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Thread: How many water bottles to capture a bullet ??

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy Dom's Avatar
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    How many water bottles to capture a bullet ??

    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'Attachment 285793t wish to use my 5 gal buckets, I need them for other work. It is the bullet on the right.

  2. #2
    Boolit Master Handloader109's Avatar
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    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

  3. #3
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    try a box of fine sand

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    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.
    Last edited by DougGuy; 07-08-2021 at 04:58 PM.
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  5. #5
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    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.

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  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Wet newspapers
    Long, Wide, Deep, and Without Hesitation!

  7. #7
    Boolit Master
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    tell the kids to get outta the pool 1st

  8. #8
    Boolit Buddy Dom's Avatar
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    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.

  9. #9
    Boolit Master scattershot's Avatar
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    Try a rolled up fleece blanket, ala Paul Harrell.
    "Experience is a series of non-fatal mistakes"


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  10. #10
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    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.
    Last edited by Winger Ed.; 07-08-2021 at 07:06 PM.
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  11. #11
    Boolit Buddy
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    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.

  12. #12
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    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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  13. #13
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    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.
    Last edited by quilbilly; 07-08-2021 at 11:12 PM.

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    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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  15. #15
    Boolit Master Thumbcocker's Avatar
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    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.
    Paper targets aren't your friends. They won't lie for you and they don't care if your feelings get hurt.

  16. #16
    Boolit Master Sasquatch-1's Avatar
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    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.
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  17. #17
    Boolit Grand Master
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    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...1351/206363630

    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.
    Don Verna


  18. #18
    Boolit Grand Master OS OK's Avatar
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    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...



    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"...



    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...



    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.



    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...



    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.



    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...



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



    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.
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  19. #19
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    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.
    The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
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  20. #20
    Boolit Buddy alfadan's Avatar
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    A problem a lot of the time is the bullet veering off and out the side of the 2nd or 3rd jug.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check