Penetration--again

[getitdone1]

Did a little more shooting through plastic gallon milk jugs filled with water today.

9mm Luger with 115 gr FMJ bullet went through 7. No doubt a heavier 9mm FMJ would do even better. Actually bullet veered to right and missed 8th jug.

22 mag FMJ rim-fire went into 6th jug. No bullet distortion at all.

375 H&H 270 gr SP--Hornady and Speer through 4 and into 5th. First two jugs totally busted and you rarely see that and lot of impact all down the line of jugs. Heavy bullets with lots of ME do this. (Those of you who did not read my previous post regarding 375 H&H with Hornady FMJ 300 gr bullet--24 jugs!!!) For those of you who think it's all about FMJ my 243 with 90 gr FMJ bullet only went through 5 with bullet in #6 jug.

22 LR, Federal Champion, solid not HP 40 gr lead--Penetrated 3 and buldged back side of #4. Not bad for a little 22 lead bullet. No bullet distortion.

22 LR, CCI Stinger 32 gr HP 1640 fps--Buldged back side of #2--Same for Remington Yellow Jacket 33 gr HP.

243 Win. 75 gr Hornady HP--1 and bullet totally fragmented in #2 jug. Wicked! Did not touch back side of #2 jug.

Last time I did this I had one real impressive cartridge/bullet and not sure I mentioned it in my previous posts about penetration.

It is: 270 Winchester, 150 gr Nosler Partition--Blew-up 5 and into #7. Famous gun author Jack O'Connor said this was his grizzly load when carrying his 270. He had it right.

Through 4 and into #5 is very common with several center-fire rifle cartridges with SP bullet.

Of course it's not all about penetration when hunting. That 375 H&H SP bullet imparts tremendous energy--both directions.

Don

[AJMD429]

Fascinating stuff!

[madman4570]

Boy, you must drink a lot of milk
On a more serious note: Great post/thanks!

[20cows]

Boy, you must drink a lot of milk ...

That was my thought when you said something went through 24 jugs.

[adirondakjack]

Best pen. comes from round nose bullets at around 1000 fps or less.

I shot up some bowling pins once. They are hard rock maple, laminated blocks, covered with a very tough plastic hide about 1/16" thick. A 45 Colt, 318 grain RNFP LEE GC bullet at 1300 fps blew a pin 25 ft downrange, but only penetrated 2 inches. A 93 gr RN lead .380 bullet at 820 fps barely knocked the pin over, yet penetrated to the off side skin, bulging the plastic. Too much velocity means the bullets deform and "grab" the media, losing stream. A .38 sp, rnl factory load will blow throughh a bonch of water jugs, only holing them like a field arrow. A .357 mag round will stop in the second totally destroyed jug......

FWIW the ONLY .22 LR load I ever managed to stop in 2 o 3 jugs (which were blown up nicely) was the CCI Velocitor load. Standard "high velocity" .22s will cheese through a bunch of em like they been stabbed with a pencil.....

[cshold]

I often wondered how many water jugs a civil war mini-ball would
travel through. Great thread BTW

[adirondakjack]

I often wondered how many water jugs a civil war mini-ball would
travel through. Great thread BTW

I dunno, but from what I know of shooting the .50-70 with a 450 gr bullet, probably a whole bunch. I shot a .50-70 through 12" of semi-rotted maple and two one-gallon jugs of water.

here's a little vid my son did of the shot. He was about 12 at the time.





Both jugs were pretty well smashed up, with an entry hole in the first one about 7/8" in size. We found the bullet on the ground about 25 ft away. I was amazed that the rotted hunk of maple didn't even move as the bullet passed through.

[getitdone1]

Some of those jugs cost me. Water jugs you buy at Krogers. Most have been milk jugs but several water jugs with slightly greater wall thickness.

Light weight bullets at high velocity don't penetrate well even with full metal jackets. 223 and 243. I think this is caused by two things. One the light weight and two the high speed. If you take your hand and slap it down on top of water you meet great resistance. Now, decrease the speed of your hand and you'll have less resistance. There seems to be a "happy medium" when it comes to best speed for bullet penetration and that seems to be in the 1200-2400 fps. The first about old-time 45-70 speed and the last about 375, 300 gr or 416, 400 gr speed. Helps to explain too why the relatively small 30-30 can do so well. Same for the 9mm Luger FMJ and 22 LR solid lead.

223 Remington FMJ only went through 3 jugs. The military's heavier bullet might do considerably better. Isn't it 60 grains???

A FMJ bullet stays small as it penetrates while a hollow point or soft point that mushrooms creates much greater resistance to whatever it's trying to penetrate. It's a trade-off. Soft point=more shock/energy imparted to animal while full metal jacket bullet=less shock/energy imparted to animal but much more penetration. The Nosler Partition bullet is a great compromise between these two extremes.

Don

[Idiot]

Light weight bullets at high velocity don't penetrate well even with full metal jackets. 223 and 243. I think this is caused by two things. One the light weight and two the high speed. If you take your hand and slap it down on top of water you meet great resistance. Now, decrease the speed of your hand and you'll have less resistance.

The light weight bullets don't store the energy - calculated as momentum - as the heavier bullets. Drive a heavy 45 caliber hard solid flat-nosed bullet at the velocity of the 223 and watch what happens; it will penetrate deep and deeper than the same bullet driven at 2400 fps. A tough, heavy, bullet constructed for penetration at high velocity, driven at high velocity, will always out penetrate the lesser of each element.

Water is a very hard and erractic medium for penetration tests. Often a bullet will want to riccochet instead of penetrate against this hard medium. So, in my opinion (which is freely given and worth as much), penetration tests using water are of dubious value. They are, however, entertaining. Thanks for the post.

[getitdone1]

idiot,

Lean animal tissue (muscle) is about 70% water. Fat has a lot less water. If I could afford the meat I'd use meat but can see no reason why water is not a pretty good indicator of penetration in animal tissue.

I believe you're right about the heavy solid bullet penetrating more when driven faster and my reasoning was faulty.

I was amazed that the Remington factory load of 405 gr soft nose at about 1330 went through 10 jugs while my hot handload using the Barnes 400 gr soft nose went through 5 and dented the back side of 6th jug. I don't believe the much slower Remington bullet mushroomed while I know the Barnes produced as large and beautiful of a mushroom as you'll ever see. Has a thick jacket.

The reason for this has to be it's a lot easier to push .458 through a medium than it is to push--what finally becomes--.750 in diameter. Just now measured the mushroomed Barnes 400 grain Original bullet. Actually found a second that went over .900.

The Sierra 300 gr HP 45-70 loaded hot only made it into the 3rd jug and was totally flattened with a hole in the middle. I just now measured it and it flattened out to over 1 inch in dia. Shed the jacket. Should be very deadly on deer or medium sized game not requiring lots of penetration. I would guess the Remington 300 gr HP would perform about the same.

Here's a guy on YouTube doing a little of what I did using only 22 rim-fire. Rather amazing what some of those low-powered 22's can penetrate--the first using only the primer compound/no powder. I had same results with Remington Yellow Jacket--bullet fragmented into small pieces. Like this guy says, they must use a special bullet for this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o25ieULe ... re=related

Don

[rogn]

In the terms of old and slow there was some "work" done by some branch of the old British empire in the 19th century where they lined up some numbers of the native inhabitants and tested the penetration of a given projectile. Cant remember where I read this, but it was a reasonably documented source. The numbers of perforated "units was quite high. This was using one of the muzzleloaders of the time The old Britts could be quite immaginative in the colonies.

[adirondakjack]

The trick is to match the velocity to the bullet construction.

Something like a handgun bullet or soft, swaged .22 LR bullet, ya wanna keep velocity DOWN to limit deformation. Deformation puts the brakes on, "splashes" the media (doing more damage, hence the flat point designs and HPs that open up), but a rnl or spire point will plow on ahead with little :braking" action if ya don't over-speed it for the bullet material. Thgat's why the little 380 round out-penetrated the "monster" 318 grain .45 colt +P round.

My guess is, if ya loaded a .30-06 with a spire point jacketed bullet, using say 2400 powder, at maybe 1800 fps, again, slow enough so the bullet stays in good shape passing through the water, it would penetrate deeper than if ya ran a full house load that opens up the bullet, putting the brakes on.

In the end however, penetration alone is not a good indicator of reasonable killing power TODAY. A field arrow will pass through a lotta meat, but in many instances the animal will die of infection a couple of weeks later......

[Idiot]

getitdone1, soaked materials work pretty well for testing, but water alone, because it is very hard by itself, is not always reliable. But either way - thanks for the post - it was interesting.

[getitdone1]

getitdone1, soaked materials work pretty well for testing, but water alone, because it is very hard by itself, is not always reliable. But either way - thanks for the post - it was interesting.

idiot,

You're a brave soul to use a "name" like that. Don't believe it's very accurate.

You bring-up a good point. I wonder if anyone in this group has done much testing with soaked materials that could be compared to my water jug test? Ballistics gelatin too. Some say it's best and I know the police and military have used it--as well as some gun writers. I see where there are several recipes on YouTube and Wikipedia encyclopedia for making ballistics gelatin.

Might try to make some. Probably will and then report back here with bullet/cartridge performance results. My guess is, relatively speaking, the bullets will perform about the same as with water.

Back again to add: Nope, that stuff is too expensive for the extensive testing I'd want to do. I'm going to write various bullet manufacturers and see what they say about water vs. gelatin for penetration/bullet performance testing. May get little to no response but we'll see.

Don

[Idiot]

getitdone1, soaked materials work pretty well for testing, but water alone, because it is very hard by itself, is not always reliable. But either way - thanks for the post - it was interesting.

I wonder if anyone in this group has done much testing with soaked materials that could be compared to my water jug test? Ballistics gelatin too. Some say it's best and I know the police and military have used it--as well as some gun writers. I see where there are several recipes on YouTube and Wikipedia encyclopedia for making ballistics gelatin.

Might try to make some. Probably will and then report back here with bullet/cartridge performance results. My guess is, relatively speaking, the bullets will perform about the same as with water.

Back again to add: Nope, that stuff is too expensive for the extensive testing I'd want to do. I'm going to write various bullet manufacturers and see what they say about water vs. gelatin for penetration/bullet performance testing. May get little to no response but we'll see.

Don

I think that last line identifies why a lot of folks use water for testing - it's cheap. Even if you use old newspapers, it will take some time to gather enough, then you have to sort through them to make sure each stack is the same as the next, then you have to evenly apply water using weight or time to ensure each stack is uniform, and then they can only be used once - and it goes on and on. All of which is time consuming and expensive. I think that's why discarded plastic jugs are so popular.

[getitdone1]

Sent my complete bullet performance results to Steve Hornady and asked him how they compared water and gelatin for bullet testing. I expect they, and other bullet manufacturers, have used mostly gelatin. Asked Steve what it takes to stop their .375, 300 gr solid. If he replies I'm sure I'll get an answer to that one.

Well it's not as cheap as you might think once you run-out of milk jugs and have to start buying plastic gallon water jugs at super market at 79 cents each--with water. Probably spent 40 bucks on'em. Usually start with 30 or so jugs (each session) and you go through them pretty fast although studying the damage and bullet performance and writing it down takes some time. Looks like I've tested 46 bullets from various cartridges. Multiply that by an average of 5 jugs per bullet and you have lots of jugs and time involved. The 375 H&H solid using 10, then 15 and then 24 really used them up fast.

The most explosive were the 243, 55 gr, 270, 110 gr and 45-70, 300 gr hp. At about 25 feet from muzzle to first bottle I'd sometimes feel a few drops of water. Water would explode up and out to sides about 30 feet from center with the fastest bullets. I chose to be this close to ensure, as best I could, going through the bottom 1/3 of each and every bottle. Even at that short distance you have to be lined-up pretty accurate and especially when you're shooting at 15-24 bottles.

One of the nice things about using these jugs filled with water is you "capture" the bullet in one of those jugs--if you've got enough jugs lined-up on the board. Several times I did not have enough jugs and wasted the jugs and had to try again with more jugs.

It was fun. "Gun fun" I call it.

Don

[J Miller]

Don,

Have you ever tested a .45 Colt factory 250 or 255gr load from R-P or Win with the water jugs?

I have no place to do this or I would. Just very curious about how many jugs they'd go through.

Joe

[Idiot]

I once owned a huge 14 foot tall prickly pear cactus. It sat outside my front door and would produce several buckets of tuna and about a regular pick-up load of six inch diameter pads each year. I cut it down because I got tired of trying to keep up with it. Your post got me thinking of planting another one, just for bullet testing. I suspect that about three dozen inch thick pads, stacked one in front of the other, could stop an awful lot of bullets. A prickly pear pad is mostly water and fiber with a thin leather like skin. I think they could give a fairly decent indication of what a bullet would do if it hit something medium sized and tough. If one wanted to make it tougher he could add a piece of 3/4" plywood about a dozen pads in and a dozen later. I guess one could consider this cactus pad testing medium (CPTM - an acronym always makes it sound scientific) a water jug filled with wood pulp.

[Idiot]

Don,

Have you ever tested a .45 Colt factory 250 or 255gr load from R-P or Win with the water jugs?

I have no place to do this or I would. Just very curious about how many jugs they'd go through.

Joe

I assume you're talking about the (soft) lead round nose load. I'd bet about one, or perhaps two gallon jugs, at the most. About the same as a 45 ACP. I've got that load and a water bucket. On my next trip out into the desert I'll find out - if Don doesn't beat me to it. BTW Joe, it 110 degree outside right now - in your old stomping grounds - and too darn hot to test anything except a cold wedge of watermelon.

[getitdone1]

Don,

Have you ever tested a .45 Colt factory 250 or 255gr load from R-P or Win with the water jugs?

I have no place to do this or I would. Just very curious about how many jugs they'd go through.

Joe

Joe,

I didn't complete all of my 45 Colt loads but I have no standard factory loads like you mention.

225 gr Silvertip HP factory load penetrated 3 jugs. I would guess it'd be hard to find a more lethal self-defense load.
225 gr Speer HP reload penetrated 6--but, that's all the jugs I had on the board.
200 gr Hornady XTP HP penetrated 3--but that's all the jugs I had at that time.

You've got me curious so I may buy a box of standard factory loads, like you mention, and find-out. Be sure to let you and members know the results. The factory loads should come close to performing like the old black powder loads--I think-- and might penetrate pretty good. The Silvertip factory load also proved lethal in 9mm Luger. It'd be my favorite for self-defense in 9mm or 45.

I think I mentioned it but if not I have a lot of this recorded on video, including shooting cabbage, tomato, watermelon and muskmelon. Found cabbage to be the most spectacular but seeing a tomato totally disappear into mist wasn't bad. Even got a little on me.

Don

[Udy]

Shooting milk jugs is fun. While it may not be the best medium it is a consistant test that any one can do, and from my experience most always repeatable. For a while I was stashing jugs all over the garage, havn't saved any for a while, but I started a chart to keep track of these things. Here is as far as I got.

[Udy]

idiot,


I was amazed that the Remington factory load of 405 gr soft nose at about 1330 went through 10 jugs while my hot handload using the Barnes 400 gr soft nose went through 5 and dented the back side of 6th jug. I don't believe the much slower Remington bullet mushroomed while I know the Barnes produced as large and beautiful of a mushroom as you'll ever see. Has a thick jacket.

Don

The 405 gr. rem is about as unpredictable bullet I have ever heard of. On my chart on the last post you will see identical velocity for it and it did 8 jugs, and you nailed it. It didn't open. Drive that bullet to fast and they explode.

[AJMD429]

Maybe a big factor is not to go too fast...?

[getitdone1]

Udy,

Thanks for that report. Seems we pretty much agree where the loads are comparable.

I went through 10 with that 405 gr Remington factory load and--like you--should have added a + because that's all the bottles I had on the board. I do expect that was very close to the limit for this load. My handload when trying to duplicate this factory load using 5744 powder and Remington 400 gr bullet went through 8 but that was all of the jugs I had on the board.

So, this old, slow Remington load that is close to the old-time black powder load will penetrate! Really makes you wonder some about how great of a load this is. Been around for a lot of years and know some here can tell us how it's performed for them on game.

What was your distance between the muzzle and the first jug? Winter or summer? Did you fill the jugs completely full and cap them tightly? Did you have all the jugs touching each other? Did you always shoot through the widest part of each jug? I'm trying to see how close we were with our testing method.

You did some things I should have done and that is measure each bullet after recovery and also weigh them.

Don

[Whit Spurzon]

Wind and I have been testing a few rifles on milk jugs as of late.

38-55
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-kTlnhsa2Q

32-20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfpAubkUrhA

218 Bee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=off8pwk6 ... er&list=UL

45-70
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBLdtFes ... er&list=UL

[getitdone1]

whit spurzon,

Nice videos! Identical setup to mine--horses and long board--but I shot from chair and typical, adjustable rest on table.

Those hard cast bullets really penetrate. I read that they sometimes break-up on large bone. Not sure how hard yours were. The range of 1 to 18 jugs penetrated shows the huge difference in bullet performance and importance of using the proper bullet for the game hunted. Also that the proper bullet for slow velocity may not be the right one for faster velocity.

You guys have great, wide-open country to shoot in.

Don

[Whit Spurzon]

The 38-55 bullet was fairly soft, 20-1 alloy.



I've found jacketed bullet fragments inside of critters and even recovered some perfectly mushroomed bullets that seemed to have been deflected by a rib or scapula, but I've never recovered cast bullet. Cast bullets seem to fly straight though leaving an impressive wound channel and two holes.

"Aim for the exit hole" was the sage advice I got and heeding it has paid big dividends.

[J Miller]

Don,

Have you ever tested a .45 Colt factory 250 or 255gr load from R-P or Win with the water jugs?

I have no place to do this or I would. Just very curious about how many jugs they'd go through.

Joe

Joe,

I didn't complete all of my 45 Colt loads but I have no standard factory loads like you mention.

225 gr Silvertip HP factory load penetrated 3 jugs. I would guess it'd be hard to find a more lethal self-defense load.
225 gr Speer HP reload penetrated 6--but, that's all the jugs I had on the board.
200 gr Hornady XTP HP penetrated 3--but that's all the jugs I had at that time.

You've got me curious so I may buy a box of standard factory loads, like you mention, and find-out. Be sure to let you and members know the results. The factory loads should come close to performing like the old black powder loads--I think-- and might penetrate pretty good. The Silvertip factory load also proved lethal in 9mm Luger. It'd be my favorite for self-defense in 9mm or 45.

I think I mentioned it but if not I have a lot of this recorded on video, including shooting cabbage, tomato, watermelon and muskmelon. Found cabbage to be the most spectacular but seeing a tomato totally disappear into mist wasn't bad. Even got a little on me.

Don

Don,

I don't know about Indiana, but here in Illienoise WalMart is carrying the Winchester 255gr Lead standard load. Price is like $17.00 something for 20 rounds. Way to much, but factory .45 Colt has always been too expensive.

Joe

[JohndeFresno]

Excellent post and thread, GetItDone1 - ! And it brought the "Jug Testers" out of the woodwork - always a favorite, and highly relevant (I believe).

Udy - where have you been? GREAT chart.

AdirondakJack - your video was an eye opener while being very funny - thanks for sharing!

Too many great posts to acknowledge y'all - but thank you. I've archived this thread for future reference. Really good stuff.

[Udy]

Udy,


1)What was your distance between the muzzle and the first jug?
2)Winter or summer?
3)Did you fill the jugs completely full and cap them tightly?
4)Did you have all the jugs touching each other?
5)Did you always shoot through the widest part of each jug? I'm trying to see how close we were with our testing method.


Don

1)This was kind of a colaboration of a few folks on another forum that we got started on a few years back. I should start adding to it again. At any rate the idea was to do the SAME test. I always set the crony up at the distance I was going to hit the jugs with and fire one across for velocity then remove it and slam the jugs. So I guess distance isn't so important other than the impact velocity. That said I get about as close as possible with out getting soaked just cause its easier to get a clean strait shot I guess about 25 feet or so. If I wanted to test the same bullet at differnt speeds like the 300partitions I loaded some very mild and some hot, still shot close.
2)Don't recon it matters, at least not that I figured-I guess it could maybe, but I didn't keep track. However it is a lot easier to align all the jugs up in the snow. Easy to cut a strait flat spot out of the snow with a flat shovel. See pic in the bottom.
3)completely full and capped tight
4)All touching as close as possible
5)Always aimed at center of the fat part.