A few years back, Handloader published the results of a test of 180 grain 30-06 bullet penetration vs. impact speed, using wet phone books as the target. The results were published in a table. I took some of the data, and put it a graph. Thought you might like to see. Vertical axis is penetration in inches, horizontal axis is impact speed in feet per second.

New link to graph added...old one not working.

Nice chart! So the "X" is the king of penetration, followed by the NP, as expected. What anomaly causes the sudden drop at 2900?

Thanks for sharing Dent, pretty much mirrors my own tests using diff. calibers in wetpack. Slow the "soft" bullets down & they work pretty well. It seems 2500-2800fps impact vel. is the sweet spot.

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What anomaly causes the sudden drop at 2900?

Beats me. Could be that each point is only three bullets, and it's just random variation.

Most cup core bullets start going kablooey at around 3000 fps, hence the penetration drop at higher speeds.

It would be interesting to see that test re-run with the current crop of bullets to see how the new ones compare to the old standards.

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Originally posted by rick243:
What anomaly causes the sudden drop at 2900?

My guess, and a guess is all it is:

All bullets expand more and "explode" more at that high velocity and the larger expansion frontal area impedes penetration. The subsequent greater penetration at higher velocity is because the petals on the X or the frontal area mushroom material is blown off the bullet or pushed back against the shaft in order to present a smaller frontal area, hence more penetration.

Expounding on that, then 2900 fps would be the velocity where the most damage or largest wound channel would be created but the least penetration. I guess.

JMHO

Here's a test:

Take a tanned deer hide and wet the leather for a few hours. Take some old miniblinds apart (from Home Depot) that are those less expensive wood type. Place a few wadded up old towels (soaked) in a cardboard box (also wet/damp). Drape the blinds over the outside of the box in vertical fashion (simulates ribs). Hang the moist deer hide over all of it. The box with towels needs to be about 30" wide.

The dampened wet towels will better simulate the cavities found in the thorax of a live animal between the organs as opposed to the density of wet phone books.

I have found that 7 inches of penetration into this "test media" can mean a complete pass through on a large deer quartering away, with the same bullet, same rifle, same shot distance.

I've never found a Barnes bullet or a Partition. I have found ballistic tips, Hornadys, Sierras, and Speer bullets.

From a 270, I found that one 150 grain bullet penetrated only 5". Another that entered right beside that one made it to the 14" mark.

What did all of this tell me? Not much. Every ballistic tip I've ever launched at a deer went through with no recovery. Same with a partition and TSX. Same for Scirocco and AFrame.

My rule of thumb is if test media stops a bullet at 10", I'm likely to get more than double that on a live animal. Lumg tissue is very fragile and soft. I could care less if the bullet ever hits the heart. If a bullet deflates the lungs, it's over. Hitting the heart is a bonus.

The key, to me, is getting through the hide, fascia, fat, and any bone. If the bullet has 90% of it's integrity at that point, I think the probability of it finishing the job internally is good.

This is all my opinion only. I'm not an expert.

Thank you roger

If perchance any of you want to see the real thing it "used to be" at:

http://www.seahook.com/bestbullet.jpg

Don't know if it is still active or not. Gary Sciuchetti's Bullet Test is the very best, most comprehensive and well documented type Report I've ever seen in the civilian world. The nice thing about it is you can possibly still get the HUGE Chart directly from him and it includes the entire Report for $15 which includes Shipping. Mine hangs in the Reloading Room right now.

When I got mine his email was gsciuchetti@yahoo.com and you can snail mail him at:

Gary D. Sciuchetti
14610 E. Bill Gulch Road
Mead, WA 99021

It is the very best $15 I've spent on Reloading in many years. When you see the way the various Bullets performed as he increased the Velocity, it is something to really get your mind going. If you do look at it, How `bout those RN Remingtons?!?!?!

You forgot to plot the Sierra Matchkings for the die hards in denial!

Sorry I could not resist!

Wow!, and my wife thinks I spend too much time
shooting. That is very impressive, must have taken years to do.
Thanks!

We didn't have anything to run a graph on, but several years ago we soaked New Orleans telephone books in a bath tub and then stuffed them tight in a box. We loaded up 110, 130,150 165 and 180 grain bullets.
110 penetrated 3" and blew out a 6 inch round hole.
130 penetrated 3 inches the mushroomed out going another 4 inches.
150 penetrated 4 inches, mushroomed and travled another 5 inches
165 turned the whole box around, penetrated 6 inches mushroomed and blew out a 5 inch hole
180 penetrated 6 inches , strarted to mushroom, fragmetted and blew small hole.
Of courese we didn't have the bullets they have to day. But we used the 165 from then on with great results

T

Those were shot in a 30/06

Just checked and that Link I provided above is still active. It is a HUGE Chart, so a large screen is a tremendous help in sorting through all the great expanded bullet flicks.

Pick your favorite, check it out and then compare it to the good old RN Remington. Just amazing.

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Originally posted by Blob1:
, but several years ago we soaked New Orleans telephone books in a bath tub and then stuffed them tight in a box.

Should be able to find lots of soaked New Orleans phone books today! Rick

Ha,ha yeah I would imagine you could pick up all the soaked New Orleans telephone books you wanted if you could wade the chest high water in some places. I used to work off shore out of Venice and drive through on the way home. A friend collected up the books for me. It was the only way we had to try bullets but worked very well.

Server that hosts the chart image is being moved. Chart should be back pretty soon. Sorry for any inconvenience.

What does shooting telephone books have to do with shooting big-game animals? Structurally, there's hardly any relationship. I don't hunt telephone books nor plan on shooting through one to hit my game. Please (Denton or anybody) explain the relevance of shooting telephone books and shooting the vitals of big game animals. I don't get it.

Gary tested wet phonebooks results against road-killed deer .They are softer than bone ,harder then flesh. They are a good test medium.We have used them to test bullets.

I have worked for a very large company that tests penetration in phone books. They call the phone company and say they needed more phone books. A pallet full is delivered to the loading dock. They penetrate one layer of plywood, and then usually three phone books. Some readers may recognize this test

Meanwhile, I am saving old phone books in my garage for a friend that tests 32 cal pistol bullets in his spare time.

The reason I am reading this forum today is to choose bullets for elk hunting, but I don't care about phone book penetration myself.

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Please (Denton or anybody) explain the relevance of shooting telephone books and shooting the vitals of big game animals. I don't get it.

AI, think of it like car companies using crash dummies to do safety testing on their designs. No, crash dummies aren't human beings but they can provide a consistent point of reference, something no living organism can do. Every shot made on a living animal is unique. That's why you'll see threads (you know of one good example) where one guy will say he shot clean through the shoulder of 44 african elephants using Bullet X and then another guy will say he had one of them blow up when it hit a cotton tail rabbit. Those phone book tests are repeatable, and they show that penetration is only part of the picture. Winchester Failsafes penetrate best, but don't expand very well at all, especially at modest velocities.

The person who originally did the test experimentally verified that average penetration in wet phone books is very close to average penetration in roadkill deer.

He also found that the spread of penetration in roadkill deer is far more variable than that in wet phone books.

Same means, different standard deviations.

.

Geez, Denton, all you did was to place some data from a magazine on a graph so that people could read it and make their own interpretations. Next time try telling Pope Leo that the Earth revolves around the Sun and you'll get less flak!

FWIW: I have to assume that the tests published in Handloader were done on a consistent basis by the same tester with consistent methodology (similar or identical medium and water content). So this gives us a reasonable comparison of the RELATIVE pentration characteristics of a handful of given bullets at given velocities. What's wrong with that? Nobody said that "6 phone books = 1 deer" or "14 inches of penetration is minimum for elk" or any other such assertion.

Thanks for going to the trouble of presenting some data in easily readable form, and thanks for taking the inexplicable flak for doing so.

So, Alf, what's your point? Carrying your thesis to living animals, there is no way that you can correlate the killing of one animal and the bullet performance with any other. The event can't be standardized nor can it be duplicated, and therefor any discussion of a bullet's terminal performance is irrelevant?
Jeeze, look at the data, use it for whatever you like, but don't relegate it to junk, or disparage the guy that posts it because it doesn't meet your preconceived standards of relevance.

ALF makes some EXTREMELY GOOD POINTS. Much, much more money and scientific resources have been poured into developing auto crash dummies (for good reasons), than developing wet telephone books as an effective measure of the game-killing properties of bullets. For me, the comparison is not valid.

Also, this business about roadside deer-kill tests - give me a break! How scientifically were these tests done? Who would have the stomach to do extensive, precise, and repeated scientific testing on such carcasses? It’s hard to believe such tests were more than brief and superficial. Denton, you are far too intelligent and reasonable to buy into this BS. What gives?

An effective hunting bullet must be a balance between penetration and expansion – too much of either can lead to failure. The problem is confounded by where the bullets hit the animal. Different entry points will require different levels of penetration or expansion. A broadside chest shot doesn’t require a solid copper and near solid copper bullet. Traditional hunting bullets work very well for your average “in the vitals†chest shot. You’ll get both sufficient penetration and expansion. Yet, admittedly, a from behind rump shot will require a deeper penetrating bullet to get to vital organs. But, I don’t plan on shooting my animals in the rump. I wait for a reasonable shot into the chest, just behind shoulder. I believe I’m a good enough hunter and shot to achieve that goal, and thus, I’m happy with a Nosler BT or equivalent bullet. They work for me. Those less confident of their shooting skills or of a different philosophy on waiting for the ideal shot might be better served with solid bullets. I don’t need them for North American big game. But, each to his own. Happy/safe hunting/shooting, AIU

One man, one observer is not enough for me - too much room for bias.

AIU, read the report. The man said that he collected carcasses and ran tests on them, and his explanation is reasonable when READ. He collected the animals in association with governmental agencies, and so the facts could be verified, and should be, before calling the author a liar.
Who would have the stomach to do autopsies of human beings? It's done every day the world over.

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Who would have ths stomach to do extensive scientific testing on such carcasses?

Apparently Gary Sciuschetti.

I have no good reason to doubt that he did as he said. He presents his data, giving methodology and test results. He specifies the bullet used, and the speed and compares the result in various media.

media comparisons

The URL doesn't work well- a blurry image comes up.

.

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The URL doesn't work well- a blurry image comes up.

Gary will sell you a nice, sharp print for $15.

Hey Alf, Did you read Gary Sciuchetti's report?

As an engineer and hunter for multiple decades - Gary Scuichetti's methodology is sound, comprehensive and (by the way) matches my own experience in the field.

I've been fortunate to take large bull elk, cow elk, deer (whitetail and mulies), and bear with both rifles and bow. I handload my hunting rounds and so I take special notice of the performance of each shot. The Schiuchetti report confirms my own experinces with multiple bullets like Nosler Partitions, FailSafe, Barnes, and Sierra bullets; that is that lead core bullets (e.g. Sierra, Nosler) pushed at higher velocities (2900 - 3100 FPS) tend to fragment, lose mass, and generally penetrate considerably less than solid copper construction bullets (e.g. FailSafe, Barnes, etc). Keep this in mind while I bore you with more personal experience.

Ater over 3 decades of hunting, here's what I've learned. If you put an arrow through both lungs of an animal even as big as a bull elk, it ALMOST always will die in just a few seconds. (interestingly, bear usually die A LOT faster) The wound channel with a broadhead tipped arrow is only about 1.5" wide. Though not as wide a wound channel an most high powered rifle bullets, the proof that broadheads are reliably lethal with that penetration is undeliable.

What happens if you take that same animal and position it in a manner yielding impacts other than broadside? Well, the reliability drops considerably for the broadhead tipped arrow, but hi-powered rifle bullets CAN and often do still deliver. For most bullets, the ribs usually pose few problems for a bullet, but leg/shoulder-joint bones often do cause even rifle bullets to fail (fragment, stop, lose mass). Only if the "projectile" carries well into the vitals can we expect a quick kill. (nervous system and major artery/vein hits aside)

Let's pause now and summarize:
1) even an arrow that penetrates deeply enough to go through both lungs kill very quickly even though it creates relatively narrow wound channels.
2) Bullets that fail to hold their course through leg/shoulder bones and well into the vitals will often fail to kill quickly, even though they create tremendously wide wound channels.

Finally... here is what I have come to believe: Select a bullet that shoots accurately, fast, and penetrates deeply (a tough bullet that reliably handles bone). Such a bullet from a high-powered rifle, regardless of expansion, will be sufficient to create a wound channel (hydrostatic effects) that far excells that of a broadhead, and will hold together through bone to reach the vitals. (a.k.a. quick kills)

Like "Doc" (how are you doing, pal?) I am a huge fan of the Barnes Triple Shock; groups well under 1 MOA in my .270 AND my .300 RUM. For the reasons above, in my opinion, it's easily the best hunting bullet I've ever fired.

Just my experience, analysis, and opinion...

The following is why I don't believe shooting wet telephone books is a good method for testing bullets and their ability at killing big-game. Big game animals are not built like telephone books - not even close. I ready Gary's article, and I'm still not certain what he did with those carcasses.

If you shoot an elk, deer, antelope, moose, big bear, whatever through the thorax - that is, your typical or average chest shot - the bullet will travel through the following structures:

1. Skin & hair - ~1/2 to 3/4 inches thick (not much and all soft-tissues).

2. Rib cage - 3/4 to 1.5" inches thick (not much). The rib cage is ~50% rib bone and ~50% muscle, and the bullet has about a 50/50 chance of hitting a rib bone or passing clean through hitting muscle only. If the bullet passes between ribs, there's been very little to start expansion - even for a NBT, let alone a solid or semi-solid bullet of some type (i.e., NPT or TSX). Even if the bullet hits a thin frangible rib bone, which are mostly hollow and filled with cancellous bone and marrow, there is little to start bullet expansion - but admittedly more than an inch or two of pure, inter-rib soft tissues.

3. Lungs - lungs are air-filled, friable tissues built much like very soft sponge. - ~80% air - yes, just AIR! Admixed are blood, pulmonary vessels, and elements of the tracheobronchial tree – thankfully, the vessels are there to be torn causing massive internal bleeding.

4. If you’re lucky (especially at long range) you'll hit heart and/or the great vessels entering and exiting the heart and lungs. Again, these are very friable thin-walled organ structures, which when hit will be devastated, even with a bullet fragment. There's advantage for the bullet to fragment somewhat.

5. Also, if you're really lucky (again especially when shooting long range) you'll hit the vertebral/spinal column. This is stoutest structure in the thorax, and very vulnerable. If you hit with a bullet fragment -even the size of a 22 rim fire bullet - the animal is going down. It's like a brain shot – that is, the animal is going down from the shock and subsequently from any meningeal bleeding (dural hematoma). The animal is going nowhere, if it can’t move it’s legs.

6. The opposite rib cage - but WHO CARES if you hit the opposite rib cage. You're not going to kill the animal by puncturing the opposite rib cage. If the bullet hasn't done significant damage by the time it hits the opposite rib cage, you’re going to track that animal a long time with possible wastage.

Trust me guys, I know what the internal organ structure is of a large mammal, and there isn’t much in the thorax to cause bullet expansion. A bullet that doesn't open up fairly easily can quickly "pencil" an animal shot in the chest – including any sized North American mammal. The effect can be much like being shot with an arrow.

Don't get me wrong, arrows and "solid" bullets will kill; but, I want my bullets to open up and expend all that kinetic energy within the thorax. I prize accuracy, and I hit my animals in the chest (where most hunters hit their animals), even at 400 yds. plus ranges. I take pride in not gut-shooting animals.

My experience with the NBT is that they're just about ideal for killing North American big-game mammals with chest shots. The NBT is plenty tough enough, yet it will open up and kill quickly and humanely. (NBTs will penetrate bone effectively as well.) I've experienced no bullet failures with the NBT. Animals from the size of prairie dogs to large bull elk drop in their tracks when hit in the "vitals" – miss the vitals and you got problems with any bullet.

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Just my experience, analysis, and opinion...

Hey Earlybugle, Nice post. And Welcome Aboard!

I see Mr. Sciuchetti's report as a simple, easy to repeat by anyone, comparison of the Expansion Characteristics and Weight Retention of a broad range of Bullets. And like Earlybugle, what is shown in the Chart reflects the reality of what I've seen in five decades of Hunting. Not "exactly" since each shot is different, but well within the First Hand Experience Envelope.

If a person understands "Trend Analysis" it is easy to take a quick look at the Chart and get an accurate impression of how one brand and type of bullet Expends and Retains Weight "in comparison" to any of the other Bullets shown at similar Impact Velocities.

The length of time it took Mr. Sciuchetti to do the actual Testing would have worn me out, early on. I'm sure glad he did the Testing and even happier he chose to share it with everyone.

It's only a study of telephone book terminal ballistics - the road kill stuff is very vague. From this study you can fairly accurately predict how the various bullets will behave when shot into telephone books at various velocities. The results were fairly predictable based on what we know about each bullets structure. This study does not answer how effective the various bullet's are at killing different big-game animals. I'm not interested in telephone book terminal ballistics. I'm interested in terminal ballistics in big-game animals.

Oh good grief AI and Alf, the crash dummy analogy is good. No one thinks that the same amount of effort had been put into the phone book test - I was making the point that you can't very well use live people in crash tests any more than you can line up hundreds of white tail deer of the same size, age, physical condition, and shoot them in exactly the same location from the same angle to measure the performance of different bullets.

The sudden drop at 2900 fps is engineered into the bullet. If you ask any of the tech support people at the big bullet companies they engineer most bullets to reliably expand at 2900 to around 2000 fps. If you exceed that velocity they expect you to use a premium bullet or use a heavier bullet in you particular caliber. For example most 150gr .308 bullets are shot from the 30-06 and 308 at 2900 fps. Most 300 WMags shoot 180 grain bullets at 3000 fps. As shooters got more interested in speed the bullet companies came up with better, tougher, bullets (Partitions and Barnes) to exceed the 2900-3000 velocities and still penetrate.