Three Bullets
 

Recently i shot 3 300g 45 caliber bullets into juice jugs filled with water. There hasn't been much to do around here, what with the Walleye spawning, and the breech plug modifications completed, and tested. Shooting these bottles seems to be a healthy thing to do cuz someone has to empty the juice from them, and the sight of water, bottle caps, and bottle shreds flying into the air has a tendency to put one into a good mood. The load was 105g BH209, and the distance was around 60 feet. The typical set up was 4 bottles backed by a couple of one inch boards as shown:















The first bullet pictured is an xtp. It penetrated 3 jugs, and was found lying in the bottom of the 3rd jug. The sum weight is 250.2g.

















The next bullet is a gold dot. It penetrated through 4 bottles, and bounced off the first board leaving a dent in the board, and was found lying right there. It weighs 262.4g.



















And now lastly, a Nosler Partition. The set up was changed by adding another bottle; just had a notion it may be necessary. The bullet penetrated the 5 bottles, and the 2 boards, and wasn't laying right there. After a short search it was found lying on the ground about 5 feet away. It weighs 276.4g.

A very interesting test there. And the results were about what I expected. I was kind of surprised the XTP did as well as it did. Now juice bottles are not whitetails, but any of them would have had more then enough penetration and expansion. The Nosler was the one I suspected would penetrate the most.

ronlaughlin

Thank you - thank you..... I have long professed exactly what you have found because i have had simular results.

Actully I think there will be a lot of folks very interested in this shooting episode...

Want to repeat it one more time - I'll send you a 300 grain Lehigh and you can shoot it and add that result to the results but you will need to add another bottle....

The worst part i believe I can explain the reson for every one of your results

thanks - mike

sure the nosler went through everything, but it sure didn't open up all that much. Gold Dot is the winner if you ask me...

sabotloader

Any excuse to shoot! The easiest thing would be for you to do the shooting, but i will gladly do it. Will try and pm my address to you.

the Nosler looks exactly like what i have recovered. It opened up fully and beautifully. Out of the three, I'd easily crown the Nosler the winner.

josh...just josh

The Nosler did exactly what it was designed to do. It not designed to pancake or break up. It is designed to blossom to a given distance through a thick skinned or a thin skinned animal, create 'Hydrostatic' shock with the blunt nose as it passes through the vitals and retain enough enery to cause secondary damage to the animal on the other side if the body as it passes through.

The Gold Dot did the same thing - it expanded to the dot in the center of the bullet, and in the process lost very little weight as the lead is bonded to the copper, but because it open so much it lost energy faster than the Nosler and will not penetrate as far. But it is a very good inexpensive bullet. Speer has or now creating a whole new line of bullets based on the Gold Dot for centerfire fire rifles - pistols and even us ML shooters - calling the line a 'Deep Curl' bullet.

Choose your GoldDot and load wisely though.

The 45cal 250gr for 45LC Defense applications will pancake like mad at MLer velocity, even with just 80gr of BH209. Most of the Defense line have a much deeper hollow point. The Hunting series and DeepCurls that are replacing them have a much shallower cavity or a soft point and wont flatten out as fast.

How fast?...this is a 45LC 250gr wound channel. it may not be as deep but....


Ive shot both out of my GMB54 and the penetration/weight retention difference is huge.

Both did far better than Rainier 50cal 300gr plated HPs though and the price difference was minimal.

ronlaughlin

Naw! i want you to do it so that the exercise remains the same... The only thing is the bullets I am going to send you are .458/300 grain bullets - but I will send you some sabots also.

The Lehigh 300 is on the far left.. oops. it is labeled

I just have to get my oar wet on this; it seems to me some people always miss the point. The idea is to match the bullet and its performance to the animal. Putting foot pounds into the hill behind the animal does not bring it down faster.
I have shot quite a number of animals between 100 and 300 pounds with a gold Dot 250 it always came out the far side of the chest it always dropped the deer or boar right on the spot. This indicates to me that it is the right bullet for that weight of thin skinned animal. Sure there are some others that will take them down as good. And it does not mean I use the 250gr on elk, moose or big bear, the 300gr Gold Dot or Lehigh would be much more appropriate which is what I would go to right now, but I am also looking at a 325 and a 350 gr bullet that I might work up. Most bullets will do some kind of a job at the appropriate velocity and I am inclined to believe that most so called bullet failures are really failures to use the right bullet or the right velocity.
This is mainly for the newer people. Think about why the bullets that penetrate the deepest are outlawed. I case there's doubt in your mind its is for two reasons. So that the game is retrievable and so you don't have a bullet flying wildly across what ever area you are hunting in. { full metal jacket and armor piercing are bad about bouncing around.