want to make bullet comparisons ie..hollow point..etc....

[mldollins]

Is this dangerous? I want to be able to retrieve a bullet once it has been shot to compare hollow points and their spread.

I thought about getting a 55 gallon drum and filling it up 2/3 of the way with water. I would be on a ladder and shoot into the water and have some type of screen at the bottom to retrieve the bullets.

Is this a viable option?

[Macybaby]

My husband has made a bullet trap. It is box shaped and he puts cardboard on the front (anything else will distort the bullet to much.

The trap is about 3' long and he has it filled with wood chips. So far he has not had anything go all the way through, but there is a large berm right behind it and I don't think he has shot his powerful stuff into it.

I don't know about water, but the military uses a big drum of sand to make sure "empty" rifles are actually empty.

You should check out "box-o-truth" those guys shoot just about anything into just about anything to see what will happen. I know they have used gallon jugs filled with water and shot into them (through them) to see how far the bullet will travel before stopping. I think that your barrel of water will end up with holes in the bottom and you'll be digging your bullets out of the mud.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/

Edited to add - I was wrong, DH's box is 6' long and he says his cast lead 350 grain 45-70 bullets will go through. They are not fast but have a heck of a wallup behind them. He says the 9mm will go about 5.5 feet, while the 223 disintegrate at about a foot.

Cathy

[zant]

Order some ballistic gelatin and make up and keep cold until use......or do cheap way and take about 4ft of old phone books,soak overnite and clamp together.

[texican]

Ballistic gelatin is great, but it's mighty expensive.

I'd just use a sand bank.

Or, simply peruse the four or five major bullet manufacturers websites, for hollowpoint expansion. Speer, Sierra, Hornady, Barnes, or Nosler.

One of the manufacturers has a bullet reminiscent of the infamous (dream of a bullet) Black Talon. Gold Dot? Nasty little petals open up the wound channel...

[Bearfootfarm]

A stack of phone books works well

[Old Vet]

If you want to see how much good it does then dig it out of a carcus like a coon and see.

[Macybaby]

I made the mistake of asking my DH about this, so here you go. . .

left is a 7.62x54R full metal jacket. Right is .284 Speer 145g BTHP Match


45-70 350g hard cast (This one had not been shot) next to a 9mm remington 124JHP


These are 38spl 158 grain hard cast lead (these have been shot - not a lot of change).


These are 357mag Magtech 158g JSP


9mm Remington 124g JHP


30-30 Remington 150g CLSP


.284 Nosler Partition 160g (the little part is the rear core from another bullet)


Another Nosler Partition 30.06 150g


Cathy

[Macybaby]

DH says check out this site

http://www.brassfetcher.com

[zant]

Something I spaced on...if wanting to see how hollowpoints perform in the real world,always use 3-4 layers of denim over gelatin or phone books...unless naked people attack in your neck of the woods..

[megafatcat]

Dangerous, YES!! My best suggestion if you must see for yourself.

36" of 3" diameter PVC pipe, filled with the cheapest meat or scraps. Set it on sawhorses and shoot into the end or just lay on the ground and shoot prone. Use a reliable backstop and shoot from at least 25' away.

Whenever you question the safety of something, it is probably a bad idea. I can picture a man atop a ladder with a high power rifle pointed straight down between his legs at a barrel 3' from the muzzle.

A line of 3-4 old plastic milk jugs filled with water would be another option and I bet that the bullet would be in one or them.

[Ed Norman]

Go hunting. Shoot lots of big game and keep notes and try different bullets. Help others skin their game and check what they used and see the damage done. You'll learn what works for you. You will find some surprises for sure.

[eurycea12]

mldollins,
You need to ask why you want to do this.
Much of the information you might gather has already been done and is available on the web. Are you looking for self defense rounds? hunting?
It is expensive to do this properly. Ballistic gelatin most approximates living tissue.
Notice the pictures posted, there is little deformation for most. The only way I could justify the cost for this type of setup is if I were casting my own.

And please, never shoot into water.

[Okie-Dokie]

Interesting stuff! The part that caught my atten. was the climbing up a ladder with a loaded high power rifle. Not the greatest idea I have ever heard of.

[Michael Kawalek]

I did something like this years ago with wet newspaper. I cut out one side an empty milk crate and replaced that side with cardboard. I then lined the crate with a plastic bag and filled it with newspaper. I then filled the whole thing with water and let the paper soak for a week.

I recovered quite a few bullets out of it. Most handgun bullets penetrate just a few inches and look unfired except for the rifling. Speer's 130 grain 7mm spitzer penetrated 14". l shot a cast Lyman 358477 lead bullet from my .357 rifle that mushroomed just like in the textbooks.


Bullets were easy to retrieve and the wet paper gives a rough estimate on penetration.

[beowoulf90]

You can also line up 1 gallon jugs filled with water and shoot into them from a safe distance. The bullet will only go through so many jugs. If you use old milk jugs you can calculate the distance and also figure out the penetration of the bullet..
For example if it goes through 2 milk jugs through of water, which is about 12 inches, you can figure that it will penetrate about 6 inches into the animal you are shooting/hunting..or the intruder you are stopping..

The typical plastic milk jugs are about 6 inches wide.. So this makes it easier to calculate the penetration..

Of course if it goes through 5 or more jugs penetration isn't an issue..

[Rocky Fields]

Hey.

The density of what you shoot into affects the amount of deformation of the projectile. Compare shooting into a sand pit with shooting into an oak tree for example.

RF

[Macybaby]

If I can find them, we have several aluminum disks that got used as targets. It's very interesting to see what marks the different calibers make on a 1" thick chunk of aluminum. We don't shoot at them from close range though.

Cathy