22 ammo testing

[30-30remchester]

Like about everyone, I have watched youtube videos of bullet expansion. I have always carried 22 handguns even when I was also in company of center fires. My old Colt Woodsman has followed me through my travels for 40 years. I was shocked to see videos that showed no expansion with 22 handguns. Ever CCI Stingers and Remington Yellow jackets fail to expand in gel blocks. I do not total believe in gel blocks as substitute for flesh and bone. I thought I noticed a difference in small game shot with hollow points over solids when fired from my Colt. So I started collecting milk jugs to do water tests. I know water test do not necessarily represent real life results either. I just wanted to see if water could make a 22 expand. I used both Yellow Jackets and Stingers in my 6" Colt and my 2" barreled Walther TPH. The Walther went through one jug and was found in the second jug with both brands of ammo. Both bullets showed picture perfect expansion. I was only shooting at 10' and got only a few drops of splash. Next the Woodsman was shot at 10'. An entirely different experience. First I was soaked along with my truck which was close by. Both bullets found in second jug. The Yellow Jacket disintegrated and only pieces were found. The Stinger remained intact but expanded and pealed off most of its mushroom. Quite different from gel tests. As an additional test I tried to determine how much further a fmj bullet would penetrate than a hard cast swc in 38 special with both loaded the same. Both were 158 grain. Again water jugs were lined up, just not enough. The swc penetrated 6 jugs completely and kept going. I only had 7 jugs left so I lined them up and shot completely through all 7 jugs. A worthless test but interesting. The gun had a 4" barrel. An interesting side note the 38 gave very little back slash, for less than the 6" Colt.

 

[SweetMK]

Ballistic gel blocks,,,

That is THE reason I only watch bulldozer videos on YouTube,,,

 

[moxie]

So, I guess one question might be, what more closely resembles human tissue, water or ballistic gel?

The gel tests by tnoutdoors9 on youtube seem to indicate that most .22 hollowpoints seldom expand when fired from pistols, although penetration is more than adequate. But, when fired out of rifles you typically get expansion and penetration.

 

[Arik]

Gel is the closest to consistency of human tissue AND it allows you to see the results where as with water all you see is if the bullet expanded or not

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Ballistic147]

Back in my water skiing days I can tell you that at speed water closely resembles concrete. Many times, especially attempting to barefoot at 45 to 50 mph I bounced more than once before finally sinking in. Had the breath knocked out of me really bad many times too. Fortunately I've never hit ballistic gel at those speeds (or any speed for that matter) so no comments there. That being said I'm not sure how expansion in water relates to real world.

Years ago our neighborhood had a huge problem with a certain feral animal that had taken over. To keep things quiet I was using CCI 22 CB's that make no more noise than a pellet gun. Granted, these are low noise but also very low velocity rounds but I wasn't getting enough damage with them. After playing around trying different things I found cutting the lead nose off flat back to the bullet bearing surface effectively making them a full wad cutter also made them extremely deadly while accuracy was excellent. Not sure how that would translate into 22LR but might be worth a try.

 

[gwpercle]

Putting a flat on 22's does up the effective factor . I have , somewhere in my reloading room , a hardened steel device that slips over a 22 LR and you used a file to remove the protruding RN to make it a flat tip , like a RNFP.
Haven't thought about it in years. We used them because hollow point ammo cost more than regular ammo. It seemed to us young squirrel hunters to anchor them better than th RN version.
Gary

 

[hanno]

Not to stray too much but some years back I tried some penetration tests with various pistol calibers.

Target was stacked 1" pine planks (actual width of plank was 3/4")

A .22 penetrated 4 planks and stopped at the 5th. I was fairly impressed.

 

[moxie]

I've known guys whose heads were harder than a stack of 6 pine planks. Wouldn't faze them.

 

[Fishinfool]

Never did any serious gel / water jug testing with .22's. I have, however, shot a fair amount of small game with .22 lr handguns loaded with various hollow point bullets. The difference in meat damage between HP's and regular round nose HV bullets is very noticeable.

Larry

 

[Wee Hooker]

Putting a flat on 22's does up the effective factor . I have , somewhere in my reloading room , a hardened steel device that slips over a 22 LR and you used a file to remove the protruding RN to make it a flat tip , like a RNFP.
Haven't thought about it in years. We used them because hollow point ammo cost more than regular ammo. It seemed to us young squirrel hunters to anchor them better than th RN version.
Gary

I used one of these back in my squirrel hunting days some 20 years ago. It would allow me to use match grade ammo for accuracy but yet it still that hit like a hammer. Wound channels were significant improved over round nose bullets. Good little device!

 

[SweetMK]

I have tried liquid shooting with my HMR rimfire,,,

I lined up three 12 oz cans of Coke in a row, as in three targets.

I shot the center one,,, it exploded.
Then I tried to shoot either of the two cans that were on either side of the center one that was first impacted.

Well,,, it seemed like I could not hit those two cans.

I walked down to look at the two remaining cans,,, they were both drained.

The first bullet exploded, and fragments punctured the two remaining cans,,,
so the following shots only hit empty cans,, which were easily penetrated.

I never tried this test with the HM2 cylinder,, I may have to try that,,,,

So, I doubt the HMR could pass through a gallon of water.

 

[30-30remchester]

I've known guys whose heads were harder than a stack of 6 pine planks. Wouldn't faze them.

I had no idea we have met before.

 

[gwpercle]

I used one of these back in my squirrel hunting days some 20 years ago. It would allow me to use match grade ammo for accuracy but yet it still that hit like a hammer. Wound channels were significant improved over round nose bullets. Good little device!

Match ammo , that's a great idea. The flat point doesn't tear them up like a HP does but still gives better anchoring than a plain round nose . I'm going to look for mine...do you remember what they were called or who made them ?
Gary

 

[30-30remchester]

CCI built a flat nose round called their Small Game Bullet aka SGB. I just found the results SO different from gel test. How could there be such a difference. I am not too impressed with the gel as being similar to muscle. Does not take into the equation of bone and fur. I used a 22 handgun to finish off scads of big game animals. All at 10' or less and all head shots. I was able to shoot through both deer and elk with the little 22.

 

[SweetMK]

Here is the tool

Pacotools - Tool discriptions

 

[Wee Hooker]

Here is the tool

Pacotools - Tool discriptions

yep, that's it!