Latest Two-Projectile Gel Test
The novelty of gel testing is wearing thin for some of my shooting buddies. So at today's Snubbyfest I was able to claim exclusive use of two bricks of Clear Ballistic gel. I decided to stick to a single load -- two Lee 356-95 RF bullets loaded base-to-base over 2400 to about 725 ft/s. I fired a cylinder full of those guys into the gel from about 5 yards.
The picture below was not taken at the range, but shows how the two ammo can size bricks of gel were arranged allowing for a total of 22" of penetration.
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The next picture shows the second gel block at a better angle for measuring penetration. Nine of the ten projectiles are visible. The front bullet from one shot exited the second brick after 22" of penetration.
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Average penetration of the front bullets was 20.8". Average for the back bullet (flying base forward) was 17.8". Only one bullet showed any signs of tumbling. That bullet turned almost 45 degrees right at the end of its penetration, maybe on the rebound?
NOTE: At the time of this test I thought there was an inch-to-inch correspondence between penetration in Clear Ballistic gel and in validated 10% ordnance gel. I've since learned that this is not true. Roughly speaking, bullet penetration will be less in 10% ordnance gel than in C-B gel. Recent testing has shown that penetration in real gel would likely be only about 80% of what I measured above. Making that correction would give the front bullets above an average penetration of about 16.5" in 10% ordnance gel and the back bullets an average penetration of about 14".
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The two entrance holes for each shot were separated by about 1/2" with the back faux-WC cutting a noticeably bigger hole above the front bullet hole.
This is the second re-casting of the C/B gel and I have no clue how re-casting effects calibration. But I did fire one round each of two different factory JHPs also fired in previous tests for a sort of pseudo-calibration. The 90 grain Hornady FTX Critical Defense Lite penetrated just over 9" and is visible in the first picture just to the left of the middle window of the house in the background. A 95 grains Silvertip +P round penetrated to 10" and stopped at the bottom surface of the first block. I pulled that bullet out with my fingers and forgot to replace it for the picture. But the hole I yanked it from is visible as a white dot centered under the middle window and just about in the vertical center of the first gel block.
I've liked this load from the start and with this test I'm beginning to believe it has enough penetration to be an effective self-defense load. I think my next step will be to load up a bunch and see what sort of accuracy it has beyond 7 yards.