10mm gel tests

[Rojo27]

I know HP's travel more with Denim. Would it be possible to fire the other one at some point with Denim to see if it hits 18"?

Still pretty impressive results in my view.  Thanks to Raggedyman and Intercooler for doing the test and sharing the results.   

[Raggedyman]

I certainly can, but I think that the reason JHPs go deeper when passing through denim is because it delays expansion. It shouldn't have any effect on JSP. Remember that neither the IWBA nor the FBI proscribes denim for rifle testing.

[Intercooler]

Great test. They bill it as a do-all round and it kind of looks the part except big Bears. The Denim would just give us the stanard setup for personal defense.

[Intercooler]

It's also good to see you got 1270 FPS velocity. My results gave an average of 1279 FPS, but that's a 4.75" barrel and makes sense.


What's next? It would be interesting to see the Montana Gold 9mm and Nosler 9mm since videos don't exist of those. The 180gr .357 Magnum will be a neat one too.

[Slateman]

No, sir. I haven't redone that test. Velocity was about 1,200 fps so it ought to do well. 180 gr Gold Dot at 1,300 fps are marginal and they work well from 900 fps on up so 1,200 fps ought to be about perfect for a "true" 10mm 180 gr Gold Dot. Maybe I'll get back to that one some day.

Anyhow, here's the Federal 180 gr Trophy Bonded JSP:

Were you able to confirm they were actual Gold Dots? I've read elsewhere that they may have been knock offs or a lesser Speer HP that they claimed was gold dots.

[Raggedyman]

I don't know how I managed to post the wrong video twice. I'll just blame it on acute caffeine deficiency.

Those bullets came from the same box, I think, and the box says "Gold Dot" on it. I'm confident that they were both real Gold Dots and that they were both actually 180 gr. I'm also confident that the gelatin performed properly because both calibration results are well within range. Nearly ideal, really.

Sometimes bullets do weird things, which is why professional tests include at least five shots to establish an average. Some day I'll choose a few of the best performing loads from my tests and do a larger battery of tests with them to gain a statistically relevant sample size. For now, I'm inclined to believe that penetration is typically closer to the 16" mark for 180 gr Gold dots at around 1,300 fps. The earlier penetration result of 11.25" is probably an anomaly.

[mrpipesmkr]

Just signed up for the 10mm forum although I've been lurking for awhile thanks to Shadow on the glock forum.
  Raggadyman, thanks so much for all your hard work with the gell tests.  Very informative and I think your standards are high.
    I wanted to bring up an aspect of bullet prformance that I never see addressed with gel tests.  This is the effects that range has on bullet performance.  On military ranges I have noticed that fmj bullets that travel some distance before returnig to earth often will leak their melted lead core out the rear of the bullet.  This takes place because as the bullet travels through the air at high speed heat builds up due to friction.
  This happens even to the fairly slow .45 caliber bullets with a trajectory of just a few hundred yards after being fired from a 1911 or Thompson.  The heat caused by friction increases the malability of both the core and the jacket. This in turn is bound to affect terminal performance.
  For instance  Montana Gold bullets with their brass allloy jackets and harder alloy core will be more mallable at 50 yds than they would be at 15 feet. Therefore they may be a better hunting bullet for moderate ranges than a Golden Saber with it's soft core.
Of course many other things come into play, such as the drop in velocity over distance of any bullet, but this just leads me to believe that bullet performance must be established at various ranges to get an idea of the performance "curve" of each bullet.
  Anybody with any thoughts on this subject?
   

[The_Shadow]

mrpipesmkr, Welcome to the forum, that's the first I have ever heard of this especially with slow pistol rounds or any others for that matter...even rifle rounds I have recovered haven't shown any melting on recovered bullets.

I have shot deer at 130 yards using Hornady 200 gr XTP's in a sabot that started at 2000 fps, estimated impact velocity was 1280-1300 fps, these showed no melting of alloy on recovered projectiles.

Now machine guns firing at sustained high rates of fire, can heat the barrels to extreme temps, so much so that rounds can cook off as the enter the chamber to continuously keep firing, barrels that hot show the projectiles as shadows traveling through the barrel visible in low light, in instances such as this I could see enough heat to be absorbed as the bullet rides the bore to heat it's core metal...this condition maybe what is being referred to as melted cores being found.

Now, I have seen bullets that the cores have mechanically separated, due to stresses of jacket deformation at impact.

Lead needs to be near 600 degrees to melt, pure tin at about 450 degrees, Getting that much heat from air friction alone would be difficult in my opinion...

[mrpipesmkr]

Shadow, thanks for your quick response!
   I don't think we are on different pages on this. Re-reading my post it does appear that I was saying lead would melt (flow) at typical ranges. I know this is not the case as I have recoverd many of my own bullets 100 yards downrange. Thay were intact, not melted. So, to be clear, I am NOT saying that after 100 yards your bullet is nothing more than a melted blob of lead headed down range.
  But remember, many older military ranges exceed 1000 yards, especially if they are general ranges firing many types of small arms. Traveling this distance provides plenty of time for heat to build up. Also, you are correct in that many of these rounds would have been fired from automatic weapons.
   My  only intent on using the example of pure lead flowing from spent bullets observed far downrange was to demonstrate that friction created as the bullet passes through the atmosphere does cause heat build-up.
   As another example, the SR71 spyplane traveled at a high rate of speed (mach2-3 ) if I remember correctly.  because of heat build-up through air friction it could not be skinned in ordinary aircraft aluminum. A titanium skin had to be developed for it in order to withstand the temps.
   So, to me it's a given that friction caused by passage through the air will increase the temp of a bullet and thus effect the malability of whatever materials the bullet is made from. Speed, distance traveled and other variables surley come into play.
   The question is: How does this affect the terminal performance of the bullet at range?
   I would tend to think it would aid the performance because as the velocity drops off the increased malability would aid bullet deformation.
   As an example of this, my longest shot on a game animal was just over 500 yards.  I took the shot across a draw in Colorado. There was no wind and I had plenty of time to plan and take the shot. I was using a model 70 chambered in 30-06 with 170 grain boattail soft points.  The deer went down with one shot, struggled for a couple of minutes, then died.  I might have taken a second shot, but the buck was with a group of does who clustered around him when he went down.  Obviously, I was far enough away that the report of my shot did not scatter the does.  Even though bullet velocity had dropped for 500 yards, bullet performance was good.  Good expansion, very little fragmentation.
   So my point in bringing the subject up is merely to say that gel tests should be done at longer ranges as well as short ranges to get a better idea of the performance envelope of a given bullet.This is more true for rifles and carbines but even applies to pistols used for hunting. The 10mm has taken down many pigs at ranges up to 80-100 yards.
   

[Raggedyman]

Thank you for the kind words. The reason I don't conduct gelatin tests at longer range is twofold: the first, and probably most important, reason is consistency. The purpose of gelatin testing is to provide a reproducible way of comparing one projectile to another with as few variables as possible. The standard is 10 feet so that's what I do (give or take a bit). The second reason is that it takes some time and effort to prepare the blocks so to get as much bang for my buck, I prefer to conduct two or more test shots. To do that, I need to be able to precisely place the hits so the paths don't interfere with each other. In other words, I'm not a good enough shot to be absolutely sure of hitting within 1" or less of my intended point of impact, especially with different handguns and loads, at anything much greater than 10 feet.

Now that I'm getting settled into my new job, I ought to be able to get back to testing more regularly, albeit at a much slower pace than before. One thing that I've wanted to try for some time is to test the terminal effect of various .224" projectiles at extended range. I think I can get a good feel for that by loading to the starting charge with a given projectile and placing the block at 200m. I can position a steel plate in front of the chronograph just in case I screw up. I'm reasonably confident that I can hold better than 1 moa (~2" diameter group at 200m) with a couple of my rifles.

I'm pretty confident that whoever told you that the lead in the projectiles was melting had no clue what they were talking about. Soldiers often think they know something about ballistics or just repeat some crap that other troops told them. I've heard some pretty ridiculous things from Joes. From the oft repeated fallacy that 5.56x45mm "tumbles" as it flies through the air, to a 3rd Group SFC who told me that an M249 does not fire from an open bolt. When bullets with an open base (like most FMJ projectiles) strike something, it is fairly common for the lead to "squish" out of the jacket, especially if they strike the object at an angle. This is caused mechanically, not by heat, but because lead is very soft, it can appear that it was fluid when it happened.

[mrpipesmkr]

Hi Raggedyman.
  Thanks so much for taking time to respond to my post.  I and others very much appreciate the hard work you have done with the Gel tests.
  I had no intention of starting a controversy on the forum and hope you understand I was just expressing a thought I have had through the years which is: what is the effect of heat build up on a lead core projectiles terminal performance.
  Let me assure you that lead cores melting out of bullets is not a barracks rumor  I heard some where, but a fact  I obserevd with my own eyes while serving in the military and working on A large range. So, I am left with the choice of believing what you wrote or my own eyes, which at the time were better than 20-20.
  On this range I occasionaly had a reason to go down range, far beyond the various target lines.  There was a vehicle road provided for this purpose.  Thousands of rounds had been fired annualy on this range for many years, dating to WW1.  Spent bullets were every where, in various calibers. Not every bullet had a melted  core but occasionaly I would observe one. Being always interested in guns and ballistics, the first time I noticed a pool of lead behind the mostly empty jacket of a bullet I really had to scratch my head. What in the world caused this? No sign of fire, so the only heat available to the bullet would have been caused by the propellant, friction created in the firing of the profectile and the friction created as it passed through the atmosphere.
  And, These were not tracer rounds either. Tracer projectiles are easily identifiable after firing because their jackets are  somewhat  longer than normal so that they have additional space to hold the pyrotechnical tracer element.
  Slow as they are, I did observe .45 bullets with small pools of lead at there base. My theory is that the .45 ball projectile used by the military is so un-aerodynamic that it builds heat lower velocities than a more streamlined projectle would.
  Honestly, I find it hard to believe that anyone would question the fact that air friction can cause heat build up in an object. After all, that is exactly why the space shuttle used carbon tiles to protect it's airfoil and bottom surfaces during re-entry from space.
   So it is inevitable that a lead bullet traveling fast enough and far enough will reach the melting point of lead.
  Again, let me say that I am NOT saying that A lead bullet turns into a lead blob 100 yards down range. What I AM saying is that a bullet will build up enough heat to effect the metallurgy of that bullet after in travels far enough.  Lead at average ambient temperature is already very mallable. At 400 degrees it is much more mallable than at 70 degrees. This will effect bullet performance in projectles that are designed to distort on impact.
  Therefore, gel testing at longer ranges would be informative in that  it would correlate the effects of velociy drop and heat on the terminal performance of bullets.
  Again, thanks so much for the hard work you have provided to the forum and please know that I only seek to add information, not to be argumentative in any way.
  WOW, my two typing fingers are plumb wore-out!
 
   

[Raggedyman]

I'm not disputing that you saw what you saw. I do disagree with your hypothesis for a number of reasons. The first is the observable fact that very few bullets are found in this condition. That indicates that another factor was at work. The second is that if the lead were melted in flight, it would also leak out in flight and you would not find a pool of lead near the jacket, but only an empty jacket. Air friction can heat an object but it takes speeds that are several times that of a rifle bullet, let alone a pistol bullet. At slower speeds, the air only cools the object down to ambient temperature. Yes, the Space Shuttle experienced significant heating but it was also traveling at approximately 27,000 fps not 3,000 fps for 5.56mm or 900 fps for .45 ACP. Literally nine times faster than 5.56mm muzzle velocity.

While you might not have been looking at tracers or seen RECENT evidence of a fire, the most likely explanation for what you saw is that tracers caused an earlier range fire (you know that's a pretty common event), which melted some of the projectiles. They were later buried and then uncovered for you to find possibly decades after the fire that melted them.

[Intercooler]

I think you meant 27,000 MPH 

[The_Shadow]

Well the re entry of the shuttle or even most spacecraft from earth orbit is about 18,000 MPH or 26400 feet per second so give  Raggedyman an "A+" on his home work assignment here, Intercooler go study some more... http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/BGH/hihyper.html

 

[Intercooler]

Let's just say it's real damn fast compared to a pistol round