How many water bottles to capture a bullet ??

[Dom]

This morning , my Win 94 AE 44mag Legacy 24" bbl. "5", 1 gal water jugs at 70 yds. My bullet is a Saeco mold 265gr RFP, GC. BHN 15 & PC. With a load of Alt 2400 , 1800 fps. Completely penetrated all 5 of my water jugs. All I had. I live way out so I can't easily get more. Any suggestions as to what to use ? I don'285793t wish to use my 5 gal buckets, I need them for other work. It is the bullet on the right.

[Handloader109]

Well, pretty much no matter, you have one shot at the milk jugs and they'll be holed.... my guess is 10 jugs with a 44 mag out of a 24" barrel. But is just a guess. What are you trying to do? just capture a cast bullet? Or hunting fish :)

[Conditor22]

try a box of fine sand

[DougGuy]

45ACP out of a 5" 1911 will go through 9 gallon jugs so I doubt 10 would stop the 44 mag out of a rifle.

Exactly what do you hope to learn by catching the boolit? If the barrel is clean and no leading you can safely assume the PC stayed on the boolit. If you are looking for expansion, can you scratch the bare boolit with a thumbnail? If so you will get expansion in sand, dirt, flesh and bone, maybe not in water. If you cannot scratch it with a thumbnail, you will get less or no expansion depending on the BHN of the alloy. If you are shooting deer, bear, moose or elk, I seriously doubt you will recover any of those boolits fired from a rifle in the animal regardless of how many water jugs it penetrates.

[Outpost75]

Stand on the diving board of neighbor's swimming pool and shoot bullet into the deep end. If the nose of the bullet is deformed from striking the concrete bottom of the pool at 8-10 ft. then you have a good mastadon load. If bullet is expanded or recovered undamaged, you have your answer.

Refreshing passtime on a hot, humid day like today.

[poppy42]

Wet newspapers

[turtlezx]

tell the kids to get outta the pool 1st

[Dom]

I want to see what the bullets looks like after shooting. Is the PC holding up on the bullet ? Bore is staying clean, no leading, so PC seems to be working. if I slow the bullet down then I won't know the exact effects of my velocity with the bullet I'm using. No sand around here to shoot into, just very rocky dirt. For sure there are no swimming pools. Shot into a 10" pine from about 30yds. Of course penetration completely thru. As "poppy42" mentioned, wet newspaper.

[scattershot]

Try a rolled up fleece blanket, ala Paul Harrell.

[Winger Ed.]

Recovering a boolit from your rocks and dirt will tell ya a lot about the worst case of what will happen to them.

If you're really curious, ya might sacrifice a 5 gal. bucket or two, and fill them with dirt, newspaper, a board or two, etc.
Duct tape the shot holes, and ya can use them over & over.

I'd put a sheet of plywood in front, so nothing will bounce back, but impacting into old tires works too.

From a practical stand point, If the PC does a good job of barrel protection from leading,
like old school lube, that's about all it really needs to do.

[TyGuy]

I use stacks of old tires filled with sand. I have yet to have a bullet make it much further that half way. A kitty litter scoop and some patience will give you a handful of spent bullets in pretty short order. In my experience, pistol bullets tend to just get the PC sand blasted off of the nose while the rest is still nicely intact. The few high velocity rifle bullets I’ve done that way have been pretty obliterated but jacketed comes apart too so that’s not too surprising.

Mind you, this is only at 25 yards. My 50 yard backstop is too high to dig around in without being prepared to completely rebuild it. That will probably be next spring’s range maintenance.

[Texas by God]

Frozen 1 gallon jugs of water will trap a bullet pretty well IME. I've caught a. 41/210 swc around 700 fps with one jug laid horizontal. I shot it from about ten feet and I squatted to shoot level into the bottom of the jug. With that .44 rifle, it may take a column of 3 or 4 upright to stop the bullet.
The non expanding bullets are usually only marked by rifling- weirdly enough.

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[quilbilly]

I use surplus undelivered phone books gathered at our local recyclers (and occasionally post office). I bind the stack together and then allow rain to soak them in the yard on the target platform set out at 40 yards. That boolit from my 50 cal. muzzleloader using a sabot at an MV of 1550 gets about 20" of penetration. Yours in a similar test would likely get about 24". That is the reason I like that boolit for elk in ML season. Its effect on elk is impressive which is an understatement. That boolit in my 444 Marlin at an MV of 1200 is fun to shoot too.

[cwtebay]

Wet denim jeans work very well!
I don't have a swimming pool either, but I do have stock tanks. One in particular is a 12' mining tire split in two - I don't own a firearm that a cast bullet can reach the other side when shooting at a 45° angle.

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[Thumbcocker]

If you have a 55 gallon drum and a step ladder that might work. A hardware cloth basket in the bottom on a piece of cord will save having to dump out the water every time.

[Sasquatch-1]

A 25# block of modeling clay would probably be sufficient for what you want to do. Should capture the 44. It would show how well the bullet is expanding and give you a great reference for initial wound cavity. It would also be reusable unless you totally explode it which I doubt.

On Amazon they are under $35.00 delivered.

[dverna]

Nothing will penetrate 10" of sand. I made a bullet trap out of sand and fired .450's into it.

If you do not have sand, you can buy play sand at Home Depot pretty cheap.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Quikrete-50-lb-Quikrete-Premium-Play-Sand-111351/206363630

Build a 12x12x12 box with some scrap plywood. (I assume you can hit a 10" square...LOL) Two bags of sand will fill it. Less than $10 and you can reuse it. Downside...it will weigh a bit over 100 lbs.

If you can hit a 6" target, (6x6x12") one bag of sand is all you need and the box will weight about 50 lbs.

[OS OK]

Catch methods are limited only by your imagination & your wallet.

If you want to see the PC and the undamaged projectile, I suggest shooting into a container filled & packed with ground rubber mulch garden cover...all these were reclaimed from that media...the longer you wait to clean out the backstop, the more damage the rounds will suffer from hitting each other...

https://i.imgur.com/L5svxnK.jpg

I put a plug in the bottom 1/3 of this barrel & it still took 9 bags of mulch to fill & pack it...nothing, including rifle rounds penetrate farther than about 21", pistol velocity goes to 12"...

https://i.imgur.com/7KQEVZo.jpg?1

A bucket with play sand will stop those pesky rounds but don't expect them to be undamaged like the rubber mulch...The tennis balls are just for grins and giggles as they head for the clouds...

https://i.imgur.com/AYVuagr.jpg

I wanted to see how much velocity is lost when a properly made HP expands in the first milk jug...I put the chronograph behind a single jug of water. It lost 1/2 it's velocity.

https://i.imgur.com/eQKaRb9.jpg

Now days I test pistol velocity HP's in that green tube and in gel, with water you need some depth or the mushroom will deform itself further on the bottom of the container...

https://i.imgur.com/idH6P6g.jpg

With pistol velocity you generally find that mushroom in the 2'nd or 3'rd jug...with solid projectiles, you ain't gonna catch the projectile unless you have a dozen or more jugs and can shoot straight as a laser beam...I've never caught a solid in water jugs.

https://i.imgur.com/tVKxYlf.jpg

I got tired of loosing those mushrooms out the side of a jug so I built a box to line up 6 jugs, that pretty much solved that problem...

https://i.imgur.com/VPrmNGo.jpg

I can turn that box on it's side and clamp a block of gel to it, a kind of dual purpose box now...

https://i.imgur.com/CKlvv44.jpg

So you see, catch methods really are only limited to your imagination and your wallet and one other thing...how much 'work and preparation' you put into the project.

[waksupi]

Wait for winter, and shoot into a bank of snow. You will have a nice pile of bullets in a small area if you shoot the same area all the time.

[alfadan]

A problem a lot of the time is the bullet veering off and out the side of the 2nd or 3rd jug.

[Chill Wills]

OS OK, it does not surprise me to see you have a very good reply to this question. I see quality in what you do and how you do it. I'll bet you were a darn fine electrician.

A very much younger me did a lot of bullet catching trying to learn about cast hunting bullets. ...Jacketed too, as a bases of comparison. My primary bullet catch setup was 4 one gallon water jugs lined up in front of a cardboard box of old clothing (rags). The setup would catch everything I shot at it including 375 H&H. The water is a much harder medium than game flesh like elk, and the rags act like a catchers mitt to put and end to the greatly reduced velocity. Old blue jeans really work well. Hint - if anyone tries this, put the box of rags in a large trash bag to keep the box from getting wet and soft -falling apart.

The rubber mulch idea is a good one!

OS OK - A side note: I was a professional firefighter but moonlighted as an electrician. Shortcuts and poor work I find in the houses I have owned and friends houses make me grumpy and shake my head. [smilie=l: I like quality work.

[OS OK]

OS OK, it does not surprise me to see you have a very good reply to this question. I see quality in what you do and how you do it. I'll bet you were a darn fine electrician.

A very much younger me did a lot of bullet catching trying to learn about cast hunting bullets. ...Jacketed too, as a bases of comparison. My primary bullet catch setup was 4 one gallon water jugs lined up in front of a cardboard box of old clothing (rags). The setup would catch everything I shot at it including 375 H&H. The water is a much harder medium than game flesh like elk, and the rags act like a catchers mitt to put and end to the greatly reduced velocity. Old blue jeans really work well. Hint - if anyone tries this, put the box of rags in a large trash bag to keep the box from getting wet and soft -falling apart.

The rubber mulch idea is a good one!

OS OK - A side note: I was a professional firefighter but moonlighted as an electrician. Shortcuts and poor work I find in the houses I have owned and friends houses make me grumpy and shake my head. [smilie=l: I like quality work.

I got into the trade right after graduation from HS in 68...I enjoyed it my entire career. At first, while I was an apprentice, I did homes, we call it 'roping a house' & I hated that work, hurry up was always the main thing & quality goes out the window. By the time I was 24 or so I got into Heavy Industrial Power Distribution & Motor control... that was my cuppa-tea & retired after contracting in that part of the trade for the next 25 years.

Thanks for your kind comment Chill.

[Dom]

WOW !! What a bunch of great ideas. which one do I try first.

[Bigslug]

Dom,

If your alloy is intended to expand, you can probably get by with 10 and successfully stop the slug. Police duty loads will commonly halt in 3-4, maybe 5-6 for something really aggressive like the 180 grain .357 Black Talon that they produced for a time - more as a hunting load.

20-1 at 1200-1400 fps in things like my 130 grain .32-20/Martini wildcat or .38-40 carbine in a WFN profile will mushroom nicely and be stopped by about 4.

Make that same bullet out of something hard or with a more streamlined profile, and you'd best bring a lot of jugs. I've had the following results:

.45 ACP, 230grain LFN, 830 fps - 9 jugs

9mm 147 grain jacketed TC at about 1000 fps - exited 9th and final jug in the stack

.455 Webley MKII 265 grain conical profile at under 700 fps - stopped in 7.

.455 Webley MKIV 240 (?) grain ogived wadcutter at under 700 fps - stopped in 4.

Hope that gives you a better feeling for what you're dealing with.

[poppy42]

I use surplus undelivered phone books gathered at our local recyclers (and occasionally post office). I bind the stack together and then allow rain to soak them in the yard on the target platform set out at 40 yards. That boolit from my 50 cal. muzzleloader using a sabot at an MV of 1550 gets about 20" of penetration. Yours in a similar test would likely get about 24". That is the reason I like that boolit for elk in ML season. Its effect on elk is impressive which is an understatement. That boolit in my 444 Marlin at an MV of 1200 is fun to shoot too.

Wow! I haven’t seen a phone book in about 10 years! That’s why I use wet news papers.

[Sasquatch-1]

As far as books go you may want to put up request at college campus and local grocery stores or on social media for outdate school books. I had a punch of these from when my wife was getting her degree and ended up having to take the to the recycler.

[MT Gianni]

Dom, if you have your own range Bob Hagel wrote about his bullet trap. 6' long box 12"x12" of pllywood or wafer board. Alternate 12 " of wet newspaper and 12" of wet sand with [2] 1/8" board as dividers. Put a piece of cardboard in between the two 1/8" pieces to see how they are traveling. He claimed most of his rifle bullets would be found 4' in.

[Goofy]

Back in days gone by the catcher’s mitt was a wooden box 8-10’ long 12-18” square, filled with damp sawdust. The sawdust does not deform the bullet much if any. Difference between sawdust filled box vs snowbank? You can find the bullet in sawdust.

[Dom]

Got a saw mill just down the road. I would bet they have saw dust. I wounder if plastic gal milk jugs filled with a slutty of water & saw dust would stop bullets any better than straight water ?

[waksupi]

I recall when BruceB was looking for a solution for this. One of his ideas was to make a trough, and fill it with cooked rice. I explained the physics of what he was trying to do and why it wouldn't work, but he wasn't understanding my explanation. After his first shot blew all the rice from the trough, he then understood the problem.

[Goofy]

Well, rice might work if the box had a roof and a solid end. If one has any talent it isn’t a tuff trick to make the top cover a slide in fixture.

Bottles of sawdust? The weakness is the container not the medium.

[dverna]

Dom, if you have your own range Bob Hagel wrote about his bullet trap. 6' long box 12"x12" of pllywood or wafer board. Alternate 12 " of wet newspaper and 12" of wet sand with [2] 1/8" board as dividers. Put a piece of cardboard in between the two 1/8" pieces to see how they are traveling. He claimed most of his rifle bullets would be found 4' in.

I am willing to bet he made the box four feet too long. Nothing will penetrate 12" of sand.

[reloader28]

I am willing to bet he made the box four feet too long. Nothing will penetrate 12" of sand.

I made mine 4 feet long and never found anything past 10" at 100 yards.
Sand had to be damp though. I never found anything if the sand was dry.

[ChristopherO]

285953
Found on the backstop after penetrating 6 water jugs which were 75 yard distant with the FN 175 grain .358 caliber boolit traveling approximately 1,750 fps from barrel. My notes say the alloy was range scrap.
With a hard cast 158 grain SWC358 at lessor velocity (1,100 to 1,300 fps) it will zip through 6 jugs at 50 yards and keep on going with no spectacular splash effect. Found one of those on the backstop yesterday with hardly any sign of being fired.

The range scrap 405 grain WFN 45 caliber boolits mushroom impressively and are usually found in the 4th jug at 20 yards with a MV of 1,620 fps. It all depends on how fast, how close, how hard and how soft.

[waksupi]

[QUOTE=Goofy;5223697]Well, rice might work if the box had a roof and a solid end. If one has any talent it isn’t a tuff trick to make the top cover a slide in fixture.

/QUOTE]


Nope. Physics again. Cooked rice is a liquid in action, and liquid does not compress. Something's got to give.

[Idaho Mule]

I recall when BruceB was looking for a solution for this. One of his ideas was to make a trough, and fill it with cooked rice. I explained the physics of what he was trying to do and why it wouldn't work, but he wasn't understanding my explanation. After his first shot blew all the rice from the trough, he then understood the problem.

This sounds like a cool bird feeder. I bet it was impressive.

[para45lda]

I'll second or third rubber mulch. I used a wooden box on its side with horse stall mat as a face. Three feet stops all but the biggest rifle rounds. You could put a mild steel plate as the backer for a true stop.

Good luck!!

[too many things]

try the neighbors swimming pool

[Goofy]

[QUOTE=Goofy;5223697]Well, rice might work if the box had a roof and a solid end. If one has any talent it isn’t a tuff trick to make the top cover a slide in fixture.

/QUOTE]


Nope. Physics again. Cooked rice is a liquid in action, and liquid does not compress. Something's got to give.

Is snow a liquid?

[Smoke4320]

I use a blue plastic 55 gallon barrel filled with rubber mulch. Whatever formulation the blue barrels do not Crack over Time. white one's will.. Mine is standing upright. Even a 308 or 270 will not make it all the way thru from 50 yds and out

[Sasquatch-1]

Just curious...has anyone ever tried soaking the old suspended ceiling tiles and shooting thru them? I wonder how many it would take to stop different rounds. Unfortunately I can not try this at the range I go to.

[waksupi]

[QUOTE=waksupi;5224049]

Is snow a liquid?

It would actually be considered a solid in its frozen state.

[444ttd]

he does a whole host of gallon jugs and the 444.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Sourdough444/videos

[gunther]

A friend built a crib 2x2x4, maybe a bit longer,into a bank, and filled it with dirt, after removing the rocks. It'll stop 45-120-550's at 200 yds. Slugs wash out after a rain. Seem to remember Elmer Keith writing that he used a snowbank, But that would require a lot of snow, waiting for spring, and an incredible memory. It worked for him.

[Goofy]

[QUOTE=Goofy;5225082]

It would actually be considered a solid in its frozen state.

Ok, if one filled a container with snow what portion of the volume would be air? For sake of the discussion pretend we are talking about dry snow. I ask only because it is virtually impossible to expel all air. Pretty much like a container of cooked rice. Either will be consistent with some definition elements of a liquid, but not all.

[Dom]

My penetration test today. I had recently , about 3 weeks ago cut down a problem pine tree. Since it was still un-split I thought maybe I could shoot into the end of it. So. at 70 yds a 313gr cast bullet I had cast out of scrap WW ( BH 10.5 ) was sent into the end of the log. Out of the 24" bbl of my Win Legacy 44 mag., chrono 1550 fps. After splitting the log open I measured 8" of penetration. Retained bullet weight was 262gr. Missing GC was 7.6gr on my scale. Picture shows bullet before & after. It appears to have retain most all of the PC. Hard to see in the picture, but it is there. Coating is clear with a little O.D. green.286054286055286056286057 A thump-er load & a clean bore.

[ChristopherO]

That gives an idea how well your boolit holds up in bone, which is pretty good penetration and ability of the slug to hold up well. Water jugs will give a prettier picture, but at least you have something to gauge it with. Neither are the same as fur, skin, flesh, organs and bone, but I use water jugs out of convenience.

[HumptyDumpty]

I just tried this with some Fiocchi, 32 S&W Long, 100 grain Wadcutters. The rounds consistently went through a 1.5 quart Smart Water bottle, one half-gallon Fabuloso soap bottle, and knocked down a half-gallon iced-tea bottle (can't recall the brand name). All this was from perhaps a yard away, fired out of a 2 3/4" H&R 733. I'm actually pretty happy with the rounds performance, and intend to load the same projectiles to just a bit higher velocity, as discussed in the 32 S&W Long Manstopper thread (a great read, for those with even a remote interest in the subject).

[waksupi]

[QUOTE=waksupi;5225259]

Ok, if one filled a container with snow what portion of the volume would be air? For sake of the discussion pretend we are talking about dry snow. I ask only because it is virtually impossible to expel all air. Pretty much like a container of cooked rice. Either will be consistent with some definition elements of a liquid, but not all.

Do some Googling for your answer, I only answered if snow was solid or liquid. You can add in determining factors on any subject.

[Tar Heel]

The 38 Long Colt with a HB Bullet.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?419131-38-Long-Colt-Original-Configuration-with-375-quot-Heeled-Bullets&p=5155195&viewfull=1#post5155195

[.429&H110]

Try freezing the jugs first...

I have had .22 lr go through a plow drift. I thought the driveway would make a fine range, surrounded by 6 feet of snow, but a 22 will go through 4 feet of unpacked snow easily. I stomped down a drift with snowshoes, the metal detector found jackets two feet deep. Solid ice will certainly stop a boolit. Then I stacked firewood on end vertically to a pyramid, to backstop the 30-06. I shot some peat bales to recover boolits, picked out the expanded .44 slugs and spread the peat in the garden. Great stuff, peat.
In Fairbanks they shoot spruce logs lengthwise, split the log, find the boolit. The pile needs to be split anyway. 18" is considered borderline for bears, I guess bears are as tough as spruce trees.

[Savvy Jack]

https://www.clearballistics.com/shop/20-ballistic-gelatin-sniper-pack/

[Outpost75]

.38 S&W rook rifle, Accurate 36-240H, ten-inch twist 9mm Parabellum barrel 20 inches long, penetrated eight 1 gallon jugs with 240-grain FN bullet at only 720 fps, with 3 grains of AutoComp. No yaw. Penetrates straight through like a laser!

286177286178286179286180286181286182

[Dom]

That's amazing. Weight carries fantastic momentum , which translates into DEEP penetration.

[Outpost75]

That's amazing. Weight carries fantastic momentum , which translates into DEEP penetration.

Contrast .44-40 handload with 23 grs. Alliant #2400 from Winchester 1892, Remington 200-grain JSP at about 1700 fps.
Stops in 4th gallon water jug, about 30 inches of water. "Parachute" effect from expanding bullet.

286190

[Savvy Jack]

Contrast .44-40 handload with 23 grs. Alliant #2400 from Winchester 1892, Remington 200-grain JSP at about 1700 fps.
Stops in 4th gallon water jug, about 30 inches of water. "Parachute" effect from expanding bullet.

286190

Oh boy, don't get me started...lol

286191
286192
286193

[Savvy Jack]

286194

286195
286196

286197

286198
286199

[murf205]

.38 S&W rook rifle, Accurate 36-240H, ten-inch twist 9mm Parabellum barrel 20 inches long, penetrated eight 1 gallon jugs with 240-grain FN bullet at only 720 fps, with 3 grains of AutoComp. No yaw. Penetrates straight through like a laser!

286177286178286179286180286181286182

No wonder the Brits specified a 200 gr boolit in the 38S&W for WWII revolvers!

[NEKVT]

Bob Hagel's test box was mentioned above. From his book, Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter, 1978:

"What I finally settled on is a box about 1 foot square and 4 feet in length. It is filled with a mixture of about 50% sawdust, preferably partially rotted, and 50% fine silt. This mixture is given just enough water to cause it to stick to the fingers, but by no means mud. A piece of heavy truck innertube is placed over the shooting end, and a cardboard spacer placed every 6" to check expansion and facilitate bullet recovery. The mixture is stirred up between shots, so it does not pack enough to give more resistance for one shot than for another."

[cwtebay]

Bob Hagel's test box was mentioned above. From his book, Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter, 1978:

"What I finally settled on is a box about 1 foot square and 4 feet in length. It is filled with a mixture of about 50% sawdust, preferably partially rotted, and 50% fine silt. This mixture is given just enough water to cause it to stick to the fingers, but by no means mud. A piece of heavy truck innertube is placed over the shooting end, and a cardboard spacer placed every 6" to check expansion and facilitate bullet recovery. The mixture is stirred up between shots, so it does not pack enough to give more resistance for one shot than for another."That's an interesting method, thank you for sharing.

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[35 Whelen]

You guys who jokingly suggested swimming pools are on the right track.

Go to Walmart or Dollar General and get two or three of those $4.00, 24" long laundry baskets and two or three of the cheapest poly tarps you can find, about $3.00 each, or just one big one.

Line up the baskets on the picnic table in the back yard, line the baskets with the tarp or tarps and fill them with water. (At some point in this endeavor you'll most likely need to let your wife what's going on. I would suggest BEFORE you start shooting, which is when I should've told mine. :-P)

https://i.imgur.com/SHCPyuXl.jpg

(I no longer use jugs, just the baskets and tarps)

The rest is pretty self explanatory, shoot into the ends of the baskets and collect your bullets.

Some suggestions-

First and foremost, load the bullets you're testing down to expected impact velocity, and shoot from very close range. This serves two purposes; First it keeps us from having to shoot at the water baskets from from 50-100 yds. away and second, it allows more precise bullet placement. If one is careful to shoot through the holes in the baskets, they last much longer.

You can test multiple calibers at once, just have everything ready so you're not dawdling around while the water leaks out. My modus operandi is to load a cartridge to be tested and write the velocity on the case, shoot it, grab the bullet out of the basket and put it with the empty, like this-

https://i.imgur.com/vREv1Rcm.jpg https://i.imgur.com/fN5EVwIm.jpg

....then quickly move to the next subject.

If two or three baskets aren't enough to contain your bullets, consider putting something behind the last one to stop them. It doesn't take much.

Bullets tend to tear holes in the tarps rather than cut them, so they leak more slowly than they would with full caliber holes. After you've punched a few holes in your tarp, it's simply a matter of gathering a little excess tarp in the basket and folding it over the holes. The pressure of the water does a pretty good job of holding the folds against the bullet holes and slowing the leaking.

When you're finished shooting, spread the tarps out to dry, then patch the holes with duct tape.

Water in a fairly open space such as these baskets yields easily, so I figure if a bullet will expand there, it will do so in just about any other medium such and flesh and organs.

I'm probably forgetting something, but maybe y'all get the idea.

35W

[Tripplebeards]

I used a couple of large 3’ long water filled totes a few years back to catch a 15.4 Bh HP boolit traveling 1875 FPS. Caught the first one and the 2nd passed through both. Soft BH boolits have stopped within 3 to 4 milk jugs. I stopped worrying about catching boolits after using a few harder and softer alloys on deer.

[Sasquatch-1]

Not sure about water bottles...but 1 ten pin bowling pin will stop just about any handgun bullet as long as the pin is not secured to the table in any fashion. :kidding:

[TCLouis]

Trash Bags sure do seem to be cheaper than tarps.

[35 Whelen]

Trash Bags sure do seem to be cheaper than tarps.

Definitely! Wonder if they'd stand up to multiple holes? Worth a try for sure.

35W

[Texas by God]

A .410" 210gr swc (over 6grs of AA#2) is resting in the second jug of ice. Fired at 15 feet. The entry hole is on the wh of whole...the third jug was knocked over from the second jug stopping the bullet. This is probably an 800fps or so load. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210903/f9e1247a0caa6009ea36e1712a882368.jpg

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https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210903/7affb405c84e7e446d98cd607f2d0ef2.jpg

[Texas by God]

A single laundry soap container full of ice caught these five .38 Lee 105gr swc bullets. The mild load is 4grs of AA#2.
Enough ice will catch your .44 bullets with ease.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210917/b4b83bbba251e20e6f46b1d7c8922e8d.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210917/47067f8d1b84dddc37f569631ce8bd63.jpg

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[farmbif]

a 6" steel pipe about 8' long with a 1/2" steel plate welded to bottom end and a couple steel legs welded to the top so it was at an angle making the open top a comfortable shooting height, a thick rubber mat made out of two layers of old truck flaps with hole drilled in middle to place a gun muzzle into was fitted on a frame that was held to top of pipe opening. pipe filled with water. that's what my gunsmith friend used to test fire just about everything in his shop. if he wanted to retrieve bullet an old broom handle like pole with some kind of sticky stuff on one end was used