Examining bullets

[montana_charlie]

Late last winter, we had one snow drift (deep enough to catch a bullet) that hung around long enough for me to fire some bullets into.
The four I recovered gave me a good idea of what was happening with the particular bullet/patch combination, but there was no opportunity to modify the load and retest.

I have been shooting paper patched bullets (during the summer) to see how they group, but that doesn't answer the questions I want information on. So, I have been mentally toying with various types of 'maybe' while wishing it would snow.

I have seen more that one 'cop show' on TV where the bullet recovery meduim is some kind of small plastic balls in a container. (I guess they're plastic, they certainly are lightweight.)
So, I tried Googling that sort of thing, today. Can't claim to have had much luck in learning the secrets of the CSI lab, but I did run across a method that sounds like it might be satisfactory.

The recipe is:
Fill a five gallon bucket 3/4 full with dry softwood sawdust.
Add 1" of fine construction sand.
Fill to top with shredded newspaper.
Gradually add two gallons of water.
Stir with power paint mixture until blended.
Final consistency is about the same as firm oatmeal.

The whole article is here...
http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/lid=11848/guntechdetail/Handloading___The_Wandering_Narrative_Part_III

The 'oatmeal' part is about halfway down the page.

CM

[powderburnerr]

does it say what it will stop?.....Dean

[RMulhern]

MC

Have ya got a swimming pool??:bigsmyl2::idea::cbpour:

[montana_charlie]

Up here, hot tubs are more common than swimming pools. But, now that you've brought it to mind, I can't think of anybody who has one...
CM

[Boz330]

Why not try a bunch of milk jugs of water lined up on a board. The boolit should be in the last busted one or close enough to find.

Bob

[Ricochet]

Bullets often do veer off sideways and get lost out of a stack of jugs, as another recent thread mentions. Easy to set up and try for one bullet, though.

[Lead pot]

It's awfully hard to beat a good snow bank to recover a undamaged bullet.
Plastic shrink wrap wadded up works good to see how a bullet expands.
Pop corn packaging stuff works but you will need at least 20 feet to stop a bullet fired from a black powder cartridge rifle and it needs to be packed tight. and dont ask me how I know this [smilie=1:
Draw back I hate this junk, it sticks to you and flies all over the yard when you look for the bullet.

[montana_charlie]

It's awfully hard to beat a good snow bank to recover a undamaged bullet.
You're right Kurt, and a lot of that comes from the unique consistency of 'drifted' snow. It has a 'firmness', caused by the wind settling it into position, that's hard to describe.

In the absence of 'drifts', have you ever piled snow up (with a tractor) to get something big enough to shoot into?
Was the consistency anything like 'drifted' snow?
CM

[yondering]

In the absence of 'drifts', have you ever piled snow up (with a tractor) to get something big enough to shoot into?
Was the consistency anything like 'drifted' snow?
CM

I've done that, sort of. Some of the logging roads in the mountains here get plowed when it snows, the plows leave large boulders of packed snow on the sides of the road. Some are 4-6 feet thick, which is enough to stop most 30-06 rounds. Bring a shovel.
I was surprised to find this would expand a Win Fail Safe bullet to look just like the picture on the box. Haven't tried cast boolits yet but you could expect some expansion unless cast hard.

[bcp477]

The easiest and simplest, IMO, medium for catching bullets is a water tank. That is what all of the ballistics labs use. One could be easily constructed of lumber and plywood, with a plastic liner of the type used when creating a water garden (pool). The tank doesn't have to be any particular width, even 12" wide by 18" high will do..... but it should be such that a bullet fired into it will have a path of no less than 8 or 9 feet.....10 would be better (just to be sure). Even high velocity bullets will be stopped in this distance in water (actually, more like 6 feet). So, it would be easy to build a water trough, say 18" wide x 24" deep x 10' long (that's how I'd build it myself), lined with a suitable pool liner. On one end, you could create a simple rest for any sort of gun to be fired into the tank, oriented so that the bullets would be fired at the correct angle. A splash cover could be a simple sheet of lexan or plywood.....set on top. Fill it with water.....then, shoot away......and recover the bullets easily.

[Gunlaker]

You're right Kurt, and a lot of that comes from the unique consistency of 'drifted' snow. It has a 'firmness', caused by the wind settling it into position, that's hard to describe.

In the absence of 'drifts', have you ever piled snow up (with a tractor) to get something big enough to shoot into?
Was the consistency anything like 'drifted' snow?
CM

Interesting....

How much snow does a fella need to stop a 550gr .45 cal bullet trucking along at BP speeds? Up by my cabin we get a lot of snow and it'll be starting soon.

Do you wait for the spring to recover the bullets or do you dig for 'em?

Chris.

[Lead pot]

CM.

Yes you can shoot in a pile and get the same results. We get a lot of snow and I push it up into a pile and use it too. When the wind starts to drive the dry snow and makes the big drifts is what I like to use. The snow is firm and clean,( no little gravel mixed in)
And when the snow melts in the spring all the bullets are on top of the flattened grass and easy to see.
Just put a mark on the base like a number so you can identify it later and keep notes.
The bullet shot from the .50-90 will penetrate roughly 10-12 feet.
I tried the water traps and they expand the bullet nose and usually will split the 55 gallon barrels that are welded together.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b302/940Leadpot/IMG_0269.jpg
Hear are some PP bullets cast with various alloys from 1/30 to 1/16 lead/tin that were recovered from the snow.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b302/940Leadpot/IMG_0648.jpg

[montana_charlie]

Kurt,
What is that snow-plosion in your picture? Is that the impact of your .50/90?


Interesting....

How much snow does a fella need to stop a 550gr .45 cal bullet trucking along at BP speeds?
Kurt's reply will give you some idea, but I have had them stop in as little as five feet of hard packed (drifted) stuff. Of course, they traveled about 75 yards before hitting the snow.

Do you wait for the spring to recover the bullets or do you dig for 'em?
Depends on whether or not you have your hurry-up turned on.

The first ones I tried (two bullets) were fired into a very narrow creek bottom that was drifted full. Firing parallel to the creek provided enough 'distance' to stop them without hitting dirt
(I hoped).
I used plastic marker flags at the entry points and where the bank curved enough to be a backstop (if they went that far). That gave me a straight line to search along at recovery time.
The snow melted for days and days, and I had to reset my flags a couple of times, but that creek bottom snow just wouldn't 'disappear'.

After a week and a half, I finally went out with a big kitchen spoon and a metal detector. Took a lot longer to find them than I expected.

The second try was firing into a free-standing drift that formed across the roadway at the end of my haystacks. I fired four into the 'face', spaced six inches apart, and waited for the drift to melt.

Unfortunately, being unable to clear that drift, I couldn't drive straight to the haystacks to get feed for the cows. Had to drive a half-mile circle, through two different gates, to come in from a different direction.
Then, all the way back around to start off in the direction of the field the cows were in.

Got tired of that after five days and started digging into the back side of the drift.
I was five feet in and the snow was shoulder deep when the metal detector beeped.

When I fired those bullets, it was to find out if they would end up looking nasty.
They did...

CM

[Lead pot]

MC, no. That black line you see is the top of the 6' snow blower. :)

[1874Sharps]

The snowbank recovery method looks like a great way to recover a bullet about as undamaged as could be expected. Down here, though, it only snows about every once every one hundred years (that is not an exageration!). I must say that the warm winters down here are a bit more inviting than all that snow!

[Digital Dan]

An alternative to snow is sawdust mixed with motor oil. Takes a lot, put it in a long box of about 18x18". Don't know what it takes to stop a big bullet but I'd guess 4' is a starting reference. Paper over the end you shoot into.