Shot some rounds in sand to see expansion..PICS

[Bags]

THIS WAS THE OPPOSITE OF SCIENTIFIC. THIS WAS ME HAVING FUN AT A WMA FOR THE FIRST TIME. I JUST WANTED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ROUNDS HIT SOMETHING.


Now that is out of the way.... MZMTG and I went to a WMA here in GA. VERY north GA. Very nice place. It was my first time there and I was very impressed. All day shooting for $5, covered shooting area, benches for rifles, outhouse, and benchs to sit on.

Before I went I wanted to "test" what rounds did after you fired them. I know that there are 1000's of people who have done this 1000's of different ways. This was for my pleasure only. I took an old cooler and put ~4 lbs of sand in it. I shot it with my .45 and MZMTG shot it with his .40. Others shot it, but I did not have pics of there rounds. We were ~15 ft aaway from the cooler. Now onto the pics and small descriptions.

Said cooler+sand



From the firing line



I was VERY surprised at the LACK of expansion of .45 hollow points. The .40's "seemed" to expand at a more frequent rate. I did not count how many did/did not expand. Just picking the rounds up form the sand more .40's expanded than .45's. The .45 round was Remington UMC javketed hollow points. ~$27 for 100 rds from WW. In my kimber, I have shot ~150 of these with no failures of any sort. This is now what I carry. I DO NOT know what MZMTG shot in .40.


So here is a lineup of .45 hollow points and a Winchester WB.



As you can see, the hollow area filled up with stuf from the cooler



Digging the styrofoam from inside the round I found the plastic from the cooler, funny how this round was tearing on one side




This round had almost zero expansion and more stryofoam and plastic



Here the rounds are next to an unfiored round



Here are the unkown .40 hollow points, better expansion than the .45.. it should be said that the FMJ .40's were fully intact just as the .45 fmj



I did not remove anything from these rounds. They did not collect much styrofoam or plastic



The cooler... it is worth note that the cooler did not leak sand after we were done. I left it there for the others to shoot.





All in all a fun day at the WMA. I'll be going back soon. Like I said, not proving anything, just 2 guys out shooting stuff. I just wanted to better understand expansion and other things.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[CopperKnight]

Cool stuff.

I think unscientific is the most fun to perform and still provides information. Never know what the rounds are going to have to move through before they hit their target.

[P95Carry]

Looks like, come what may - you had a great range day Good value and a nice range it seems too.

Remember, with HP's it is pretty much the hydraulic effect that leads to them opening up well and so sand will not generally produce too much of this effect.

This is why many tests get done with layers of denim in the way of the water or gel medium - so that the cookie cutter effect of the HP collects some wadding which then can reduce hydraulic effects by filling the hollow up.

Thx tho for your work in posting the pics - well done.

Here is a sample pic from some of my testing into wetpack with R9 and 124 GD's - where you can see some more typical expansion effects.





Steve Camp too on his site http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/ has many very interesting bullet test results, using wet pack.

[Bud White]

Sounds like ya had a fun day shooting

[Rock and Glock]

If I had a pink cooler I would have done that to it too.

Nice pics. Sounds like a fun day.

[Bags]

Thanks all..

P95.. thanks for the link.. I have found http://www.theboxotruth.com/ to be informative as well.

And it was a VERY nice public range. To bad it's only open from march-august

Rock- hey I'm man enough to have a pink cooler, and man enough to kill it ..lol

[jarhead79]

Rock- hey I'm man enough to have a pink cooler, and man enough to kill it ..lol

Now I know where the pink cooler came from. I was scratching my head when I read about it on a different thread.


Bags, Water seems to help exansion. Wet newspaper is amazing. I'd think that that same "pink" cooler filled with wet sand would yield better results.

Semper Fi

[Rock and Glock]

Thanks all..
Rock- hey I'm man enough to have a pink cooler, and man enough to kill it ..lol

Yea....just pulling your chain...nice post!

[kansas_shooter]

Excellent..Sounds like a nice range to goto.

[Doc Holliday]

Hey Bags, what WMA is that? I would like to know which ones in GA have shooting ranges.

[mzmtg]

I was also shooting the Remington UMC JHPs in the green box.

The range is the "Chestnut Mountain Shooting Range." It's in the John's Mountain WMA and the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. The range is managed by the National Forest.

It's pretty easy to get to (once you find the way...). Take I-75 to exit 319, go west on 136 for 6 miles or so and you'll come to the junction with 136C. Turn right, following 136, and you'll see the yellow sign for the shooting range up a couple hundred yards on the right.

Here's Bags conducting his ballistics testing:



Here's my view from one of the rifle benches:

[oldsfguy]

Hi Bags,

REAL nice work. I enjoyed the pics.

New to the group, wondering what does WMA stand
for?

Also, I used to live in N GA and still visit
several times per year. What range are you
referring to? I used to live in Clayton, the
very NE corner of GA.
Len

[oldsfguy]

Hi all,
sorry about that. I thought i was at bottom of the messages, didn't see
his message about location till after i hit send.
Len

[mzmtg]

WMA = Wilderness Management Area

My learning for the day consisted of learning that I need Loc-Tite to keep my scope mounting system tight and my rifle's action tight in the stock.

I was wondering why my shots started of fine but started drifting all over the map after a couple hundred rounds...