Testing bullet expansion/penetration?

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Do any of you do expansion or penetration testing of your rounds (either factory or handload) prior to hunting with them?
If so, what do you use as a testing media, and how far away are you placing it from your rifle?

I've never tested my centerfire rifles; I have tested my handguns (both hunting and defensive rounds, factory and handloads).....my media is water soaked surgical sponges packed in plastic gallon jugs. While it might not be very scientific, it does give me some indication as to how my rounds might perform. Some of the better HP defensive ammo didn't expand in the media, while others exceeded my expectations. The distance was 21 feet for defensive ammo; 25 yards for handgun hunting rounds.
I would like to test some of my .223 varmint rounds, as well as some of my "safari" loads for my .30-06, .338 Win. mag, and .375 H&H mag......for test media I'm thinking about using water soaked telephone books (cheap and easy to come by), but I'm curious as to what would be a reasonable distance?
Again, I realize that this isn't a "scientific" study, and that ballistics gel would be a better test media (but it's quite expensive)......and that my data gathered from this testing would only be useful if I was charged by a herd of water logged telephone directories!
Any info you would care to share would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.....................

 

[JimP]

When I was working I would use some encapsulate that we used to encapsulate buried telephone cables. I worked for a phone company at the time. I'd mix it up and then poor it into milk jugs. At one time I used phone books but when my company quit dispensing them the source dried up. We never did soak them since we would shoot at them at the gun range and trying to pack them out to the ranges was out of the question. We did shoot them at 100 and 200 yards or what ever range we were planning on shooting at game at. Shooting at dry ones would turn into a little bit of a mess to clean up when you dug through them to find the bullets. Wet or dry newspapers will do the same thing.

Anymore I don't worry too much about how the bullet looks but if I see one in the backstop after I am done shooting I'll pick it up and it looks just like the factory pictures usually do.

One thing that you will find with your .223 rounds is that once the bullet hits the media it will start to tumble. I was surprised when I first saw this but it is part of the design of the bullet and how it reacts. That is one thing that makes the M16 military rifle so deadly.

 

[ScottG]

While pulling targets in the butts at the rifle range you can see the tumble effect. You would have a perfect hole of a bullets silhouette. It was kool.

 

[Velo Dog]

Hello Mr 16 gauge,

Beginning at age 16 or 17, some friends and I began experimenting with bullet penetration and bullet expansion, rifle, handgun (and shotgun with slugs and buckshot.)
And I had continued the shade tree experimenting through about my mid 30's, at which stage I sort of "burned out" at it.

I / we had used water soaked phone books, water soaked news papers, river mud, wet sand, beef bones, sheep bones, animal carcasses found dead on rural roads, tree trunks, live and dead, mostly pine and oak, later birch when I moved to Alaska, and also tree stumps, from freshly cut off to various stages of rotten with moisture and age.
Likewise, I have shot a few live game animals with various guns and ammunitions but not very many compared to some hunters.

Upon becoming a Police Officer, (age 22) eventually I also was able to do some experimenting with so called "ballistic gelatin", also Kevlar, garbage cans, automobile doors, wheels, tires, trunk lids, passenger seats, glass and engine blocks.

Like yourself, I concluded that hollow point bullets are not reliable.
The one that hands down expanded ALMOST every time though was the Federal brand .357 Magnum revolver ammunition of the 1970's and 80's.
Worth mentioning is the fact that in 100% of the Cops & Robbers shootings I reviewed, wherein this ammunition was used, there were no failures to expand.

Just don't count on it if you get into a gun battle with a mob of angry gelatin blocks, because I saw it fail to expand once in that weird stuff.

For rifle bullets, at the end of the day, I prefer blunt shaped ones for most of the hunting I do any more (typically under about 300 yards)
However, if going to any place that longer shots are common, I prefer spitzer or semi-spitzer shape.

One thing that I have concluded from my shooting various things with various rifle, hand gun and shotgun ammunition is that I do not trust hollow point bullets.

Cheers,
Velo Dog.

 

[gizmo]

As Velo dog mentioned wet phone books work pretty well. They will work dry too. I wish I had done that with my recent buff hunt. If I had I wouldn't have had the issues with ammo that I had as I would have used a different bullet.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

I know @Mike70560 had a setup for this. It involved a combination of wet newspaper as well as wooden boards. I think it a a very difficult task to generate such media that will exactly duplicate the body of an animal, but Mike's setup seemed a good one.

I think the most important thing is to not so much use the results of any one particular bullet to make a judgment on the bullet. What I think it is best used for is comparing one bullet to another. It's important therefore to have the media remain the same so that you can get an apples to apples comparison.