How much water does it take?

[ole farmerbuck]

A while back, i shot a bucket of water with my 45. The bullet was a Rainier 185g hp. I found it in the empty plastic jug looking picture perfect. It mushroomed just like you see in pictures. Today, i tried it with 3 different 40 cal xtp's. Nothing! They just sailed right through a five gallon bucket and a 2.5 gal bucket sitting right behind it. Yes...filled with water. Is it normal for the 45 to expand better than the 40? What else can i use to check the expansion?

 

[ChristopherG]

The XTP is definitely a 'controlled expansion' design. It's meant to expand relatively slowly and penetrate relatively deeply. On the other hand, water is an optimal medium for creating expansion--so you should have seen SOMETHING. Unless they were going too slow; have your chronographed your load? How fast was your XTP moving?

 

[DeepSouth]

Is it normal for the 45 to expand better than the 40?


Don't know, sorry.


What else can i use to check the expansion?



5 gal bucket full of sand, or my favorite....thick telephone book.........And lastly (((drum-roll)) Home invader..



Couldn't resist


And welcome newcomer, glad to have you.

 

[highorder]

I can't speak to the .40, but I've done some informal expansion testing with 9mm xtp's.
I fired several into saturated phone books and three or four drove like ball ammo. The greatest expansion was only .402"

What your weather like, temperature wise?

 

[ole farmerbuck]

Weather is cold now. Was about 80 Saturday. Prob down to 25 tonight. 40 Tomorrow. This is Kansas!

 

[ole farmerbuck]

Chris G, I dont know how fast they were going. I loaded them a grain or two under max. I shot some in coffee cans filled with gravel. They flattened some. I cant explain this but i shot five rounds in a can filled and packed with moist dirt. They did not exit but for some reason, i could only find one when i dumped the dirt out. Dont know where they went.

 

[Randy1911]

The Berry's is a plated bullet with a soft core. The XTP has a stronger jacket. That is why it didn't expand as much.

 

[ole farmerbuck]

The Berry's is a plated bullet with a soft core. The XTP has a stronger jacket. That is why it didn't expand as much.


I have some Rainier 165 hp 40's. I'll try them next. Good think i live on a farm and have a lot of 2.5 gallon jugs.
__________________

 

[ljnowell]

Interesting. I did quite a bit of testing with 200gr Ranier HPs, and had disappointing results. I had recovered projectiles that were traveling at greater than 1000fps that didnt expand at all in water. In fact they went through 4 milk jugs through and through and were recovered from the bullet trap behind them. I would like to see pictures

 

[wyocarp]

try frozen water

 

[ole farmerbuck]

Woops! I left the computer and went to the couch and the next thing i knew, it's 5:00 am. I will get a pic if the Rainier 45 and post it here. I thought about using jugs of used motor oil but that would be kind of messy.

 

[Hungry Seagull]

And a bit of splash onto the EPA LOL.

 

[Sport45]

How thick were the walls of the bucket? Could you have filled the hollowpoint making it the same as a FMJ going through the water?

 

[Remo-99]

Give the used motor oil a miss, if you want a thicker medium try adding cheap gellytin to warm water in jugs and let cool or even the wetted phone books or newspapers would be less messy.

As for testing on a home invader, stick with a well known performing round for SD, sorry DeepSouth, I did see the funny though.

 

[41 Mag]

Living on a farm do you have any stock tanks? if so you probably have some sort of clay in and around the area. I have used it for testing some of my loads which seemed to use up too many water jugs at one time. I simply filled up a 5gal bucket with some I dug up around the bank of one of our tanks and packed it down as I filled it. It didn't stop every one but it did slow them down enough to let the next bucket of water catch them. I used a small gardening spade to carefully dig them out with.

Just moisten it up a day or so ahead of shooting and it generally last quite a bit longer than the buckets.

 

[rfwobbly]

If you like shooting water, then check out this place....

http://www.theboxotruth.com/