50 Caliber 475g, 0.21" HP
 

The hollow in the bullet starts at about 0.21", then tapers smaller. The bullet was shot with two different powder loads. A 50 grain Blackhorn load, and a 57 grain Blackhorn load. The bullet shot with 50g Blackhorn went through 5 jugs, and hit the sixth jug hard enough the bottom blew out, then the bullet bounced far enough away, a metal detector was required to find it. It didn't mushroom. The hollow point of the bullet evidently carried plywood until into the second jug where a small piece of plywood was found.

The bullet shot with the 57 grain load went through 4 jugs; bounced off the fifth jug without damaging it, and fell down on the ground, and has a mushroom. The fifth jug ended up laying down right there on the horse. The first jug was blowed up pretty good.


























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Thats incredible how the bullet gained nearly 200gr :p

Just kidding you Ron. I know its a typo. As always i enjoy your bullet tests.

Whoops.............thank's Scott.



















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I'm still astonished those bullets aren't opening up better with them being pure lead.

I would suggest you remember that Ron is trying to simulate the velocity of the bullet at a given distance. He has reduced the load to produce the velocity one might expect at a given range. I think that range is in the 100-150 yard range.


When he first started these tests I believe he started a 50 grains for all bullets. Some of the well know bullets did not perform at that velocity either. Later in his testing he increased the powder load which increased the performance of several of the bullets.


Some where he (Ron) has a link to all of these tests and you can see the results of all of them.


Even with the reduced load and velocity the big chunks of lead still provide a great deal of penetration, maybe not the expansion or hydrostatic shock most might want. But still I believe it would be a fatal shot to the animal. Myself I would prefer to do it more quickly.

Yeah I know. He ran another test over the Chrony for I think these same bullets and at 25 yards he was getting close to 1000fps, 980 something I think. At that speed, with these being pure lead and a pretty good sized hollow point cavity, you would think they would mushroom pretty well. Still, a .50 caliber hole punched through would still be more than enough to take an animal.

Ditched the Wool Wad
 

The morning of the test it was raining so i didn't try to clock the speed of the bullet. Yesterday it was nice, so i set up the clock, and shot through it, with the intention of learning the speed of the bullet with the 57g powder charge at 25 yard. Speed results seemed slow, so i shot the bullet using a 50g powder charge. Speeds were 100 fps slower than they were the first time i checked speed, when the bullet only a 1/8" hollow point. This was quite a shock, and i certainly wondered what the heck was happening????. Well, i was using a wool wad, because i had used all of the wads 52Bore sent with the bullet initially. So..............i thought maybe the wool wad was the problem.


The wool wad was the problem


Looking around the shop there, i found these pink chingadero with some bullets someone had sent quite awhile ago. Using the pink thingy as a wad, the bullet clocked 973 fps this morning with a load of 50g Blackhorn. The bullet with the 0.21" hollow point was once again shot into the trap using 50g Blackhorn; using the pink chingadero as the wad.















At impact, i saw the carpet/plywood fly high into the air. Wow!!! The bullet blew up the two first jugs pretty good. Holed the next three jugs, and bounced off the sixth jug, leaving it with it's neck bent all funny. It took a long long time to find the bullet. Without the metal detector it would have been impossible, because it bounced maybe 15' away from the last jug, and ended up in some thick brush. Couldn't find the plywood, until i started carrying the 'damage' back to the truck, and stumbled on it maybe 35' a way out front of the jugs.


























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In a pinch just cut the petals off of a sabot and lightly sand the bullet side if needed to remove the rest. That pink thing kinda looks like the old T/C breakaway sabot base. It was a 2 or 3 piece sabot if IIRC.

Yes, i've cut petals off sabot many times; this time i didn't realize i was in a 'pinch'. What i did was assume the wool wads would work. When they didn't, i just looked in a stash of bullets sent me, and found them chingadero.














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Thanks for all your efforts in these test.. We learned some things - at least I did.