Bullet Recovery Ideas Needed.

[fjrdoc]

Hi All
I have decided to ask members on Cast Boolits for ideas for how to try and recover hollow-point cast hunting boolits to check expansion. I have been working up nice hunting loads for my 9mm and 9.5 mm Mannlicher Schoenauer rifles. These boolits are 200 and 250 grs respectively.
I would like to shoot these at my range into some form of backstop that would allow me to recover them and examine their level of expansion. I understand that range testing won't exactly simulate actual hunting effect but it would be better than nothing.
Thanks in advance.

[deces]

Steel plate inside of a truck tire would be a good start.

[BLAHUT]

Wet news paper; Water bath, 55 gal drum full, will stop and collect; Ballistic jell;

[Outpost75]

On a hot summer day stand on the end of the diving board and shoot into the deep end of the pool.

[fjrdoc]

I can make some ballistic gel. I have no idea of how much penetration to expect. I will need to shoot at 25 yards in order to keep things near the back stop. Newspaper could be placed behind the gel.

[country gent]

"Fluff" up wet sand with a shovel 24-30" deep. Or damp/ wet sawdust. These mediums will give an idea of performance. Steel plates will give you a cloud of dust and a small disk. Ive heard ground rubber will do okay but never tried it.Plain water tends to over do expansion do to the hydraulic effect.

You might try digging out a 2' square tunnel 3' deep then work the dirt with a pitch fork and loosely shovel it back in place

Another trick is to drop the velocity of the test ammo making it easier to catch and examine.

[Sasquatch-1]

Modeling clay

[Wheelguns 1961]

Newspaper is harder and harder to come by. You can buy bundles of cheap computer paper. They work kind of like phone books.

[atfsux]

On a hot summer day stand on the end of the diving board and shoot into the deep end of the pool.

This works extremely well. Although the lifeguards tend to freak out a bit.

[jmorris]

Bags of sand give pretty good expansion.

When I wanted to see how the coating was holding up after being fired, I used my swimming pool to recover them.

When I was a kid and found that sand bags gave the best expansion (better than wet newspaper and phone books) my Father filled up a 55 gallon drum with water and it worked, if you don’t put a trash bag over the top and shoot through it, your going to get pretty wet though.

[Soundguy]

Hi All
I have decided to ask members on Cast Boolits for ideas for how to try and recover hollow-point cast hunting boolits to check expansion. I have been working up nice hunting loads for my 9mm and 9.5 mm Mannlicher Schoenauer rifles. These boolits are 200 and 250 grs respectively.
I would like to shoot these at my range into some form of backstop that would allow me to recover them and examine their level of expansion. I understand that range testing won't exactly simulate actual hunting effect but it would be better than nothing.
Thanks in advance.

My friends and I built a box out of 2x8 and 3/4" plywood. 2x8 sides, bottom and hinged top. front and back faced with plywood. On the back we placed a piece of 1/8" steel sheet. On the front we contact cement glued a truck mud flap. box was 2' square. We then filled with sand. It's heavy.. but lead handgun and rifle bullets do not exit the back. Jacketed handgun bullets do not exit the back.. and we have not tried jacketed rifle on it because we presume it will penetrate. We dump it periodically onto a frame with 1/4" square hardware clot to sift the lead and then refill with sand. the metal backstop is undamaged from cast.. and you can see an occasional minor ding from jacketed handgun.. but the 8" sand really slows stuff down nicely.
The mudflap is self healing and prevents sand loss. we reclaim out lead this way when shooting. we have bullets that have been thru many lifecycles the last 2 years...

[405grain]

Even with cast loads a 9.5x57 MS should have plenty of penetration. Back when I lived near a range I used to band up piles of newspaper into stacks 8 to 10 inches thick, then soak them in a wheelbarrow full of water until they were wet all the way through. For bullet testing I'd place three stacks together and shoot into that. I would usually put a piece of 3/4" plywood behind the first stack to simulate bone. Though not an exact duplicate of Bambi or Porky Pig, it did give me an estimate of how much my bullets would expand, and how far they would penetrate. This was useful in adjusting the hardness of my alloys. If a bullet passed all the way through the stack (like a 500 grain slug from a 45-70), then I could use the "wound channel" to gauge it's effectiveness. Sadly, the two main sources of material for these targets; newspapers and phone books, are harder to find nowadays. I have noticed that there always seems to be free news stands full of papers selling everything from cars to real estate in the front of some local supermarkets, but I'd be reluctant to just take all of that (would be funny though). If you can find it on the cheap wet newsprint, or some other reasonable facsimile, works well.

[fjrdoc]

I still need to consider what options are available. Although some options mentioned seem good, the difficulty would be moving it to and from the public range. I understand about the shortage of newspaper. Even phone books are hard to come by these days. I wonder if floor mats cut up into pieces and stacked on themselves would be a viable option.

[fjrdoc]

How about carpet remnants cut into squares and placed in cardboard boxes. Maybe multiple boxes end to end would work?

[pettypace]

I'd try a milk carton full of water to expand the bullets and cardboard boxes full of pillow stuffing to catch them.

[Lionel Allen]

I use a window washer jug box filled with flyers and free newspapers.
I get the boxes free from work and they are 10”x12”x16 ish long.
If you give the box a wrap or ten of duct tape or packing tape it will hold up to handling.
There isn’t much difference between wet and dry when it comes to performance, but
dry boxes of paper are easier to lug around.
I have a 300 yard range out my back door, so I don’t have to carry them far.
A 458 Win Mag softpoint will not penetrate the full length of the box.
FMJ won’t penetrate any further than a softpoint, but they do tumble/ turn sideways.
The only thing that will punch throug 2 boxes, and then some, are some sort of
South African solids in 303 British flavour. Those suckers do not deform or deflect.
Just my $.02

[wilecoyote]

I still need to consider what options are available. Although some options mentioned seem good, the difficulty would be moving it to and from the public range. I understand about the shortage of newspaper. Even phone books are hard to come by these days. I wonder if floor mats cut up into pieces and stacked on themselves would be a viable option.

you probably go to the public range by car. and probably in this car you can stuff a square board with four wheels and a length of rope_
any wheeled cart, even d-i-y, can solve the problem of weight and of moving it_

[GhostHawk]

I'm with Outpost, lots of water.

[William Yanda]

Steel plate inside of a truck tire would be a good start.

How would that not interfere with determining expansion?

[dverna]

Catching a bullet is not difficult.

IMO the challenge is evaluating the effects of different alloys, size/shape of meplat, depth of HP and diameter of HP. Will what happens in water, dry paper, wet paper, rubber mulch, or sand be representative of hitting flesh/bone? Gell mimics hitting flesh and seems the most reasonable medium for testing bullet performance even if it is not easy or cheap to use.

[John Taylor]

Many years ago after plowing the driveway snow I was testing a 45-70 with the recently plowed snow as a backstop. When the snow melted I found all the bullets on the ground and in very good condition.

[pettypace]

Catching a bullet is not difficult.

IMO the challenge is evaluating the effects of different alloys, size/shape of meplat, depth of HP and diameter of HP. Will what happens in water, dry paper, wet paper, rubber mulch, or sand be representative of hitting flesh/bone? Gell mimics hitting flesh and seems the most reasonable medium for testing bullet performance even if it is not easy or cheap to use.

For expansion, there's not much difference between water, real 10% gel, and tissue. And the bullet expansion happens early on where the velocity is highest.

[Polymath]

This works extremely well. Although the lifeguards tend to freak out a bit.

And the kids tend to pee in the pool at lot faster rate.
It's always a trade off.

[Cap'n Morgan]

Isn't gel just water without the splash? I would think a trough, maybe 1'x1'x4', would stop anything and give a fairly good idea of the expansion. Of course you'll need some sort of rubber seal in one end to shoot through, and you'll need PLENTY of water for refill.

Come to think of it, maybe a top cover, made from a tractor inner tube or similar, would help to keep most of the water inside the trough.

[firefly1957]

I have found I get real consistent results from gallon plastic bottles filled with water I lay the jug on it's side and back it with dry paper stack.
I have made two V shaped wood fixtures to hold things angled up to where I can shoot from . High energy loads have shattered my first fixture that was made with 1/2" plywood I am now using true two inch boards with a 2" board across the rear to support book or paper. The expansion is similar as in game if a bone is not hit . I expect most self defense loads to destroy the Jug and give little or no penetration into dry paper . I want deer hunting loads to go at least 2 inches into the paper after shattering the water jug. Round nose pistol loads at even low speed will barely effect the water jug and go deep in paper if you need an effective load you want the water rapidly displaced not just a hole in the jug . I have stopped a 352 grain soft cast bullet at 2168 f/s this way I had to put my fixture back together after that shot bullet only went in dry paper about three inches and was well expanded . Same load hit rear upper leg bone on a deer and shattered a large length of bone ruining much meat passed though the other side under the skin and destroyed the other upper leg bone destroying three inches and not exiting . Final bullet weight 220 grains with 89 grains of lead particles bunched with it . It did drop the large buck right there For some reason one front leg was also out of commission and I needed a shot with pistol to finish the deer . The poor shot was my own fault as I did not test fire the gun before season after having it out all the previous summer trying to hit a coyote with the load no coyotes volunteered as test subjects .

Another note on that buck it had tangled with a porcupine had multiple quills in the top of it's head when I dried the skull one quill had worked though the skull and would have touched the brain soon if it had not already .

[fjrdoc]

Thanks for the ideas guys. I probably won't get around to doing some form of testing until after this years hunting season. Work is keeping me busy and the range is starting to get busier with deer hunters.

[Bigslug]

For sake of reference, using the standard gallon milk jug as a measuring unit:

Most of what's been found to be an acceptable police duty handgun load from WWII to present is .35 to .45 caliber, generates somewhere between 300 and 500 foot-pounds of energy, and, if it expands, expands to between about .65 and .90 caliber. Those that expand seem to stop in between 3 to 5 milk jugs. I've had a number of those that don't stop in 7 to 9, and at least one (a 147 grain 9mm at 1000 fps) where 9 didn't stop it.

My guess is that if you do have expansion in the weights, calibers, and speeds (roughly 2,000 fps?) of your rounds, you're going to need a row 6-10 of those gallon jugs.

One tip: Cut up a number of soda or beer cans to make aluminum sheets and sandwich these between the jugs. These will give you a more accurate register of the shape of bullet passing through than the jugs which get a good bit of hydraulic tearing. I used this to good effect determining that an authentic profile British MKI .38/200 bullet can in fact tumble - got a nice "Wile-E-Coyote-slammed-through-a-wall" impression of the bullet passing through sideways.

[firefly1957]

BigSlug I like the idea of the aluminum between jugs Thanks for it .

[Somebody]

With newspaper getting harder to find, check the dumpster of your local used book shop. Mass market paperbacks are basically newspaper and already convenient brick shapes.

[Good Cheer]

Even with cast loads a 9.5x57 MS should have plenty of penetration. Back when I lived near a range I used to band up piles of newspaper into stacks 8 to 10 inches thick, then soak them in a wheelbarrow full of water until they were wet all the way through. For bullet testing I'd place three stacks together and shoot into that. I would usually put a piece of 3/4" plywood behind the first stack to simulate bone. Though not an exact duplicate of Bambi or Porky Pig, it did give me an estimate of how much my bullets would expand, and how far they would penetrate. This was useful in adjusting the hardness of my alloys. If a bullet passed all the way through the stack (like a 500 grain slug from a 45-70), then I could use the "wound channel" to gauge it's effectiveness. Sadly, the two main sources of material for these targets; newspapers and phone books, are harder to find nowadays. I have noticed that there always seems to be free news stands full of papers selling everything from cars to real estate in the front of some local supermarkets, but I'd be reluctant to just take all of that (would be funny though). If you can find it on the cheap wet newsprint, or some other reasonable facsimile, works well.

Yep, best there is for both utility and economy.
Make bundles with packing tape, start soaking a couple of days ahead of time to get them completely gelled, line up as many as needed for the project at hand. Opens like a book to examine the path and to recover the expanded slugs.

Just for stopping the boolits for recovery the best I ever found was stacking old tires and filling the column with dirt.