[willow]

I use Winchester Supreme Elite Bonded PDX1 40S&W 180gr in my XD40 for home defense (and soon CC) and I was wondering what how the bullet would expand.

So, I set up some water jugs on a 2x6 and surrounded it on the sides and top with some 8x8's, laid down and fired. The bullet made through 3 of the jugs and stopped in the 4th. Here is what it ended up looking like.

I couldn't find my calipers, so I used a penny for size comparison. It is just about 3/4".

I couldn't find anything like this when I did a search and thought some here would find this interesting. I think I am going to pick up a few different brands of SD ammo and add to this. And if anyone else wants to add to this please feel free.

 

[fredj338]

Back yard testing is fun & useful to compare one bullet against another. IMO, water is too "hard", yes hard. It will show expansion in bullets that won't expand in flesh. I prefer wetpack for testing. It is water soaked newspaper (messy) or phone books. Soak it over night, 8hrs min. Then stack them together in a box or just duct tape 5-6" bundles together. A stack of phone books will take 6 well placed shots. Most expanding handgun bullets stop in 9-12", most expanding rifle bullets 16-20".
Bullets I have recovered from wetpack look an aweful lot like the few I manage to get from animals I hunt & almost perfect matches to ones pulled from ballistic gel. Trying to figure penetration is more diff. Even ballistic gel isn't accurate as it is homogenous & animals are not. It is useful though to compare bullets. So water is about 1.5x the penetration in balgel & wetpack is about 3/4 the penetration of balgel IME.

 

[willow]

I will have to give the phone books a try. Thanks.

 

[Blatch]

That's over-expansion because water was used. In ballistic gel or flesh those would expand just right. Amazing they held together so well, gotta love bonded bullet performance.

Isn't that the Star of David in the center of each?

 

[Jack the Toad]

Back yard testing is fun & useful to compare one bullet against another. IMO, water is too "hard", yes hard. It will show expansion in bullets that won't expand in flesh. I prefer wetpack for testing. It is water soaked newspaper (messy) or phone books. Soak it over night, 8hrs min. Then stack them together in a box or just duct tape 5-6" bundles together. A stack of phone books will take 6 well placed shots. Most expanding handgun bullets stop in 9-12", most expanding rifle bullets 16-20".
Bullets I have recovered from wetpack look an aweful lot like the few I manage to get from animals I hunt & almost perfect matches to ones pulled from ballistic gel. Trying to figure penetration is more diff. Even ballistic gel isn't accurate as it is homogenous & animals are not. It is useful though to compare bullets. So water is about 1.5x the penetration in balgel & wetpack is about 3/4 the penetration of balgel IME.

Ditto on the wet pack. Except I use newsprint. Larger target area. I can shoot 5+ bullets into it. Maybe more depending on caliber.

 

[Fullclip]

Read somewhere that denim fabric or some cloth, really messes up hollow points up used in personal protection that don't show in most testing.

 

[fredj338]

Read somewhere that denim fabric or some cloth, really messes up hollow points up used in personal protection that don't show in most testing.

It can with some designs. I use an old pair of Levi legs. Fold it in half & tape it to the front. That is the dreaded 4 layer test. You can of course put anything; leather, fiber filled cloth, fleece, whatever to simulate clothing.

 

[N.E. Tx.XD]

This is the same ammo I'm stokeing in my .40. Thanks for posting your results and for the pics.

Question: Why is it that the last few look different than the first. What did you do different?

 

[willow]

Question: Why is it that the last few look different than the first. What did you do different?

I have it on a penny to show scale.

 

[Viper_XDm]

If you want to look at other similar tests of all sorts check out the link below. This guy shoots all sorts of stuff some that is just for entertainment but some gives an idea of realworld performance too.

The Box O' Truth - Ammo Penetration Testing

 

[N.E. Tx.XD]

If you want to look at other similar tests of all sorts check out the link below. This guy shoots all sorts of stuff some that is just for entertainment but some gives an idea of realworld performance too.

The Box O' Truth - Ammo Penetration Testing

Thanks for the link... TONS of information here.