Testing Bullets

[roger1shot]

Hey
My brothers amd I were talking about bullets
and how different bullets expand.
He said that he would like to test fire several different bullets.
I said ok,but what are you going to use to recover the bullet's,
wet newspapers?
I heard this at one time but I never tried it?
What do Ya'll use to test a bullet out?
He was planning to test fire some 308'sfrom his M1A,and a 44Mag.
He's planning to Deer hunt with these.
Thanks

[tINY]

Look here:

http://theboxotruth.com



-tINY

[Dave Haven]

Bullet Test Tube. (http://www.thebullettesttube.com/index/home.html)

[El Paso Joe]

What I have done is line up gallon milk jugs full of water. It will give a relative measure of how far a given bullet will penetrate, how much it will expand, and how much weight is retained.

I want to emphasize the "relative" part. How well it does in a game animal might require that you try it in the field.

One test that I remember is the Hornady 300gr HPXTP 44 mag a buddy and I tested - seem to remember eight or so gallon jugs, the bullet opened to about twice its original diameter, and weighted some 298.5 gr when recovered from the last jug...

[Unclenick]

An old method was to line a crate with plastic and pack it with newspaper and soak the newspapers in vinegar until they turned to a kind of gel. That may work, but I wouldn't want it in the house or near steel with the acid fumes coming off. There have to be about a zillion other possibilities. Ballistic gelatin of some kind is needed if you want to simulate soft tissue. You could probably gel water with enough precipitated silica powder to make a thick enough gel that it would hold its shape after stopping a bullet, let you see what you got, then could simply be troweled back to original shape for firing the next round. Powdered clay mixed with petroleum jelly to make a kind of ballistic putty is another one I've heard of, but haven't tried.

Nick