Michael Tinker Pearce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
- Messages
- 1,576
I was reflecting on the difficulty of getting hollow-points to both expand and penetrate deeply enough from a short-barrel .38 and wondered if I could make a bullet tumble after impact. I mucked about a bit and came up with a shape I thought might do the trick. I tested them by firing them into a shot-up block of Clear Ballistics 10% ordinance gel. It was obvious they had tumbled and penetration was decent, but the block was so torn up I couldn't really photograph the wound-track. OK, good enough; I was prepared to leave it at that.
Then I posted about it on the internet, and people got interested. A fellow down south has to cull feral pigs and volunteered to test the bullets on the carcasses. OK, I can make more. I refined my swaging method, altered the design slightly and cranked out a bunch of them. I loaded some in .38 S&W and some in .38 Special.
I took the bullets to the range to make sure they were flying straight and they certainly seemed to be; nice, round holes in the targets.
I re-cast the block of gel and tested the rounds on the 'virgin' block so I could get pictures of the wound-tracks. In the initial tests I used both bare gel and four layers of denim, and there didn't appear to be much difference in the results, so I didn't use it for the second set of tests.
Loaded into the .38 S&W the bullets were clocking around 620 fps. from the 1-5/8-inch barrel of the test-gun. I started with the .38 S&W, firing one unaltered 158gr. LRNFP and one of the re-swaged bullets. The stock bullet punched through the 16-inch block, leaving a very narrow, smooth wound track that I couldn't really photograph. The tumbler upset immediately on impact, and even after it streamlined produced a relatively wide wound-track as it proceeded backwards through the gel. It dove downward 2 inches and stopped against the table at 11-inches. The picture shows the raw image on the bottom and a contrast-enhanced image on the top.
You can just see the stock bullet's wound track at he bottom of the image. That's arguably better than the stock bullet; less penetration but a wider wound track.
On to testing the .38 Special. These were leaving the 3" barrel of the test gun at about 900fps. I didn't bother firing the normal bullet; if the .38 S&W went straight through the block half-again as much velocity was unlikely to improve things. This time the wound-track from the tumbler was quite a bit more interesting. The bullet stopped right at the end of the 16-inch block after curving upwards approximately two inches. The bullet upset about 3" into the block and didn't fully streamline until around 13-inches. Again the photo shows the raw image on the bottom and the contrast-enhanced image on top.
The zone of extreme disruption is in the vertical plane only, and overall the permanent wound track looks pretty impressive.
Of course gel is a comparative media, not a predictive one, but the permanent wound cavity is comparable to the results from bullets that are proven real-world performers. Of course I don't know what's going to happen when these hit bone or variable densities of tissue; hopefully the results on carcasses will illuminate that.
BTW, the test guns were a S&W .38 Safety Hammerless with a 1-5/8" barrel, chambered in .38 S&W. The .38 Special was a custom 3" Model 1902 Hand Ejector.
I'm going to try loading these into a .357 Magnum. The bullets are just lead, so I only plan on pushing them to 1100 fps. Should be interesting.
Then I posted about it on the internet, and people got interested. A fellow down south has to cull feral pigs and volunteered to test the bullets on the carcasses. OK, I can make more. I refined my swaging method, altered the design slightly and cranked out a bunch of them. I loaded some in .38 S&W and some in .38 Special.
I took the bullets to the range to make sure they were flying straight and they certainly seemed to be; nice, round holes in the targets.
I re-cast the block of gel and tested the rounds on the 'virgin' block so I could get pictures of the wound-tracks. In the initial tests I used both bare gel and four layers of denim, and there didn't appear to be much difference in the results, so I didn't use it for the second set of tests.
Loaded into the .38 S&W the bullets were clocking around 620 fps. from the 1-5/8-inch barrel of the test-gun. I started with the .38 S&W, firing one unaltered 158gr. LRNFP and one of the re-swaged bullets. The stock bullet punched through the 16-inch block, leaving a very narrow, smooth wound track that I couldn't really photograph. The tumbler upset immediately on impact, and even after it streamlined produced a relatively wide wound-track as it proceeded backwards through the gel. It dove downward 2 inches and stopped against the table at 11-inches. The picture shows the raw image on the bottom and a contrast-enhanced image on the top.
You can just see the stock bullet's wound track at he bottom of the image. That's arguably better than the stock bullet; less penetration but a wider wound track.
On to testing the .38 Special. These were leaving the 3" barrel of the test gun at about 900fps. I didn't bother firing the normal bullet; if the .38 S&W went straight through the block half-again as much velocity was unlikely to improve things. This time the wound-track from the tumbler was quite a bit more interesting. The bullet stopped right at the end of the 16-inch block after curving upwards approximately two inches. The bullet upset about 3" into the block and didn't fully streamline until around 13-inches. Again the photo shows the raw image on the bottom and the contrast-enhanced image on top.
The zone of extreme disruption is in the vertical plane only, and overall the permanent wound track looks pretty impressive.
Of course gel is a comparative media, not a predictive one, but the permanent wound cavity is comparable to the results from bullets that are proven real-world performers. Of course I don't know what's going to happen when these hit bone or variable densities of tissue; hopefully the results on carcasses will illuminate that.
BTW, the test guns were a S&W .38 Safety Hammerless with a 1-5/8" barrel, chambered in .38 S&W. The .38 Special was a custom 3" Model 1902 Hand Ejector.
I'm going to try loading these into a .357 Magnum. The bullets are just lead, so I only plan on pushing them to 1100 fps. Should be interesting.