Bullet Recovery Ideas Needed.

[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.