The GSC FN .375/300grain at 2559 fps from my .375 H&H zipped right through. Nose first all the way. Perfect straight line penetration. 10 boards (15/32" three-ply) and 11 bags of water, 66" of water in trash compactor bags ...

It was like nothing was there at all to slow the bullet down. Straight through.

The RIP Bullet Coffin is a bust. Might be O.K. for handgun bullets.

It even had a couple of 2x4's knocked loose and the first two bags of water had their wire ties blown off of them.

I am shamed by the .375 H&H with a GSC FN 300 grainer at 2500-ish fps.

I now think I need a steel trough 10 or 12 feet long and 3/4" plywood baffles every 6" along the way. Maybe an 8" square gutter with welded brackets of angle iron ...

Well Saeed did it in just over 2 feet, with wet sand 2" thick between 1/2" plywood baffles, IIRC.

Any pictures of the RIP Bullet Coffin wood be only good for a laugh ... back to the drawing board ... I may have to find a welder to fabricate something ... maybe in two sections that could be clamped together. Maybe a skeleton of rebar/steel/angle iron, to hold water bags and boards ...

Sheesh, the RIP Bullet Coffin is dead! I'm looking for an "RIP Iron Maiden" now!

Dear RIP,
Whatever you do, do not do this test more than once, least you get multiple results contridicting each other, you screwed up enough as it is!

Sorry Ray,
I have to see this horse race to the end.
Tubular steel (square) is available at Lowe's/Home Depot. I can bolt this together and use angle-iron with predrilled holes to make brackets for boards. I can make three foot sections, modular, and bolt them together for 9 feet or even 12 feet ... but board thickness will be doubled and bags of water 6" thick between 30/32" 6-ply boards can be repeated to infinity if necessary. Really, I am thinking maybe 99" of water and 15 of the ~1" thicknesses of plywood will do it.

I shall return after the professional small boy tinker toys are sorted out. This test is not over until three shots with each of the loads have been measured. I will adjust the .375 H&H down to closer to 2500 fps instead of 2559 fps.

PS: The RIP Bullet Coffin/pine box is now repaired and standing upright and has a hinged pine board door with padlock. It will make a good powder magazine/storage locker. It has plywood shelves adjustable in 6" increments.

Make that "Professional Small Boy Erector Set" instead of Tinker Toy (which is wood).

The "RIP Iron Maiden" is giving me an "RIP Erection" for catching solid bullets in an easily readable and repeatable way.

In the long run, it will be cheaper than lining up a dozen 5 gallon plastic water buckets with lids end to end for each shot. Will require some initial investment in the Erector Set.

RIP, I'm glad you're not letting this minor setback warp your vibe on this thing, man.

Do you have any idea how many light bulbs Edison made before one actually worked? I don't either, but I'm pretty sure it was a LOT!

Don't give up, RIP. Keep on keeping on.

"Indians vow to endeavor to persevere."
Chief Lone Wattie (played by Chief Dan George), in The Outlaw Josie Wales, 1976.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
"Indians vow to endeavor to persevere."
Chief Lone Wattie (played by Chief Dan George), in The Outlaw Josie Wales, 1976.

PS: Was that 200 tries to get the carbon filament for the light bulb right?

Well Gerard should be pleased!
peter.

My only advice is to make your bullet trap skookum, but you already know this from your first attempt.

Last fall, I photographed another forumite shooting a freestanding 5 gallon water jug off of a metal stand with my 470 Mbogo. I couldn't believe how much the top of the metal stand was bent by the force of the water exploding from the jug.

Here's a pic of Smokey shooting the water jug. If you look close, you can see the metal stand in the air...:


Here's a look at Smokey holding the stand afterwards. Its hard to see but the surface was deflected by about a 1/2inch or more...:


Cheers,
Canuck

Canuck,
Point noted. The RIP Iron Maiden will be a skeleton of steel tubes and angle iron. Water bags will be hanging out in all directions, like pendulous breasts, or udders of the sacred cow, able to vent in all 360 degrees perpendicular to bullet path. She will be skookum.

Being modular and bolted together with 5/16" hex bolts, the 14 guage angle iron (1-1/4" on side, plated steel actually) and 14 guage steel tubing (1-1/4" square) can be replaced if a part gets damaged. Parts is parts. I just bought the first $200 installment of parts.

So it is all steel, The RIP Steel Maiden. More skookum than an iron maiden.

It is a good thing that you did not shoot the 270gr FN at 2900 first. At least the 300gr FN at 2500 left you a powder magazine.

quote:

Originally posted by Gerard:

It is a good thing that you did not shoot the 270gr FN at 2900 first. At least the 300gr FN at 2500 left you a powder magazine.

This is true.
I could make the first 3 feet of 1-1/2" steel tube, the second three feet of 1-1/4" tube, the last three feet of 1" tube. They telescope together nicely for the joints. That should be enough, 9 feet or so. Heavier construction at the impact end, and lighter after the bullets slow down. Hydrostatic shock does exist.

Hydrodynamic pulse

I feel your pain regarding the coffin. The last stop box (steel) I had, was used for some time for small calibre testing and I figured it would hold up for testing of some 295gr 338 bullets. All I wanted was three shots to check speed and to see what the engraving on the bullet looks like. All I got was one shot. If the energy exceeds the ability of the container to contain it, it breaks. I am building new furniture and fittings for our range shortly and will be making the chronograph stand and stop box part of the fixtures. You are right, replaceable modules are the way to go.

Right.
But let us not get into terminology too deeply, else I'll be saying things like "fluid dynamic hammer effect," or "water hammer." Game animals have incompressible fluids in them here and there.
I will be venting the hydrodynamic pulse in all directions, and might catch a bullet in a plywood panel, or find it under the Steel Maiden. The main thing is getting scale of penetration.

Round nose solids or Steel FMJ's with lead cores and open bases are the risky ones for fish tailing/tumbling. The FN should always be a straight like penetrator in this setup.

If the Steel Maiden survives the .375 solids, I'll try bigger ones and some soft points. The softs will probably stop in the first three feet, no matter what velocity or weight, in sub 50 caliber. However the first three feet will take a real beating with big softs.

Provocative, what?

If one just wants to capture a fired solid to look at the rifling engravure, one just uses a tank of water or a swimming pool, eh?

If one wants to compare penetration in some sort of consistent medium that allows some degree of quantification: Steel Maiden.

I went back to Lowe's this evening and bought out the rest of their tiny stock of 12 guage 1-1/2" plated steel angle iron, and 1-1/2" square steel tube.

Home Depot had no such exotic stock on hand. Lowe's will be getting more ...

Rip,

What about a disposable trap. Produce boxes from the grocer, with your garbage bags for the water, placed on a stand/sawhorses. Plywood baffels could be inserted into the boxes. It would only work for one shot, but should be cheap to put together.

You should have seen jeffe's, hydro bomb come apart.(wood/water, bullet trap) His 550 Express and a 700gr Hawk. One shot and dead trap.

Hog Killer

Hog Killer,
That is a thought, but think of the bulk to transport to the range, and the garbage disposal afterward.

12 of the 5 gallon plastic buckets full of water, end to end would do it, but even that becomes cumbersome and of course expensive in the long run. And everybody says, that's just water, not game.

A stack of one foot square plywood and a box of trash compactor bags is easier logistics. A Steel Maiden in three 3 foot sections stacks well in the back of a pickemup truck. Water from the pond or a hose. It ain't game but it is something hard and something wet.

The Steel Maiden will be a shining silver sexy thing.

Thanks for the thought.

Keith, wasn't that the Bubba Box?

I used thick plastic office-sized garbage cans, which I got for free when they redecorated my office. The plastic is about 1/4" thick, and the plastic streches before tearing. Cans held about three gallons of water or so. Fill 'em up in the creek, line them up in a row on the bank, then blast away. Careful work with duct tape can get multiple shots out of the last few cans. But the first one or two usually split from .375 and/or .458 expanding hits. Typically the expanding rounds stop in the fifth or sixth can. Solids-- who knows. They're long gone. I gave up trying to stop them years ago.

I guess everyone wants to try this for themselves, but the "conventional wisdom" around here is right. Flatnose solids outpenetrate round nose ones (at least in wet wood, water wouldn't stop either), and solids outpenetrate expanding bullets. Barnes X bullets lose their petals in water. And this is a heck of a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Bring a raincoat...

But seriously, keep us posted. This _is_ a fun experiment, even if nothing groundbreaking comes from it.

P.S. One suggestion-- if you want pretty picture-perfect recovered X-bullets, load them WAY down, or they will lose their petals in water. It's a delicate balance, trying to get them to open fully, and to keep the petals. But the wicked-looking result is worth the trouble.

pertinax,
Agree with all you say except that 3 meters or about 10 feet of water is all it takes to stop even Norberts, Superpenetrators.

Just for reference:

Recall the stuck-in-the-lid-of-the-ninth-5-gallon water bucket stop (end-to-end) of the North Fork .423/380gr at 2528 fps MV, 25 yard impact.

The Kynoch round nose .423/400gr steel FMJ with lead core at 2401 fps MV tumbled in the third water bucket and stopped in the fifth.

The North Fork .423/380 grain soft stopped in the third bucket after exploding the first two.

Well, I didn't have the ability to set up ten feet of water. Half that stopped all the expanders (multiple layers of plastic included), and I didn't fiddle with RN solids much after shooting them into fresh cut logs. The RN's won't exit; the FNs keep going like the Energizer bunny. Case closed, IMO.

Getting too late in the year to do this around here. Too many chiggers and snakes up at my shooting land.

Back from the dead, btt:

I have only spent $320 bucks on steel so far.

Provisions will be made for a 3/4" steel plate at the far end of the Steel Maiden.

If I ring that gong with any of the bullets after 9 feet of boards and water bags, then I will pronounce that load totally sufficient for blue whale hunting.

300gr/.375/2525 fps MV
300gr/.375/2725 fps MV
270gr/.375/2925 fps MV

And the winner is ...

RIP,

It was only a thought for a cheap and disposable trap. Yes, the clean up is the trade off. I think your $320+ trap, the way you are descibing it, will be just about perfect. I will be surprised if the 3/4" plate even gets a mark on it.


tigertate,

I guess you could call jeffe's trap, the bubba box. I thought Hydo-bomb, matched what it looked like when it came apart. As I narrowly missed getting hit with plywood pieces trying to get a picture.

Hog Killer

looked to me that Jeffe's trap came apart so fast that water water bags dropped before the bullet could get to them.

RIP how about an update on your penetration test and the Iron Madien

Hey Rip,

Lets see some pictures of the Iron Maiden.

Hog Killer

Thanks guys, for the interest.

The Steel Maiden is scattered in the garage, and I am cutting and bolting steel.

This will be a 3-sawhorse baby.

I have had some distractions to contend with, but will see this baby to graduation too.
Pics to follow.

How far along is the Steel Madien? How close to actual testing? The mass's are waiting!

Rip,
Should have listened to you, today I got slimed, it was terrible, and now after only one shot and all that work, I have to go get some more elephants to hang...I think I will just give up on this end and sit back and observe your results, if yours fail then I will start over so you won't be left in the dark..We'll compare notes one of these days.

Y'all,
I hope to have the Steel Maiden working next weekend.


Above is a picture of the "Pine Box" that failed and is now a powder storage locker.

This contraption is six feet long and held 1 foot square 15/32" plywood boards with 6 inches of water between boards.

Note the exit hole of the .375/300gr GSC FN at about 2500 fps. The entrance side of that hole was perfectly round, it just blew out a bit irregular on the exit side, it did not keyhole ... perfectly straight through.

The target board on the front of the contraption had a diamond shaped port in it. It is lying on the ground in front, where it was blown to by the bullet impact with the first bag of water. You may notice a few loose 2x4's in the box also, though it was held together with decking screws.

The Steel Maiden will have double thickness of boards every six inches of water, and she will be 9 feet long, in three modular sections, with three steel sawhorses to support her.

If Ray stands close enough to it, it might rinse the elephant slime off of him ... probably be better to just take a hose to him though.

The Steel Maiden will work! We'll break her bag of waters next weekend. Lord willin' and the cricks don't rise.

RIP:
I am very interested in your penetration experiments going on.

A few remarks:
You wrote:

<I take for granted that only a flatnosed monometal copper solid need apply for this job, and the impact will be at 25 yards from the muzzle. Just to keep it simple. These are velocities for a standard .375 H&H or a .375 Wby.>
In some cases the harder brass is better because its harder. Copper can show a little compression, this some times is intended and forces supercavitation. See fig. 3 below.

>My previous water bucket train was very instructive for this. The Kynoch 400 grain steel-jacketed, lead core "solid" for .404 Jeffery had an MV of 2401 fps. It keyholed in the third 5 gallon plastic bucket, made it through the fourth bucket (end-to-end) and stopped in the fifth bucket. The back end of the Kynoch was slightly flattened, and a sure cause or result of fish-tailing. Chicken or egg, which came first?>
You gave the right answer in a following statement:
>The round nose monolithic solid may bust wood and bone better initially, but will sooner veer off course in the nonuniform/variable medium. Then it fishtails/tumbles. The RN/FMJ "solid" will additionally flatten its tail, rivet, bend, etc.>

<The flat nose may be better in keeping to a straight course in any medium.>
In harder materials like plywood, bone etc. the RN also will keep a straight line.

<The copper solid may be longer than the FMJ of the same weight. The brass solid even more so.>
That doesn´t matter. The difference in weight is only about 3 %.

<Round nose solids or Steel FMJ's with lead cores and open bases are the risky ones for fish tailing/tumbling. The FN should always be a straight like penetrator in this setup.>
We can make FN FMJ´s which are the best penetrators. They are not tumbling and therefore not fishtailing etc.

<Agree with all you say except that 3 meters or about 10 feet of water is all it takes to stop even Norberts, Superpenetrators.>
This was with a FMJ Superpenetrator. It was not stopped by 10 feet of water, but by a steel plate at the end.

Nowadays it is common sense that a well constructed flat nose is a guaranty for best possible penetration.

Many manufactures are jumping on this train. Therefore I think you should extend your experiments to see wether different FN designs may show diferences in penetration.

Some FN designs:



#1: The original SuperPenetrator, brass, FMJ.
New Barnes banded Solid, FN for straight penetration.
ditto, a little altered with a home drill and file.
#2 Bridger FN. Looks like brass.
#3 GSCustom FN Copper monolithics.
#4 Speer/Trophy bonded solid. A smaller FN.
#5 A new South African Dzombo FN.
May be there are more in South Africa. I have no image of the Northfork´s.

Norbert,
Thanks for the comments, and clarifications.

10 feet of water with the SuperPenetrator and still had to be stopped with a steel plate, eh?

Brass as bullet material is on my O.K. list now.
And I do like the Trophy Bonded Sledge Hammers as originally made by Jack Carter with Flat Nosed Brass encapsulation of a lead core.

I have Bridger solids in .375 and .505 that are Flat Nosed brass, and I will test them after the Steel Maiden is operational.

I am putting the finishing touches on her now, and hope to shoot Sunday, two days hence.

The "point" with the GSC FN copper FN's is that they both have the same nose shape, in 270 grain and 300 grain: exact same nose profile and tail, just different length shanks.

This gets me down to less variables confusing the results for a basic run through.

I will have a steel plate at the end of my 9 foot trap.

Looks like there will be three thicknesses of 15/32" plywood for every 6.5" thickness of water bag, therefore, water and wood repeated every 8" out to a steel plate at 9 feet. Hopefully I will stop the bullets before the gong at the end is struck. If I do hit the steel plate, then that load must surely be a good one.

Thanks again. Pictures and further test results to follow.