Homemade ballistic media - wet sand?

[tacotime]

What about a 5 gal plastic Homer bucket filled with fine sand and water? I wonder how this compares to typical ballistic media for testing expansion?

I tried this using 38 SPL and had interesting results. Bullets were recoverable inside the bucket, and ones that expanded showed generally very uniform expansion. It proved out that you need firm velocity in the 38 to get expansion on the jacketed bullets, so I would have to push the Mod 36, but it could be done.

I just don't know how realistic the wet sand media is compared to what they say is correct testing material, but it seems to display the expansion results pretty well.

Nice performers expansion wise were the 129 Hydra +P, Win +P 125 JHP, Win 110 Silver HP, Fed. 125 Nyclad. The 158 LSWCHP opened up a little less, non +P. The 125 XTP didn't open much at non +P levels out of the 2 in. barrel.

[VaRecon]

I have made several batches of ballistic gel, mostly for fun with my .357's.
It's pretty simple to do.
How to Make Your Own Ballistic Gel

[DustyJacket]

Sand stops a LOT of rounds in a short distance.
Much faster stop than gel.
There is no comparison.

(Maybe there is a reason the military uses sandbags for protection, insteal of gel. )

[TAROMAN]

If in the unlikely event that I was to ever try ballistic testing, I'd experiment with pre-mixed drywall mud.

[kleiss1]

The Yellow Pages soaked in water if you can still find them. Guess I'm dating myself...

[Neumann]

Originally Posted by kleiss1

The Yellow Pages soaked in water if you can still find them. Guess I'm dating myself...

The new method uses twenty iPhones, back to back. A variation would have the rush hour drivers holding them.

[VaRecon]

I wouldn't use ballistic gel in place of sand either, if stopping the bullet was the goal.
The gel works quite well to show the cavity left behind, since replicating tissue is the only real purpose of it.
If you want a mushroomed bullet shoot sand, if you want to see what it does use gel.
A sandbag behind gel seems like the best idea for this situation.

[Rule3]

Any bullet will mushroom hitting sand.

Get a bigger bucket and fill with shredded paper and water almost a liquid. Should be a thin pulp (semi liquid. semi solid)

It works pretty well except you have to dig and hunt for the bullet, it will also mold and smell in a few days.

I set up one at the private outdoor range and stood up on a chair and fired straight down.

I was testing some 380 PDX they worked well. I put a hoody over the top to simulate real action Actually it was a heavy bath towel so I would not get splattered.

[WR Moore]

If you want an expansion test medium, use water. Expansion will be about the same as 10% ballistic gel, the current standard. Penetration will be about 1.55 times what it would be in ballistic gel, so divide observed penetration by 1.55.

[papajohn428]

I have encouraged my friends to save their phone books for me, and I think wetpack is a pretty good test medium. It's not the same as Ballistic Gel, (which I'm too cheap/lazy to make and use) but I've concluded that if I get 7 inches of penetration in wetpack (saturated phone books, soaked for at least 24 hours) I get very consistent results, generally equivalent to 12" penetration in what everyone else is getting in B-Gel.





I like wetpack because it's a test anyone can replicate, and results are consistent from load to load. I enjoy doing the "autopsies" on the bucket full of mush, and I've had some surprises when digging out the various bullets. Some look like the advertising copy, some bullets that cost the same absolutely SUCK, and I feel better for being able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

We ask a lot from our defensive handgun bullets, and having an easy and cheap way to decipher which ones do what's claimed and which ones don't is cheap insurance if I'm ever in a situation where I might need all the help I can get. Human targets are full of bones, liquid, muscle and cartilage, and no tissue simulant can predict what any given bullet will do in a bad guy, there are too many variables to allow realistic predictions. But it's nice to be able to compare bullets in an apples-to-apples fashion, and know that while some bullets will probably work as advertised, some most definitely will NOT!



Most of the time you get what you pay for......but not always. Just because it has a hollow point and looks like a pricier "big-name" load does not mean it will perform the same way.



Wet sand, in my experience, will make even the most dismal hollow-point expand. Until I'm attacked by Sand-people oozing water, I will not consider the results obtained in that medium as useful.

Having said all that, my testing has led me to consider only a few commercial loads as suitable for Home/Personal Defense. They are (mostly depending on caliber and barrel length) the Speer Gold Dot Short Barrel Loads for snubbies, W-W PDX loads, W-W Silvertips, Hornady Critical Defense and Critical Duty (I prefer the latter for more bullet weight and better penetration) and the Cor-Bon Pow'r Ball in SOME calibers.

At some point, I'll post my results encompassing most defensive loads, a study I've spent most of the past four years working on. There weren't many surprises...........but there were a few!

[Rule3]

This site has a lot of good data. Some of the "new and improved" ammo not yet tested but still pretty good. No doubt anything labeled for Zombies or Tactical would be great


Handguns

[tacotime]

Excellent, thanks.