Ladies and Gentlemen,

As some of you might remember, I mentioned a while ago that we intended to carry out a penetration test.

The idea is to shoot solid bullets at varying velocities to see what sort of penetration we might get.

I have already made a large supply in the following calibers:

0.585
0.458
0.416

And I am in the process of making some in 0.366 right now.

Our problem is finding some material that we can shoot into, that will give us some consistency.

This material has to be locally available, so any suggestions on what to use would be much appreciate it.

We usually get tons of old telephone books or yellow pages from the post office for free. Preferably all the same format and thickness for comparability.

Then we stack them in a row (as many as you think your bullet will penetrate) on a table that has the same level as the shooting desk, fix them tightly together with duct tape and let them have it.

After the shot we cut the duct tape and see how many books (if you are picky you may even count the pages ) the bullet penetrated.

The tricky part is to find out for the first shot how many books it will need to not have a complete pass-through.

We found it to be the cheapest way to do it and we feel that results have been comparable. It includes a lot of packing, though...

Just my two cents...

If telephone books are not an option, you could use newspapers, Saeed. I would do the same thing Elwood does with the telephone books and bind them together with duct tape. Two feet thickness of tightly bound newspapers would be likely to stop any bullet you can load. You could then measure how far into the newsprint the bullet penetrates.

quote:

Originally posted by patrkyhntr:
If telephone books are not an option, you could use newspapers, Saeed. I would do the same thing Elwood does with the telephone books and bind them together with duct tape. Two feet thickness of tightly bound newspapers would be likely to stop any bullet you can load. You could then measure how far into the newsprint the bullet penetrates.

Good point! I did it with newspapers, too and it worked alright. But it will be my second choice beacause phonebooks are easier to stack and you can measure penetration more easily by the number of phonebooks.

Either way, you ought to contact your waste paper dealer...

Saeed,
I would love to see someone come up with a water trough that had a shootable/patch-with duct-tape target face on one end and a tape measure in the bottom of the trough. Then you just look in the trough to see where the bullet came to rest. Thin waxed cardboard partitions along the way, every 6" to 12", could serve as witness to any keyholing or tumbling.

The steel trough might be made to fit wet or dry telephone books or plywood rectangles/squares snuggly to vary the tests.

A welded steel camel trough about 12 feet long placed on saw horses and leveled ought to do the trick. Fill with water. Have Walter plug the hole on the target face with his finger after each shot so as not to waste water.

"Andy" says that water buckets are the best, supposedly correlates to "real life," whatever that is.

If 2 feet of phone books will stop anything, there probably won't be enough variation in the penetration of any of the bullets to show any differences in penetration, if there are any.

RIP may have a good idea with the trough. Relatively easy to make and keep track of the bullet penetration and stability.

Off topic, but penetration on game is so unreliable that I wonder whether any tests are meaningful. It will be interesting to see if the results correspond to the Penetration Index, which I feel is reliable, on the average.

More ft-lbs, more velocity, more penetration. I just can't handle the recoil!

RIP,

That's a great idea. If only there were some kind of magical, "self-healing" substance to use as the near end of the trough. Something tough, but pliant, that would be more or less self-sealing, yet rigid enough to withstand the water pressure. I think duct tape would not stick or would blow out.

Come on you materials engineers, what's out there? Besides Walter's finger, of course.

If the top of the trough is open the explosion would go mostly skyward with softpoints, minimal with solids.

Maybe a hole cut in the end of the trough and a square of rubber or plastic or masonite particle board could be secured with a bolt on plate with a similar hole cut in it. Sandwich the target hole between the two plates, rubber diaphragm, rubber washers to seal the bolt holes, tighten until the leaking stops.

The small rubber diaphragm/plastic/particleboard square or circle would act as a seal between the two plates when bolted down tight.

The smaller the shooting hole, the cheaper and easier to replace for each shot. Maybe with old innertube.

Water is out of the question, as we are going to be doing the test in our underground tunnel.

I like the idea of Walter blocking the holes with his fingers though!

Old phone books are great for the job. Maybe you can get them for free, or at very low prices.

Shoot and see how many pages did the bullet went trought.

Images from calibros.com

There is a new product out now that is less expensive (less messy) than ballistic gellatin. You can buy it in blocks for bullet testing.
Geo. Hoffman tested bullets using plywood. stacked one inch apart as I recall. He admitted there was no way to control the amt of glue in the plywood but that if a bullet did not give up in plywood it never gave up on the animal either.

crats. liberals, tree huggers, press, etc

What about using a wooden trough filled with damp sand? You would have to add a set amount of water to a set amount of dry sand so the media was consistant. Another idea might be damp sawdust as that would allow more penetration??

A lid that clamped down over the top would stop the media exploding under impact...

To find the spent bullet, you could use a cheap metal detector ...you could add carboard dividers as already mentioned to detect key holing ect...

Regards,

Pete

I recommend against telephone books, newspapers or magazines unless they are first shredded and then soaked with water to make a pulp. There a couple of reasons for this. First, animal tissue is a combination of fiber and water, and pure fiber (phone books) without water is not at all representative of animal tissue. Second, if the books are not shredded, they tend to pack up in front of some bullets more than others, giving penetration results that vary significantly from what is seen in live animals. It seems that the shockwave from a bullet going through wet but not shredded phone books or newspapers will tend to build up a large wad of paper in front of a higher velocity bullet, leading to anaomlous results. The Linebaugh penetration tests were subject to that deficiency. (He found the 25-20 and 45 auto rim were about on par with the 9.3 x 62 in terms of penetration even though on animals they are not).

http://www.handloads.com/misc/linebaugh.penetration.tests.asp

That should have been a red flag that there was something wrong with his test medium, but I guess not.

quote:

Have Walter plug the hole on the target face with his finger after each shot so as not to waste water.

Now here's a quote for that accuracy thread!

friar

Buy a donkey.

Mike Brady at North Fork uses blocks of book binder's glue?

Corbin sells a medium that must be something like this, can be heated and melted down, reused.

I'll have me own water tank one day!

I read in a ballsitics book of mine that the newspaper/ phone book should be wet. Author also suggests lubricated saw dust, clay, jello or ballistics gel (probably not readily available.) have been crious myself, but paper doesn't seem similar enough to live tissue to do justice and the others weren't practical. Good luck.

7mm. guy

Polystyrene foam insulaton.It works great on broadheads for archery targets. Its somewhat self healing.It comes in 4x8 sheets in various weights.I would not try to guess how many sheets you would need to stop bullets.I would build a frame to hold everything together.

The water trough/tank with a sheet of cardboard or plywood each foot along the way is a particularly attractive idea. Think how nice to just look down into the tank and find the bullet lodged nose first in the board or lying on the steel measuring tape in the bottom.

4 feet of water will stop just about any soft, and 10 feet of water will catch just about any solid. Excluded would be 50 BMG, 20mm, 30mm, 105mm, RPG's, 26" naval guns, Minuteman II, etc.

The age old question of "2300 fps or 2740 fps?" will soon be answered.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
The age old question of "2300 fps or 2740 fps?" will soon be answered.

That question will only be answered when you shoot 100 buffalo with each. Or at least that is what Alf said on the FN thread. And I think he has a point, because no one has calibrated water tanks to buffalo torsos.

If anyone builds a steel trough, make it ten times heavier and stronger than you think it should be. I had a pair of 20" long troughs made from 3mm steel plate. The idea was to set them on a stand end to end for 40" of water. Both were fitted with replacable rigid plastic sheets at the open ends and filled with plastic bags of water stacked front to rear. We set up the whole thing on a stand and I took a shot at it from 10 meters with a 338 Win Mag. I wish I had a picture. 40 gallons of water was displaced into the air instantaneously, the troughs both fell of the stand and were completely distorted. It was probably the single most expensive experimental shot I have ever taken in terms of time and money spent in preparation. I am back at the drawing board.

Whatever medium is used for testing should be consistent day in and day out. Building material does not qualify and neither does paper unless it is pulped to an exact formula. Then one might as well use water and correct the results for an approximation of tissue.

Sorry, Saeed-- but you won't learn anything useful unless you use something wet. Phonebook penetration only correlates with well, phonebook penetration. And it's not consistent (been there; done that).

Use ballistic gelatin (temperature controlled, and calibrated) to do it right. Unfortunately, that's a whopping pain in the rear. Water can tell you a lot though. Also makes for nicely symmetric recovered bullets.

Pertinax

A few years ago bought an eight-foot long horse water trough. Cut a small hole at one end just large enough to reliably hit when firing a gun from the bench when placed far enough way to avoid the water shower. Glued (cemented) a tire innertube across the hole. Did not have any interior stops, brakes, or baffles. Filled the water tank with plain old well water.

First tried a 22 long rifle. Not much of a splash. But the 22 bullet traveled the entire length of the 8-foot water tank. We were shocked. Then shot a 45 Colt cast lead bullet into the water tank. It too traveled the entire distance of 8 feet.

Someone who had some experience with boats (I have none) said that if you cut the power to a boat it will coast a long ways. Our bullets without any solid to interrupt travel appears to be coasting the full length of the 8 foot tank. No damage done to the end of the tank that stops the bullet.

Think this summer we'll build a frame to go into the tank to hold a solid sheet of some kind (maybe plywood) in one foot increments. Try again.

Some have suggested that even thin plastic sheeting in one foot or shorter increments would have totally changed the results.

Really thought all the bullets would come to rest on the bottom of the water trough. Had intended to use this trough for African bound solids just to have 22 long rifle bullets travel the full distance.

Went this route after first considering using used milk cartons or one-gallon jugs to hold the water. Was sadly informed that there was a shortage of used cartons and jugs.

Any commments, suggestions, or explanations greatly welcomed.

Hammer

Just a thought.

I read somewhere that you can use soap. You just need to melt enough bars down to make a single block large enough for what you need, then re-melt it after every firing. It might be a little cheaper then balistic jelly.

Just my 2 penny worth.

Dave.
....

Wet phone books are a good material. Soak them overnight, they are quite "pulpy" w/o shredding. I use them all of the time & I haven't seen this "stacking" problem Will speaks of. Dry phone books are hard on bullets like wood. I know for a fact that penetration in wetpack does NOT correlate to penetration in an animal but it does give you a very good comparison between bullets. If it blows up in wetpack, it will prbably fail in heavy muscle or bone. If it doesn't expand @ all, it probably won't expand in soft lung tissue. BTW, there is no way a .45acp/autorim out penetrates a 9.3 unless the 9.3 is a very soft, soft. 36" of wet phone books has stopped every soft I have run though it, from .260 to 458. I test @ 50yds so I can get (4) shots on a set of books. If you want to test for reduced vel. to duplicate extended range, just load them down.

Think that testing bullets in various penetration media can teach us a lot. Think we have to be careful not to confuse what we're learning and misinterpret the results. Also expect two apparently similar penetration media to give different absolute results on different days. Today we may have a greater or lesser water content in our soaked paper or have a different degree of tightness in our newspaper bundles. But do enjoy testing bullets.

At John Linebaugh's seminar in Cody, Wyoming, a few years back we tested the 500 A-Square and 500 Nitro Express, both with 570 Woodleighs -- soft and solids. At 2500 fps the soft was like a hand grenade blowing away the front of the newspaper stack and making parade confetti. Reducing the velocity with the 500 Nitro using the same soft at 2150 fps, penetration was over double. With the Woodleigh solids, the 500 A-Square gave greater penetration and the wound channel through the newspaper bundles was noticably larger.

Each time the 500 A-Square was shot, it required a different shooter. No one volunteered twice.

In Bob Hagel's penetration media of damp silt and sawdust mix, don't think he ever reported greater than 30 inches of penetration with any soft expanding bullet.

Hammer

Excellent ideas guys. Thanks.

Now I see a plastic baggie, one quart size, filled with water and placed against the target hole on the end of the water tank/trough. The water pressure from the trough will press the bag of water into the hole on the internal end of the trough and seal it. Garden hose to refill the tank after each shot and board replacement. Top of tank is open. Spectators bring umbrellas.

Trough can be timber, lined with steel inside or out, sealed with pitch or caulk.

Brackets will hold cheap partcle board or masonite planks as partitions about every foot.

Tired of water? Fill the partitions with cow guts, manure, leather, bones, paper pulp, etc.

Should be interesting, and I could build it myself.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
Tired of water? Fill the partitions with cow guts, manure, leather, bones, paper pulp, etc.

Should be interesting, and I could build it myself.

Plan water is a good repeatability medium I suppose, but I think it is more "abrupt" than an animal in simulation if a medium is wanted to be closer to what to expect in hunting conditions. I thought Bob Hagel had used sawdust and oil in a trough arrangement for a medium at one time...... I should go by and ask him.. Whatever is used should "close" back in after the shot and able to be used for many shots; maybe even left setup and full... Oil would allow this..? Also it should equal projected penetration in game even if eight feet with solids. Good idea RIP..........Now you have me thinking what to put into this penetration soup....

BigRx

BigRx,
It will be rough digging in the manure to find the bullet. That is why I like water and some sort of wood/masonite partitions. The 5-gallon bucket train end to end did offer extra resistance and witness marks for fishtailing in the form of a bucket lid and bucket bottom for every 14 to 15 inches of water.

Hey, I thought good ol' Bob Hagel had gone on to the Happy Hunting Ground. RIP.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
Hey, I thought good ol' Bob Hagel had gone on to the Happy Hunting Ground. RIP.

He's out on Williams Lake and I hope still around... The last I heard he was plagued with bad headaches. But that's back a couple years now; I'll do some checking on him.

Another guy up north was testing bullets into a big diameter piece of PVC pipe filled with a green grass/slurry mixture (simulated stomach contents??) in it with innertube ends clamped in place both ends. He would shot through the rubber..... I've though of giving it a try, be more pulpy that wet books. Might be a pea soup idea for your trough....
BigRx

What about useing a vertical water tank about 10 feet tall, full of water, on a pedestal. You mount an electronic transducer pick-up on the bottom of the tank. Shoot straight down from a elevated position, and measure the time delay from surface impact, to the moment the bullet "clunks" on the bottom.

It would be consistant, repeatable, reusable, fairly cheap and you could take a shower when you were done

It wouldn't tell how far the bullet penetrates, but you would see a comparison between different velocities. I think an x/y graph of velocity/time might be very interesting.

Elmo

.

Two years ago, at the launch of the new "jacurate" bullets in south Africa the test medium was an elephant leg bone backed up by water soaked phone books.

I, Charlie Haley and others have used this before as a guideline, generally with several layers of fresh hide in front of the bone as well though..

Some serious problems though - (appart from finding 30 front leg bones in the UAE)

Bullets that performed best in plain books performed worst on elephant.

As the elephant leg bones dry out they change consistency very quickly. A hard cast lead bullet from my .41 revolver goes straight through a leg and nearly as far into the paper as a regular .458 jacketed bullet at 1900fps.

On a fresh leg, hard cast .41 don't always make it through.

For a reasonable correlation of how a bullet will perform on buffalo, a (fairly old) elephant shoulder blade backed by wet newspaper isn't half bad, and the results I have seen on that test medium are as near as dammit the same as I have seen on buff.

Penetration on ele - a whole new ballgame with other rules. I have not found any test medium here in Africa that I could use to equate to life. I had a look at an ele skull from last season that stopped an awful lot of lead. One tusk base alone stopped a Federal .470 and a Kynock .500 NE bullet. Others bounced off the glasis arround the tusk and were deflected. How do you duplicate this?

Saeed, with the likes of Roy arround to help perhaps you can find something that is 'good enough for government work'!

Ganyana,

Roy is coming over later this month, and we will see what ideas he comes up.

He has already been nominated to shoot the 577 T.Rex, as neither Alan, Walter or me going to shoot that with full loads off the bench!

A few years ago he fired about a dozen rounds off the bench, and then we went to the beach. He got onto a jet ski, and headed to Iran! I had to go turn him around about 5 miless off shore.

He was complaining that his head is throbbing, so he could disoriented.

Big Rx,
Good to hear that Bob Hagel is still kicking. I hope he is not disoriented like Roy.

Whatever is used, easy repeatability with uniformity from shot to shot and ease of measurements should be a big part of the plan.

The angular and rounded shapes of bones and tusk sockets (fresh and dried) seems to introduce variables that should be addressed in higher level studies after Penetration 101 has been mastered.

I know it would probably be brutal, but I still would love a shot at that .577 T-rex. Wish I had one to shoot =)

I've been using stacked newspapers which are soaked in water over night. Works quite well, but I've only tried it for softpoints so far. I guess solids would penetrate a lot deeper. The beauty with paper is that it's readily available basically anywhere.

And elephant leg bone ain't ?

Hammer

For my toughness test on bullets I use something that looks like exabit's box. Working in an office with old files placed in an elongated box. I wet the files, place some plastic backed notebooks and one or two large Bison Bones (soaked in water also) within the files, then shoot into the end of the box. Finding the bullet is a matter of separating the layers of files, being careful because the bullet will be very hot. I have an endless supply of the dead files, as each year more are retired. The Bison bones come from my brother-in-law who raises them and sell the meat. You will be supprised how many of the so called tough bonded core soft bullets turn to a mush of jacket pieces and pulvarized lead. Good shooting.

quote:

Originally posted by Ganyana:

Bullets that performed best in plain books performed worst on elephant.

...

Penetration on ele - a whole new ballgame with other rules. I have not found any test medium here in Africa that I could use to equate to life.

That seems to be the fundamental problem, and although newspaper tests and water tank tests are fun, they cannot necessarily be relied on to duplicate real life. Further, penetration tends to vary from animal to animal to a surprising degree, at least according to my observations.

Here is a summary of some of the weird results of the Linebaugh wet newspaper bullet penetration test:

25-20 - 14 to 20 inches
257 Robts - 20 inches
30-06 - 17 to 18 inches
9.3 x 62 - 17 inches
44 mag. - 27 to 32 inches
45 auto rim - 20 inches
45 Colt - 21 to 43 inches
45-70 - 23 to 55 inches
458 win mag - 47 inches
500 NE - 14 to 55 inches
600 NE - 56 inches

From these results, all I can conclude is that a different test medium is needed. If these were valid numbers, then the following conclusions could be reached:

1. The 45 auto rim is a better penetrator than the 9.3 x 62.

2. The 45 Colt penetrates as well as the 458 Win Mag.

3. The ultimate penetrator is the .600 NE.