Ballistic gelatin test results - .41 Magnum

I just finished the .41 Magnum test and here are the results :

Firearm - S&W 57 .41 Magnum revolver with 4" barrel length

Cartridge - Remington 210gr Soft Point SWC (very old looking box - says 'Index 1041' on it)

Block Calibration - 11.8cm @ 605 ft/sec

Shot 1 - Impacted at 1308 ft/sec, penetrated 16.0" in the gelatin block and then ~ 4" in a polyester bullet arresting box. Recovered diameter was 0.491". Track is outlined in yellow on the first picture.

Shots 2 & 3 were fired over a chronograph skyscreen, but no reasonable velocity measurements were produced (the screen flashed something like '145 ft/sec' on one of the shots). We had gusting winds of at least 15 mile/hour, so no more attempts were made to utilize the chronograph. For what it is worth, I did not notice any 'soft' or 'hard' shots - the recoil felt consistent.

Shot 2 - Penetrated 16.0" in the gelatin block and then ~ 4" in a polyester bullet arresting box. Recovered diameter was 0.484".

Shot 3 - Penetrated 16.0" in the gelatin block and then ~ 14" in a polyester bullet arresting box. Recovered diameter was 0.471".

Shot 4 - Penetrated 16.0" in the gelatin block and then ~ 14" in a polyester bullet arresting box. Recovered diameter was 0.501".

Shot 5 - Penetrated 16.0" in the gelatin block and then ~ 12.5" in a polyester bullet arresting box. Recovered diameter was 0.499".

I would like to do a 10mm test - the problem of course is getting the gun and the ammunition. I can make gelatin 'cheaply' because I am setup to do it... buying a new gun is out of the question, just to test in gelatin.

@Feanaro : A good JHP would be very nice in this caliber. I think that a fairly good comparison may be made between the performance of the .357 Magnum and this cartridge - although the .41 Magnum will make a considerably larger hole, the penetrations should be close.

I would say that this track is typical of such a minimum expansion bullet - the 'cracking' that is visible in the gelatin block is a function mostly of the diameter of the bullet passing through and also it's velocity at that depth in the block. Velocity and bullet diameter work hand-in-hand too: because the bullet was a smallish diameter, it experienced a lot less drag than it would have if it expanded like a proper JHP. As such, it was at a good deal higher velocity at all points along its penetration in the block - giving it that impressive cracking that is in the pictures. I have a .357SIG test tentatively planned for early next week, so if that goes through, I will post the pictures of the bullet tracks and they should be close to what happened here - you should see a massive cracking at the beginning of the penetration (velocity) and because of the lightweight bullets and high velocity (and the high drag that this causes), this cracking should be evident up until about the very end of the track - where the bullet comes to an abrupt halt.

The idea that the shape of the bullet creates more outward motion of the tissue along the periphary of the bullet track is very true. Some people call this radial motion 'hydrostatic shock' and many other names - to each their own. The more blunt the bullet, the greater the velocity of the tissue moving away from the bullet - thereby the chance of damaging this tissue is increased.

I would prefer an expanded bullet, a wadcutter and then an SWC in that order, expanded bullets being the best - assuming that proper penetration depths were reached in all cases.