardenMike]

I have a bunch of lead 240 gr. but have been using unique, target load of 7.5 gr. Without a gas check, can I bump those up with some H110 (? like you did with 296 ?)

[Ozark mike]

Yes you can run 240s in a 44 mag with h110/296 dr lyman says insert 22.5 starting and 23.5 as a max charge for the lyman 240