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Is this idea good or terrible?

sultan62

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A few buddies and I are considering doing some ballistics testing. And we've all seen the water jug/wet newspaper/ballistics gel tests out there, right?

So we're thinking about buying a pig, testing the rounds, and then having a good meal after with several friends.

So, is this a good idea? Terrible idea? Comments and suggestions welcome and appreciated.
 

sultan62

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Just keep in mind, if you plan to use JHP ammo, there WILL be a lot of fragments. I would hate to bite down on one.

Maybe we will separate the pig so we can shoot only part of it, and save the rest for cooking. Definitely something to consider.

Thanks.
 

chiefjason

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Unless you are putting a lot of ammo into it it's no different than hunting. I find a lot of the bullet fragments when I process my deer. Occasionally a pellet may get through to the plate on a dove though. No fun.
 

Citizen

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I'd kill the pig humanely first. Then do the ballistics testing between the kill and the BBQ. Then you are just doing ballistics testing on meat.

Otherwise, a backyard ballistician is gonna have a hard time proving "interest of science" to any animal rights groups, or law enforcement, who find out about it. Imagine the heyday they'll have with someone shooting a pig in various places while its still alive just to test the ammo. Animal cruelty times ten.
 

sultan62

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I'd kill the pig humanely first. Then do the ballistics testing between the kill and the BBQ. Then you are just doing ballistics testing on meat.

Otherwise, a backyard ballistician is gonna have a hard time proving "interest of science" to any animal rights groups, or law enforcement, who find out about it. Imagine the heyday they'll have with someone shooting a pig in various places while its still alive just to test the ammo. Animal cruelty times ten.

Ha. One guy I was talking to about it thought we were gonna use a live pig, so I played along, joking with him about how we'd have to tie up the pig or find some land where we could shoot in multiple directions. I thought we were joking around, he thought we were serious.

We won't be killing the pig by using the ammo for ballistics testing, it will already be dead at that point. Not looking for any PETA action on this one.
 

rotorhead

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lol although I'm all for the advancement of ballistic science, I'm not sure I'd want to eat from a pig plastered with lead-based experimentation. Fragmentation can lead to many a toothache...

I'm gonna vote bad idea :)
 
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Citizen

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SNIP We won't be killing the pig by using the ammo for ballistics testing, it will already be dead at that point. Not looking for any PETA action on this one.

It occurs to me that if nosy law-enforcement or animal rights people do find out, you might have a hard time proving the ballistics testing was done postmortem. How could a fella prove the pig was dead before the testing?

I guess you could always ask the seller to slaughter it for you.
 

sultan62

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It occurs to me that if nosy law-enforcement or animal rights people do find out, you might have a hard time proving the ballistics testing was done postmortem. How could a fella prove the pig was dead before the testing?

I guess you could always ask the seller to slaughter it for you.

That was my plan.
 

Smith45acp

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If you wan measurable penetrations I would go with a different substrate like blocks of soap stacked together. I've seen that on youtube before and it looked like it worked.
 

smlawrence

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my wife's uncle shoots into a 55gal drum full of water from a ladder....done it many times and has worked for him so far.
 

Dreamer

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my wife's uncle shoots into a 55gal drum full of water from a ladder....done it many times and has worked for him so far.


This is an effective way to recover perfectly expanded bullets, to see what they would look like under maximum expansion conditions, but it's not really any good for practical ballistics testing for the following reasons:

1) you can't tell how far they penetrate, because you're shooting DOWNWARDS into a big barrel of water, and the bullets won't stop when they run out of energy--they sink to the bottom due to gravity,

2) Water doesn't have the same resistance to a projectile that tissue (or even ballistic gelatin) has, and it won't clog up a hollowpoint like cloth, tissue, or other semi-solid material will, so the expansion you get in water is unrealistic when compared to "real world" targets,

3) Water doesn't give you solid bits like a carcass for bullets to hit, bounce off of, or fragment from. The expanded bullet you recover will be pretty, perfectly symmetrical, and look good in pictures, but it won't reflect in any way the way a bullet deforms in a tissue-based target, and

4) Water doesn't leave a visible wound channel, and the hydrostatic shock is nearly impossible to see using the naked eye. Unless you have a high-speed camera to record it hitting the water, you have no idea how much hydrostatic shock you're getting, or how long, deep, and broad the wound channel is...

"Barrel tests" are a good starting place for ballistic testing, but they don't give you any real information regarding penetration, expansion, or energy transfer.
 
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smlawrence

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Colfax, NC
This is an effective way to recover perfectly expanded bullets, to see what they would look like under maximum expansion conditions, but it's not really any good for practical ballistics testing for the following reasons:

1) you can't tell how far they penetrate, because you're shooting DOWNWARDS into a big barrel of water, and the bullets won't stop when they run out of energy--they sink to the bottom due to gravity,

2) Water doesn't have the same resistance to a projectile that tissue (or even ballistic gelatin) has, and it won't clog up a hollowpoint like cloth, tissue, or other semi-solid material will, so the expansion you get in water is unrealistic when compared to "real world" targets,

3) Water doesn't give you solid bits like a carcass for bullets to hit, bounce off of, or fragment from. The expanded bullet you recover will be pretty, perfectly symmetrical, and look good in pictures, but it won't reflect in any way the way a bullet deforms in a tissue-based target, and

4) Water doesn't leave a visible wound channel, and the hydrostatic shock is nearly impossible to see using the naked eye. Unless you have a high-speed camera to record it hitting the water, you have no idea how much hydrostatic shock you're getting, or how long, deep, and broad the wound channel is...

"Barrel tests" are a good starting place for ballistic testing, but they don't give you any real information regarding penetration, expansion, or energy transfer.

When you talk about clogging up a hollowpoint with cloth or whatever, how much, if any, do you believe in the "Critical Defense" ammo that runs around $1/rd?
 

rotorhead

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Sep 18, 2010
Messages
862
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FL
This is an effective way to recover perfectly expanded bullets, to see what they would look like under maximum expansion conditions, but it's not really any good for practical ballistics testing for the following reasons:

1) you can't tell how far they penetrate, because you're shooting DOWNWARDS into a big barrel of water, and the bullets won't stop when they run out of energy--they sink to the bottom due to gravity,

2) Water doesn't have the same resistance to a projectile that tissue (or even ballistic gelatin) has, and it won't clog up a hollowpoint like cloth, tissue, or other semi-solid material will, so the expansion you get in water is unrealistic when compared to "real world" targets,

3) Water doesn't give you solid bits like a carcass for bullets to hit, bounce off of, or fragment from. The expanded bullet you recover will be pretty, perfectly symmetrical, and look good in pictures, but it won't reflect in any way the way a bullet deforms in a tissue-based target, and

4) Water doesn't leave a visible wound channel, and the hydrostatic shock is nearly impossible to see using the naked eye. Unless you have a high-speed camera to record it hitting the water, you have no idea how much hydrostatic shock you're getting, or how long, deep, and broad the wound channel is...

"Barrel tests" are a good starting place for ballistic testing, but they don't give you any real information regarding penetration, expansion, or energy transfer.

Hmmm, put the hog in the barrel of water, shoot, check ballistic results, cook and season to taste.

Everyone's happy :)
 
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