210 berger expansion test

[Wheatgerm]

after all the topics on bergers i wanted to do a little test for myself (for my own peace of mind and for my own questions on my setup). i started serfing the net looking for some realistic testing how they would perfom shot into an animan. they are maybe out there but i couldnt find them. so i started trying to figure out how i could make something cheap and similar to shooting a vld into the vitals of an animal.

i ended up making a 24in box. the bullet would first go threw 3 inches of cardboard (rib meat, hide ect) after the cardboard i placed a piece of 1/4 waferboard to simulate missing ribs. i also cut a piece of 3/4 plywood (as if hitting the ribs). after the plywood i decided to make up a dough because i had read the ballistic gel was similar to shooting threw mucsle so i wanted something softer and more similar to shooting threw lungs and other vitals. the vital (dough) box was 18 inches long. i mixed the dough to the consistency i thought was similar to what i wanted.

i had read in another post about checking the depth of the hallow point so i had checked my box i had. i cant remember how many of each but i will guess.. i believe i had 18 bullets with a .015 depth... around 60 with a depth of .060 and about 20 with a deep hallow point of .100 or more. i decided to test the shallowest and deepest hallowpoints.

my pictures dont tell the story as well as i would like but i will explain each pic in a post right after i post the pics.

i dont know what you guys will get out of this test but all i can say is they performed exactly how i have read they should and didnt notice any different performance in the different point depths.. and i still am a berger believer.

 

[Wheatgerm]

pic 1&2 show the set up of the box and how the dough is packed in the box.

pic 3 is what the bullet looked like after i had shot threw it (with the .015 shallow tip) the clay had looked like it had expanded and been blown apart then settled back into place. this was with the 3/4 plywood simulating hitting ribs. about 14 inches of penetration.

pic 4 shows bullet penetration
pic 5 shows what the bullet looked like after we found it

 

[emn83]

what distance?

 

[4bycamper]

Thanks for the effort and I think you're on the right track.

Did you reach any conclusions regarding the depth of the hollow point vs. expansion?

What was the range distance? Or what velocity? lightbulb

 

[Wheatgerm]

below...
pic 1 is the deeper point (.100) going threw the wafer board. i tried to pull it apart to show the wound channel and expansion going threw the dough. this one shows more penetration. possible took a little longer to expand without the help of the thick plywood.. bullet found 19 inches overall penetration...

pic 2 i didnt hit the dough solid and finally got a pass threw you can see where the main jacked passed threw then you can also see where the fragments had also passed threw.

pic 3 i had moved out to 600yards and hadnt turned the turret enough. the bullet penetrated about 2 inches into a solid boulder and still stayed together.

once again, viewing the pics i dont know how these will look to everyone else. but it said enough for me. and im very impressed, so i thought id share. from the shallowest point bullets to the deepest hallowpoints in the box i see no difference from this test

 

[Wheatgerm]

Thanks for the effort and I think you're on the right track.

Did you reach any conclusions regarding the depth of the hollow point vs. expansion?

What was the range distance? Or what velocity? lightbulb

sorry if i miss any info feel free to ask. there was alot to cover. i didnt notice any difference in expansion between the .015 and .100 points, also the shots were at 300y. velocity of my load is around 2700 fps. (havent chronod it yet) but thats what the load data shows and it matches my bullet drop..

there may be some confusion on the picture that shows the pass threw,, that was one bullet passing threw creating multiple holes. and was at 600yards. also hitting the rock was at 600 yards

 

[Broz]

Good work! They sure didn't pencil through, even the shallow tipped one. I commend you on doing the test so you know for yourself. Nothing like first hand confidence in your equipment.

Thanks for sharing your work.

Jeff

 

[Korhil78]

That is a lot of dough! I bet you had fun with the test. I think it's pretty funny that you used a box that said tumbler on it while you were trying to find tumbling bullets.

 

[Wheatgerm]

6$ for a 25lb bag of flower and about 20 min of mixing with a big mixing drill haha. It was fun to see how much energy these bullets impact with and to be able to cut the dough open and see what the bullets were actually doing. I know its not super accurate but in my mind its more accurate than ballistics gel that has alot more resistance. I would believe that my bullets should expand and do the job on pretty much anything bigger than a cottontail bunny... heck maybe they would even expand on a bunny haha..

I wish I could have video the shockwave that was send threw the dough box it was insane to actually realize how hard the bullet was impacting.

Jeff, you are absolutely right. I did this test to know for a fact that I wasn't damaging the bullets from loading or from recoil inside the magazine, and it feels great to have total confidence knowing my bullets are going to do the job... no penciling here

 

[WildRose]

6$ for a 25lb bag of flower and about 20 min of mixing with a big mixing drill haha. It was fun to see how much energy these bullets impact with and to be able to cut the dough open and see what the bullets were actually doing. I know its not super accurate but in my mind its more accurate than ballistics gel that has alot more resistance. I would believe that my bullets should expand and do the job on pretty much anything bigger than a cottontail bunny... heck maybe they would even expand on a bunny haha..

I wish I could have video the shockwave that was send threw the dough box it was insane to actually realize how hard the bullet was impacting.

Jeff, you are absolutely right. I did this test to know for a fact that I wasn't damaging the bullets from loading or from recoil inside the magazine, and it feels great to have total confidence knowing my bullets are going to do the job... no penciling here

Penciling just happens occasionally. I've seen it with different makes of bullets over the years especially on white tails. More often than not those are the bullets that don't hit any bone other than perhaps a rib to initiate violent expansion. By the time they mushroom enough to really make a nasty hole they are already out the other side.

Aim for the shoulder/spine and if you hit your mark they are DRT. Miss that mark at any range with any bullet and you are going to occasionally have **** poor results.

Heck I've even seen where Nosler BT's turned completely inside out and punched through the other side to bury up in a boar's off side shield, or pencil right through a white tail with an almost identical exit to the entry.

Good job on some rather inventive red neck engineering for your test. We did something similar many years ago using a wooden box and alternating layers of modeling clay and wafer board.

 

[Joe King]

Nice, lot cheaper that jello would have been too! That would have been neat to see a vid of the bullet impact

 

[Scot E]

Ok, so I am not knocking the results of this test in any way and I have never tested bullets in this manner so my question is a sincere one.

To those that have done a lot of testing, how do you know that the impact material used is going to perform similarly enough to what the bullet would do on a live game animal to make this kind of test beneficial?

From an outsider looking in, this test doesn't seem like it would give valid outputs that one could transfer to big game. Now if you were hunting the dreaded cardboard/plywood/biscuit monster . . . . then it all makes sense!

Scot E.

 

[eddybo]

I discount about 1/2 of the bullet "failures" I hear about, regardless of manufacturer. I guess that some people just have an easier time killing stuff. It is not that hard, shoot them in a vital area with just about anything including an arrow and they die.
I saw a berger "pencil through" and was almost convinced it was a failure until we opened the chest cavity. Caliber sized entrance, roughly caliber sized exit, but massive trauma in between. I suspect sometimes after the weight shed that the jacket is the only thing with enough mass to exit.

 

[Joe King]

Ok, so I am not knocking the results of this test in any way and I have never tested bullets in this manner so my question is a sincere one.

To those that have done a lot of testing, how do you know that the impact material used is going to perform similarly enough to what the bullet would do on a live game animal to make this kind of test beneficial?

From an outsider looking in, this test doesn't seem like it would give valid outputs that one could transfer to big game. Now if you were hunting the dreaded cardboard/plywood/biscuit monster . . . . then it all makes sense!

Scot E.

there really isnt a single good test, the only real valid test a LOT of bullets a many impact velocities, into a truck load of varying medias, this test is a good indicator though and thats about all you can ask for for any 1 test. just to many variables to account for