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

  1. #61
    Boolit Master 35 Whelen's Avatar
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    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. )



    (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-



    ....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
    The biggest waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who doesn't care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions.
    There are people who, for all the evidence presented to them, do not have the ability to understand.

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  2. #62
    Boolit Grand Master Tripplebeards's Avatar
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    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.

  3. #63
    Boolit Master Sasquatch-1's Avatar
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    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.
    A vote for anyone other then the conservative candidates is a vote for the liberal candidates.

  4. #64
    Boolit Master

    TCLouis's Avatar
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    Trash Bags sure do seem to be cheaper than tarps.
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  5. #65
    Boolit Master 35 Whelen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TCLouis View Post
    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
    The biggest waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who doesn't care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions.
    There are people who, for all the evidence presented to them, do not have the ability to understand.

    NRA Life Member

  6. #66
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    Texas by God's Avatar
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    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.

    Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk
    Last edited by Texas by God; 09-03-2021 at 07:57 PM.

  7. #67
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    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.

    Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

  8. #68
    Boolit Master
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    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

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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