Decided to try some of the Gold Dots that loaded up in my model 40 and test some cast bullets as well.

The test media is water soaked newspaper and magazines. I shot from distance of 30 yards.

I have chronographed the loads yet I will and post it when I do.

180 grain Gold Dot penetrated 8" there was allot of disruption of the news print for 2-6" almost explosive like. The Gold Dot was classic mushroom but the lack of penetration was rather interesting. The load was a max published load of Power Pistol. Recovered bullet weight 114.0 grains.

200 Grain GC WFN cast bullet that I cast from an Accurate Mould loaded over 7.9 grains of Power Pistol the initial disruption of the wet paper was impressive it was 4" wide and tapered off about 7-8" in then the bullet continued through the wet paper for 26" exited out the back through a 1" cedar board and is in the berm somewhere.

Quote from: Ramjet on October 22 2017 08:50:56 AM MDT


200 Grain GC WFN cast bullet that I cast from an Accurate Mould loaded over 7.9 grains of Power Pistol the initial disruption of the wet paper was impressive it was 4" wide and tapered off about 7-8" in then the bullet continued through the wet paper for 26" exited out the back through a 1" cedar board and is in the berm somewhere.

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If you need penetration, it's hard to beat a hardcast bullet. Especially, on big, tough game like bears.  Great test Ramjet!

Wet newspaper is a good indication of expansion and weight retention, but not for penetration....iirc, a guy on another forum equates 1500 pages of dry phone book to the width of a deer chest cavity...so your 8" for gold dot in paper would be pretty good in real world tissue--- the hard cast are great at penetration and you can usually shoot from chest to rump and still have pass through on a deer length target.

Quote from: Texashogman on October 25 2017 08:29:03 AM MDT
Wet newspaper is a good indication of expansion and weight retention, but not for penetration....iirc, a guy on another forum equates 1500 pages of dry phone book to the width of a deer chest cavity...so your 8" for gold dot in paper would be pretty good in real world tissue--- the hard cast are great at penetration and you can usually shoot from chest to rump and still have pass through on a deer length target.

I would challenge the based on the news print being a large percentage of water. Everyone knows if you want to test bullet water is really young on them from a penetration stand point. That said I usually use wet news print because it's inexpensive and when comparing to the performance of proven bullets and loads it's nice comparative data nothing more. But the 10 is a great penetrator with 200 grain WFN cast boolits but I have run a 420 grain WFN through 50" of wet news print so it's all relative.