Maybe some of you guys are more experienced than I am on this subject...

But would a round and a load that was able to penetrate 3/8 inch of steel plate be representative of a round being a capable deer performer?

I picked up a piece of steel plate that was 3/8 inch thick.. I shot it with a 30/30 a couple of times... shot it with a 7 x 57 a couple of times, with a 139 grain bullet.. all at a distance of 100 yds...each bounced off the steel plate...

another guy shot it several times with a 300 Win Mag and a 300 WSM, with 180 grain bullets and those went right thru the steel plate...

Then I shot the steel plate with a load of 14 grains of SR 4759, and a 55 grain Varmint Nightmare Extreme, out of a 223, with an MV of 2400 fps...

all 7 of those rounds drilled right thru the steel plate...at 100 yds...

so it had to make me think, would this be a good test of the ability of a round to penetrate deeply on deer, and prove lethal... or am I missing something here?

You are obviously missing something. I'll leave it to the experts to tell what.

I would be prefer a 7*57 very much over a 223 for deerhunting.

it would IF deer were made of steel plates...

quote:

Originally posted by seafire2:

Then I shot the steel plate with a load of 14 grains of SR 4759, and a 55 grain Varmint Nightmare Extreme, out of a 223, with an MV of 2400 fps...

all 7 of those rounds drilled right thru the steel plate...at 100 yds...

I read somewhere that smaller calibers transfer a larger percentage of their energy into heat than do the larger projectiles-the .224" bullet is actually melting its way through the plate.

Don't you guys remember? The .223 probably has a fast twist rifling and the bullets literally screw their way through the steel plate.

I once shot through a steel plate with a 17 Remington. It looked like you drilled a hole with a 3/8 drill bit! I wouldn't hunt deer with it though.

Rojelio

We use steel targets at our range and I've learned a lot along the way (and destroyed a few in the name of education).
Basically, bullets that hit at or around 3,000 fps seem to have a way of cratering the plates that slower heavier bullets just shatter on. We have some rifle grade 8" plates attached to a very substantial stand from Action Target. Normal 5.56 ball will leave small dents at 100 yards, the Winchester 40gr varmint load will leave a deeper dimple than the fmj round. Rounds like 7.62 ball, .30-06 or 9.3x62 will just splash the paint off, my .458 Lott will pick the whole target assembly up and fling it back about three feet (making a sound like a giant alloy golf driver hitting a ball ).
The only gun we've found to damage the plates at 100 yards was a .300 RUM which left a hole half way thru the plate that you could stick your little finger tip in. Notice I described a "hole" and not a "crater", this was a ragged sided hole like the steel had been reduced to chunks but not melted out.
We've also had a couple of the plates crack after heavy usage, the cracks are along the line where the bracket is welded to the back of the plate. One plate snapped in half when hit with the Lott at fifty yards on the second shot.
I think it's a function of the amount of bullet in contact with the plate and the heat generated by the speed of impact. The smaller faster bullets do more damage but don't move the plates much at all. The big slow ones are more fun to watch hit.

i did quite a bit with steel targets for IHMSA trying to find what was what. like rick says steel penetration is a velocity issue. below 3000 fps damage to the alloys we were using did almost no damage, above that damage was proportional to the velocity. swifts really do a job on steel. then craters get involved - once cratered hits cause increasing damage quickly

Rick,

If you are discussing "damage" to a plate, you forgot what the .416 Rigby w 350 Barnes Xs at 2700 fps did to one of your free standing plates.

I'd call that damage. Am pretty sure we'd have seen full penetration of the plate had been it been restrained in any way.

Mike,

That was on one of our earlier plates that wasn't made of AR500. Being a softer plate hit by a reasonably high velocity round with a bushel basket of energy did produce about the prettiest crater I've ever seen.

Wonder what the Rigby's velocity was at around 80 yards?

Thirty years ago I spent an afternoon at a range with a 303 Lee Enfield and a nice, 'scoped, interwar German Mauser sporter with a stock as slim as a toothpick that I had paid £60 for.

It was usual to shoot at a steel plate as a "ringing bull". Sp after shooting the 303 just because it was there with FMJ bullets I shot the Mauser again with surplus FMJ bullets.

Unlike the 303 these things drilled right through the plates that the 303 had only made a crater on.

It was only later that we realised that this surplus 7.92mm was late WWII semi-armour piercing!

No I don't think that it is any measure of lethality...a 12 bore slug would not penetrate...but of penetration and bullet construction.

Under the right circumstance you can fire a wax candle from a musket through a 1" ply board! And I read that in WWI the Germand would pull and FMJ lead core 7.92mm bullet and load it backwards as an ersatz AP round to use against British tanks. The jacket somehow holding the lead core together so that it penetrated.

Means it well work good at putting holes into steel plate.

I wouldn't equate that to any sort of game-taking potential. Punching holes in steel is a lot different than displacing tissues and fluids, as has already been said. It's just fun to brag about to non-gun folks!

Everyone seemed to miss the part where I indicated the MV of the bullet was only 2400 fps... at 100 meters, it's Velocity was probably down to 2000 fps...

and it went right thru the plate....

someone on another site, made a real good suggestion that would shed a lot of light on this....

to shoot a steel plate at night, and you can supposedly see the lead melt in the plate...

the other suggestion was to place a milk jug of water, a little behind the steel plate and see what shape the bullet is in after penetrating the plate...

that could tell us a lot!

I have pictures of recovered bullets that have pentrated steel plates - and the plugs that were punched out. There is some melting but mostly 'bending' and shearing. Don't stand too close to the plate being shot - a lot of metal fragments shoot out backwards. There are pics on the web somewhere of bullets passing through plates.

The reason for the 'low velocity' 224 bullet penetrating is relative mass. The bullet is relatively light and does not possess the momentum to move the plate but the energy is concentrated so it just punches out a plug. a bugger bullet moves the plate, thus dissipating it's energy through the whole plate. Soft lead bullets penetrate almost as well as FMJ's when driven fast enough, depending on the hardness of the steel. Harder steel produces a smaller hole and a bigger plug (thickness, not width) than softer steel. Bullet speed is important because at higher speed there is less time for the plate to move so the energy remains concentrated.

22 Hornet; 55gr Hornady Spire Points; 2650-2700fps This is the softest steel but is too thick for the bullet to penetrate. The bits of 'fluff' visible are from the rags that covered the plate to stop fragments of steel and bullet from shooting up into the muzzle.

The 'Test Tube' in which this was done.

What this proves is that one can have fun, in town, in ones's own shed, with a rifle!
(And no-one can hear a thing!)

Aah ... but.... to answer the original question - these same bullets performed impressively well on feral goat and especially well on hares. But all the steel plate told me was that I was getting enough velocity. I did a diffeent test on a different medium to test bullet performance on game. I have pictures of those too. What I do not have, are pictures of those same bullets on live game so I cannot tie the test results together to give a meaningfull indication to you folks but it does mean something to me because I have seen the results on game.

This one (the only one on photobucket at the moment) is a 243gr hollow point cast bullet fire out of my 303 Brit at moderate velocity into wet paper. The damage to a turkey is in line with the paper effects but the paper does exagerate it a little. On turkey, the entry hole is impressive, the internal damage is severe but the exit hole is just a hole. No steel plate tests - sorry!

I have shot a 30-06 AP (black tip) into the thin part of a railroad rail and it drilled right through. I think at least an inch thick. Would not use on deer.

Seafire2,

No, it only proves that you can penetrate steel with a lead and copper bullet due to the velocity and high rotational spin. That is also what most generally occurs when game is hit. Although it may produce some spectacular kills the very low energy figures are asking for trouble.

The same steel plate that was "punched" by the .22 cal bullet will only be pock marked by a 270 or 30-06 but the latter two are far better whitetail calibers than a 22 centerfire for reliable kills, especially at longer distances.

Good Hunting.

I am not doing this to promote these bullets and this caliber on deer...

what I am doing is sharing to get folks's input back, and make this a round table discussion...

things like 303 Guy posted...

Today I had the opportunity to use the same rounds with both the Varmint Extremes and the FMJs in 55 grains, with an MV of 2400 fps...

Several stumps or trees were used as a back stop, along with a hillside closely behind them...

just out of curiosity I went up and looked at the stumps that were being used as a back stop... they were 12 to 14 inches in diameter...

these bullets are also penetrating thru that much wood...

also looked at some trees, that were also the same thickness, and both bullets were going thru them... velocity was about 2000 to 2200 fps at the time...

What conclusions tho, that I am personally coming to... is that 22 caliber bullets, at least in the 55 grain weight and up, are better penetrators at 1800 to 2400 fps, than they are at 3000 to 3500 fps...

Just like I found in 6mm, 'varmint' bullets perform like their big game brothers...when reduced down to the same velocity as their big game brothers...

Eg... 55 grain Ballistic Tip at 2700 fps, similarity to 95 grain ballistic tip at 2700 fps...

These are results that I was assuming the exact opposite would be occuring... but that wasn't what I was seeing...and the results were occuring in wood media used as back stops... such as a thick tree or a stump...

I wanna play too,

.277-150gr Nosler Solid Base @ 500yds


.277-169gr RBBT ULD @ 500yds


.277-150gr Nosler Solid Base @ 500yds


.277-195gr RBBT ULD @ 500yds


Plate is a 12" 600#PSI blind flange hung at 500yds. White center is 2.5"dia. Muzzle velocity on all loads exceeds 3100fps. Holes are close to 3/4" deep. They all go through deer very well.

Holy Cow! Is that a five shot group?!!!
Aaaah ... but can you do it again? Mind you, going by the painted over craters I would say so!

Would you any chance have done penetration tests in which you moved the target back untill you found the point at which the bullets no longer fully penetrate?

Good idea to use a steel plate as a target and 'erase' the old groups with black paint! That way, a single record of progress can be kept right on the target!

Not really pertinant to the discussion, but I agree that black tip 30-06 is some nasty stuff. I have about 250 rounds of it, 164 grain with hardened steel penetrator, it will go through stuff you woundn't believe. I wouldn't shoot deer with it, but if I ever need to stop a truck that stuff is the ticket. It kicks like a mule, think it was loaded as MG ammo...

Seafire, wheras there are definite contibuting factors to terminal bullet performance such as jacket thickness and core composition, I have always felt the single biggest factor was impact velocity. Why those little .223 pills are penetrating so well in steel though, is odd to me and somewhat counter-intuitive. Interesting.

quote:

Seafire, wheras there are definite contibuting factors to terminal bullet performance such as jacket thickness and core composition, I have always felt the single biggest factor was impact velocity. Why those little .223 pills are penetrating so well in steel though, is odd to me and somewhat counter-intuitive. Interesting.

yeah,

I am strictly sharing this as they are doing the exact opposite of what you'd think they should be doing..... but it has proven the same 100% of the time... so something is beneficial to a shooter and hunter to understand here, at least in my opinion...

I can see it and just think " oh well... wadda ya know?" and go on forgetting the whole thing...

Who has the recipe for making ballistic gel?

quote:

Who has the recipe for making ballistic gel?

Well, I came up with something that bears some resemblence to animal flesh - that was water logged wool furnature padding. I packed it into opened cans and fired down through it with as many on top of each other as required to stop the bullet. They worked better when stacked inside a close fitting steel tube.