Bullet test media?

[kselkhunter]

I'm looking to test out some new bullets that I have on order.   What are ya'lls preferences for testing bullet performance?
Water jugs?
Ballistics gel?
Homemade bullet trap?

I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on the test medium.  I have a couple of different bullets coming in for muzzleloader and some rifle calibers, some with custom variations, and want to test the bullets for simulated on-game performance as best I can on a low budget.

Any suggestions? 

@yorketransport   
Care to share some details or advice from your experience on your custom bullet trap design from the "bullet trap results" thread?

[yorketransport]

I found that the wet leather scraps in a tub of water worked perfect. If you use just water, you get an ideal scenario for a HP bullet to expand. Shooting the dry leather is a torture test for an expanding bullet. Shooting into the leather soaked in water gives a good balance of fluid and a hide like texture to see how the bullets work when something possibly plugs the HP cavity.

I still have a pretty good stash of the leather that I used if you're in the Tacoma/Olympia area.

[kselkhunter]

PM sent.  Thanks.

[Stein]

I use elk.

[yorketransport]

I use elk.

I thought about doing that but the folks at NW Trek freaked out and asked me to leave the property.

[Stein]

Nice!

[shootem]

A box with old magazines lined up is easy and most of us already have it. Get ambitious and soak the magazines in water if you want.

[hunter399]

Water jug 250 yards 

[CP]

Home made gel.

My recipe is in this thread:

https://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,212635.45.html

[yorketransport]

Home made gel.

My recipe is in this thread:

https://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,212635.45.html

This combined with the leather may be the perfect combo.

[jaymark6655]

How about wet newspaper or homemade gel. I used a Seattle phone book once, that has some serious stopping power.

[jasnt]

Home made gel.

My recipe is in this thread:

https://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,212635.45.html

This combined with the leather may be the perfect combo.

that would be a good test. Looking threw your bullet test thread yorke I see a lot of pics are messed up

[yorketransport]

Home made gel.

My recipe is in this thread:

https://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,212635.45.html

This combined with the leather may be the perfect combo.

that would be a good test. Looking threw your bullet test thread yorke I see a lot of pics are messed up

Yea, Photobucket wants a ridiculous amount of money to keep using 3rd party hosting so most of my images don't work now. I just need to go back update the links in all of the pictures to a new site like Imgur and I'm just too lazy to do it.

[BNAElkhntr]

Wet phonebooks used to be great 15 yrs ago but good luck finding that relic

[kselkhunter]

Thanks for the great ideas folks.  I think the combination of the homemade ballistics gel and the soaked leather will make a good combination of media.  So I can get a picture of the wound cavity through the gel, and something a little more resistant to stop the bullet but not too hard to mess with deformation, like the leather.     

[jaymark6655]

Maybe I missed it in other thread, but what is that block cast in, what size is it and how much total powder did you need?

[jasnt]

Maybe I missed it in other thread, but what is that block cast in, what size is it and how much total powder did you need?

[kselkhunter]

@CP

[Yondering]

Thanks for the great ideas folks.  I think the combination of the homemade ballistics gel and the soaked leather will make a good combination of media.  So I can get a picture of the wound cavity through the gel, and something a little more resistant to stop the bullet but not too hard to mess with deformation, like the leather.     

If you really want a good prediction of what your bullets should do, plan to test them in several different test mediums, and compare to some known good standard, like a Nosler Partition for example. If you don't have a good standard to compare to, the test is pretty meaningless. 

At a minimum I like to do separate tests in water jugs, wet paper, dry paper, and some sort of bone if possible in front or inside the wet mediums. All of those tell you different things about what the bullet can do. York's wet leather scraps sound good too, although I haven't tried that myself. Gel is good if tightly controlled, but can give you wide variations in results if you let temperature and consistency fluctuate.

For testing defense (anti-people) rounds, I like to throw in some barriers too, like car door sheet metal, glass, denim, etc as those things also have an effect on performance.

[Special T]

This guy uses a bunch of different stuff. I love his channel.
Water jugs, wet magazines, giant gummy bears....

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Mongo Hunter]

MEAT TARGETS! get a couple layers of leather, than 2 pork chops, ribs, oranges, then ribs, chops and leather out the back. simulate a deer hide and internals. Thanks PAUL!!!!