Ladies and Gentlemen,

As some of you already know, we made a few bullets ourselves on a school grade CNC lathe.

Although we managed to get enough to hunt with last year and this year, it was an exercise in frustraion.

As the machine never made two bullets with the same diameter!??

We have finally ordered a decent CNC turning center, which is perfect for making small parts like bullets.

As you know, there has been an argument going on for as long as I can recall, about the velocity at which a bullet penetrates further. And whatever we do, I somehow doubt that we will ever put an end to that argument.

But, to satisfy our own curousity, we would like to conduct a penetration test of several calibers, using the same design of bullet, at different velocities.

The calibers we have in mind are those which are used for big, dangerous game.

9.3
375
416
404
458
585
600
700

Now, our problem is finding a material that is easily available, that we can use to shoot into, so we can recover the bullets, and at the same time closely resemble bone, skin and meat.

We do not have access to ballistic gelatin, so that is out of the question.

Some suggestions were made that we should use large blocks of soap.

We looked for it here in the UAE, but were unable to find any except the small block one uses in the bathroom.

Is there a way to melt and re-consitute soap?

Is there any other, easily obtainable material anyone can recommend?

In the past we have used thick catalogues with 1/2" plywood in between.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciate it.

If you want to go to the trouble, you could make your own soap according to the method and formula used by Americans of the past century. I remember my mother making it, but I don't know the formula. I do know that it used beef tallow and lye. I'm sure it could be found with a bit of searching on the Web. The point is that you could make it in large quantities, and cut it into large blocks.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Per Grizz's post, Joyce Hornady used wood pulp. Along the same lines, I'm sure a chainsaw could generate a sufficient amount of sawdust, to which you could just add water.

Interesting research you're about to undertake. I'll look forward to reading the published data.

Take care, Saeed.

Russ

you mentioned you use old phone books-
place several phone books in a compactor-such as large vise
using the 1/2 ply board on each side- make sure you cut the boards about 3" wider then the books- then bolt the boards together '4-8 bolts'
you could make a 6-8' thick tight target

good shooting

Saeed, I think that practicality dictates that we all use local materials available to us. Based on materials likely to be available in the UAE, I suggest the following three bullet penetration media:



1. Camels. Strap 12 camels together side to side to get sufficient thickness to stop a solid bullet. For the larger diameter bullets you may only need a 6 pack of camels instead of a 12 pack.



2. Sand. I suspect there is plenty of sand to be found in the UAE. Get a shipping container, cut the top out, cut a hole in one end for shooting into, fill the container with wet sand, shoot, and hand Walter a shovel. He might want to use a metal detector to narrow his search for the bullet.



3. Flour/water paste. Get a large diameter pipe, such as 24" or 36" in diameter, and about 12 feet long. Build a removable cover for one end. Cut the pipe lengthwise and make fasteners so that it can be assembled as a sealed closed-end pipe, or disassembled to look for a bullet. Mix flour and water to make a thick goopy paste. Fill the pipe with paste. Shoot a bullet in. Disassemble the pipe and look for the bullet. Hopefully you can angle the shots so that you do not shoot out through the side of the pipe.



I would advise against phone books and newsprint for a couple of reasons. First, they are known to be unpredictable, giving different results on different occasions. Second, they do not come very close to replicating animal tissue. Third, the pages tend to wad up more in front of high velocity bullets giving them artifically low penetration numbers compared to low velocity cartridges. I have used phone books and magazines for handgun penetration tests, and could only make the vaguest generalizations from the tests, such as ".357 magnum penetrates deeper than .380 auto". Soaked sawdust might work better.



Good luck!

Saeed,

I don't know if you just don't have the gellatin already available there or if you aren't able to have it shipped into the country (being pork derived gellatin and all) BUT, on the offchance that as a Prince you can pull some strings I checked for you with Kind & Knox who makes ordnance gellatin, you mix it with water and heat I think to make the solution, 10% is the recommended amount I found to duplicate shooting into a pig for instance. (I did a search on "making ballistic gellatin" and found a website that gave measurements and instructions).

I called them, 25lb. minimum, 25-49lbs is 12.14 per, 50-99lbs. is 9.71 per, and goes down after that again. If you are interested the number is 714-943-5516 (they are in Indiana USA I believe, if IA stands for Indiana). And the person that handles Ordnance Gelatine as they call it is Lynette Faulk.

Hope this helps, look forward to the results.

Red

PS
there is a show on american television called Myth Busters, I saw an episode where they made their own ballistic gelatin using soap, which you should also be able to order, it comes in a big drum shaped thing (my friend makes soap). You might be able to find information by searching for info on the show.

Saeed, I have found, & several guys who hunt a lot more than I, that water soaked newsprint or phone books make a very repeatable, cheap & close to real world material for testing bullets. Bullets I have shot into wetpack look very much like bullets pulled from game, peneration is a bit less than in animal material, but a valid comparison can be made between bullets of diff. manuf. The only problem w/ geletin is in order for it to be consistent it has to be mixed the same & the blocks have to be the same temp. when shooting into them, and they can be a bit messy.

As a good Swede with children drinking lots of milk I have been using Tetra Pak filled with water as test media
.
This way I can measure the penetration down to just above 2" precision
I think it would work as good in the desert as in the snow.
You could easy add som hard "bone" between the Tetra Pak
Good luck /

Where in hell is he going to get snow in the desert!!!!

Corbin, the bullet swaging company sells a reuseable gelatin type substance specifically for ballistic gelatin replacement. It is supposed have a low melting point and be castable.
I have no idea of the cost nor contact information.

Saeed,
I tried to do a search for my previously suggested "Animal Box" test but can't find it. So . . . here's the idea all over again. Build a long (like 8 feet?) plywood box with the ends open. Starting in the rear place ziploc bag after ziploc bag of water for about five feet. Then, stretch a leather panel across the box to simulate hide, another ziploc of water to simulate the flesh on the opposite side from the shooter, a large animal leg bone (beef, ox, camel, whatever) about 2 feet of styrofoam to simulate lung tissue, another bone, another ziplock and another piece of leather. It obviously isn't simple but once it's set up, I imagine you could easily replace the ziplocs and the bones as needed, leaving the rest in place. It should work for a goodly number of rounds before you would have to replace the leather and the foam. Please think this on over. I believe that it would give the most exact replication of bullet behavior in a live critter that we can find and the six feet of ziplocs on the other side will catch and eventually stop the bullet giving a quantifiable measure of bullet penetration . . . even on the .700's.

Saeed,
why don't you just print, line up, and shoot all the bullshit posts you have put in the political forum.....nothing could go through that.

Yeah Pern. In the desert the water won't freeze in place like it does in Sweden.

Here is the URL for the Corbin product: http://www.corbins.com/sim-test.htm

"IA" stands for Iowa, not Indiana.

I want to hear Walter's suggestion before I chime in.

try lard mixed with sawdust. or sand... reusable.

I use ord gel myself, but it is pork based and requires refrigeration and is a general pita. Wet print media is not very consistant in mho.

Suggestion:
Parafin is inexpensive, can be stiffened quite well, if left uncolored you can examine the cavity, and is easily repairable in the field with a propane hand torch. The "plywood box" theory is a good idea, making the box about 2m long, and a nice pice of leather can be stretched over the end. A nice legbone is a good touch.

The nicest test rig I saw was a box about .5m x .5m x 2.5m with the two vertical sides and back made of thick steel and the top and bottom made of Lexan about 40mm thick. The top was removable, but bolted down for containment if the bullet went astray. Under the box was mounted strip flourescent lighting to make the cavity easily studied and photographed. A layer of blue dye was placed in the first few cm of the gel and helped define the cavity very well, but they used new gel for every test and never reused it.

Saeed,

I hear that sawdust mixed with motor oil (or crude oil )
makes a pretty good medium.

You could intersperse it with some heavy bones from cattle or camels.

Obtaining oil in Dubai shouldn't present a problem; you can probably send some wooden pallets through a wood chipper to get the sawdust.

George

Saeed, what I have done before for shooting my double when in the bush and get in the mood to shoot some rounds off and have fun with a client is the following.

Take a 200 liter barrel and just fill it with sand and lay it down. shoot so you are looking at either the top or the bottom of the barrel so you have the whole lenght of the barrel which is about 4 feet. You may wet the sand if you wish, but have never had a 470 or 500 bullet go through the lenght of the barrel when full of sand, then you can collect all of the bullets when done shooting. If you want to imitate some bone, then cut a piece of plywood to fit inside the barrel, fill the barrel up with sand so you just have about 4-6 left at the top, then fit the plywood in the barrel and put the remaining 2-3 inches left of sand and that will give you a good idea of a bullet going through an elephants shoulder.

That is the easiest and cheapest way that I know of and works great in the bush.

Have fun and hope this helps.

Saeed,



I posted a topic giving the directions for making "wet pack" from the International Wound Ballistic Association journal a week or so ago. Its quite involved but close to ballistic gelatin.



Kind and Knox makes gelatin and it is readily available in this country. I would suggest using that as results would be close to science.



Please do not use dry (un water soaked) catalogs. It is way too dense (hard) and will just mangle your bullets. Use the wet pack instead.



Nosler and Mike Brady of North Fork use book binding glue. I think this is what Corbin sells. Book binding glue is readily available anywhere books are made. It is more dense than IWBA gelatin but is solid enough to be cast into blocks which can be laid on end in a stop box. You could contact Mike about this and I am sure he would assist you. Be sure to test your bullets with the mixture at a constant temperature as is done with gelatin. And resist the temptation to reuse it as the water content will be different from each batch. Ask Mike to send you a photo of his stop box with the glue blocks inside.



If you are testing solids the boards will be easy to measure. If you are using softs then you will have to use the wet pack, book binding glue, or gelatin.



The IWBA web site may have directions for making 10% gelatin, if not send me a PM and I can FAX it to you.



PS Many of the European nations used blocks of soap to demonstrate the temporary cavity of high velocity military cartridges in the 1960 - 70's. The block of soap would survive a bullet impact and leave a large hole where the temporary cavity had been. This made the evil American empire with its M-16's look much more wicked than the peace loving workers of the Soviet Socialist republic with their humble (low velocity) AK-47 and 7.62 x 39mm. While this was useful propaganda, soap is not nearly dense enough of a test medium for serious consideration.



Andy

I just read about the Corbin product myself. Sounds interesting. It is in the latest Handloader magazine. "D"

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I should have made it clear at the beginning that we have to take into consideration that the test is going to be done in our under ground shooting tunnel.

Hence certain precautions should be taken, unlike when done in the open.

Has anyone used blocks of wax for this purpose?

Saeed, pardon me. I did not stop to think that parafin may be called other things elsewhere. Parafin is a type of wax. While it in and of itself is not as dense as animal tissue, it can easily be stiffened while being melted down to be formed into blocks. I have used wood sawdust for this, (6 parts parafin to 1 part fine sawdust). If you can get it fine enough, sawdust from lexan works well too, but using a blowtorch to melt and refill the hole is out at that point. Wax is cheap, but will need stiffened to duplicate animal. See my earlier post on making a cabinet for use indoors. It can really help to contain exploding rounds. Like the glue product, make sure the wax block is a few cm smaller than the cabinet, though the wax won't swell as badly on impact as gel does. As long as clear wax is used (especially with the lexan stiffener) the bullet cavity can easily be inspected and photographed using the backlit box idea.

Saeed,
Your blocks of wax or soap will require remelting for each shot. And you are going to have to melt ALOT of material. An oiled sawdust box as I described in some other post recently would not require any work between shots. You could easily put wheels on it so that you can slide it in and out of your tunnel easily. Be sure to keep the top lid on so that sawdust does not fly everwhere.

Also, some folks have recommended the sweeping compound that is sometimes used to broom floors and pick up dust. I think it may be specially treated sawdust. I have not tried this material, but I don't see why it would not work well.

Personally, I use the oiled sawdust and it works fine.

Brent

As stated above, parrafin wax will do what you want to do. Is easy to work with, is cheap, and will be reusable in your tunnel.

You can buy it in bulk from candle making suppliers. Soy Wax and other waxes can be added to manipulate the characteristics as needed or to change the handling charatcteristics at different temperatures.

You could even build the container with it's own heating element to remelt it after each use. A quick search of the internet and a phone call or two to their tech departments should get you EXACTLY what you want.

[quote

Or then again, why not invite some of your most vociferous critics here and shoot them.



I could recommend a few.....

Don

---

Good word usage...... I'm your Huckleberry......

I doubt that wood pulp is a common commodity in UAE!! I imagine chainsaws are even pretty scarce!

I do know where you could get some wood pulp, however. Probably about $500 USD/air dry tonne 'ish delivered. I don't think we ship single tonnes very often though!!

Cheers,
Canuck

Still don't understand why you can't get ballistic gelatin. Seems like it is commercially available.

Saeed my friend,
why do you ask such questions, have you quit using Buffalo? Seems to me they were working pretty good for you...

I wonder if you could get crushed walnut shells in bulk? Grain? Seems that there should be some materials available to you that would have about the right density, and allow reasonably re-use.

Crushed walnut shells are used as a sand blasting media, so might be available. I imagine there should be grains availble in bulk, and oil soaked they would be similar to oil sawdust. Fava beans???

Saeed,

I was going to suggest paraffin wax.

It melts around 50-60 degrees Celcius, which is readily available in the Dubai sun.

It solidifies in an air-conditioned room, which you probably have.

It's translucent, so you can get a good look at the "wound" cavity.

Its hardness depends only on its temperature. I would think soap would soften and harden considerably with changing moisture content.

It's cheap, about $300-$500 per metric ton (enough to fill five 55 gallon drums and then some). I was thinking a 55 gallon oil drum would make a nice melting pot standing and a good target end-on.

Here is a link. It's kind of hard to find chemical prices for free on the internet. Too many for-fee consultants ahead of the free sites in most yahoo! searches. I used the search term:

"paraffin wax" price fob mt

The 'fob' eliminates a lot of stuff you can't use, and the 'mt' (metric ton) gets you adjacent to an actual price you can see in the search summary. Even with teh narrowed down search, you'll need a quick way to screen results. Damned capitalists always trying to make a buck; they muck up yahoo! to where niggardly folks like myself have trouble getting free answers. I think the seller below is in Iran.

http://www.ch-non-food.com/chemical.html

H. C.

Actually, living things are 80 to 90 percent water--or so I'm told. One way to do it is to cut a 55 gal barrel, not cut the top off but the other way, lay it on its side in a frame and fill almost to the top with water. Over the part you are going to shoot thru you put a piece of rubber that will somewhat seal after you shoot thru it. All you have to do after that is look down in the "tank" and see how far the bullet traveled. This will also tell you about how it will mushroom.

This can be done fairly easily and cheaply. THERE IS a formular for water v. ballistic gealatin but off the top of my head I dont know what it is. All I know is it has to go farther in the warter to equal a lesser distance than gelatin--if that makes sense. At least I know what I'm trying to say lol.

I use water in testing loads/buullets and it works pretty good for me. If nothing else it will tell you which one will penetrate further. Remember water is really pretty hard when smacked...hope this helped somewhat..

I have found excellent correlation between packed earth and buffalo in the .510 bore. The penetration is typically with a couple of inches, and that falls well within a statistical distribution model.

Sand may be the best and easiest to use, particularly if you can pack it reasonably well. Look forward to your results.

ASS_CLOWN

The problem with almost all of the substitutes for living flesh is that they have neither bone nor air cavity. If you are shooting into a vat of water or ballistic gelatin, you are presuming to shoot clear through muscle tissue from one side of the animal to the other. On critters there are large bones under the flesh and then you get into the chest cavity which is a hodge-podge of muscle, air and blood vessels. Then there's more bone, flesh and elastic hide on the other side. This makes all the testing media that bullet makers judge their products by very unrealistic. Those perfect mushroom shapes that gun writers (and copy writers!) have cooed about for a couple of generations only appear in game by accident, IMO. If what Saeed & Co. are looking for is a good way to judge performance on living animals then they are going to have to build quite an elaborate rig to slide down their tunnel. Good luck to them. I hope to see some veerrryyyy innnnteresting results . . . in a cuppla years!

Sarge,

In addition to all that makes up an animal, the difference in shot placement has a huge effect on how the bullet will perform.

What Saeed is looking for is something that is somewhat close and repeatable. That will allow for some interesting testing, but will require real world use for a correlation.

Same thing with airplanes, they use a windtunnel to do testing, but still have a test pilot to test the prototypes.

Saeed My Friend,
The parafin/wax seems to be the way to go. Cast some blocks, line them up and count the number penetrated. Test all your bullets in wax first.

Then line up some camels to see if the real world penetration correlates with the wax. I am sure it will be a good approximation.

Just a few bullets need be tested on camels, and a dead camel will be close enough to a live camel for standardization purposes.

Then you can convert the count of wax blocks (X) needed to equal the number of camels (Y) penetrated by the given bullet (Z) at given velocity (V).

Do the Wax! Then from air conditioned shooting range just wheel the wax blocks out into the sun for a few hours to reconstitute, or help them along with a supplemental heat source, as suggested by other members. This petrochemical ought to be readily available in your neck of the sands.

Please get started soon so we may all benefit from this important research.