Category Archives: Ballistics

There are three types of ballistics as it relates to firearms. Interior, exterior, and terminal. Joe wrote the PC app Modern Ballistics and Windows Phone app Field Ballistics.

In which Bambi came to dinner

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At this
time of year I normally hunt in Klickitat County, WA, for deer. Lots of big black-tail / mule deer, and perhaps the occasional
hybrid. My luck at finding them is usually pretty good, though my luck in
finding ones with respectable racks is utterly pathetic – I can manage to find
a 200 lb + mule deer with ears that stick out further than his barely legal
three point rack, which is only three points by the grace of God and an eye-guard
that is about 1.1 inches long, or one that looks like what you’d expect of a mule
deer that cross-bred with a white-tail,  with huge ears and all its tiny little points
coming off of one narrow beam, and the other broken off to about 1/3 size. Oh,
well, meat’s meat.

Drove down Friday, looked thing over. Several does frisking
about, and no more than the normal noise from the property across the way (it’s
mostly 20-acre lots in that area, and some government land, with about a dozen scattered
hunting camps and a handful of year-round residents within a mile or two). Light
rain that day kept the dust down, and made the brush a LOT quieter. Lots of
acorns on the trees, I noticed – very different from last year, when there were
almost no acorns, and more hunters than deer. Parked the RV (AKA a minivan with
a seat out and an army cot in the back), got to sleep early, listening to the rain fall.

Got up, weather looked good, headed down for a spot I picked
the day before, partway down in and overlooking a clear-ish spot across a saddle
in the ridge. It has decent visibility, lots of deer trails through there. I
kick up a couple of does while sneaking down there in the dark. Wait for enough
light. See nothing. I hear shooting up behind me on the ridge. Several single
shots, widely spaced in time – either people are doing pretty well, or they can’t
shoot for squat. No way to know at the moment. I’m not seeing anything, except
a couple of does that are heading away from the shooting west of me. Eventually
I quit waiting and get moving, and slowly hunt around in a big loop to see what
can be scared up. Nadda but a couple of does. Light wind keeps eddying around,
so hunting “upwind” is impossible.

About 90% of the way around the loop I run into an old
friend of mine – he’s in his 80s now, was a gunner on a troop transport in
WWII, but still getting out (new just this year is a handicap hunter sign for
his rig, so he can shoot sitting in the cab, or have one of us younger “companion
hunters” do things for him.  He said his
son, a spry lad of only sixty, had gone on a big loop up and around similar to
the path I’d taken, but farther out, across to the far side of a large draw and
down through it. So I figure I can go find a good stand up on this side of the draw and see if he
spooks anything my way. I wander off into the thickets. Lots of low brush, large
patches of ten-foot high Oregon white oak, and lots of old pines blown down
like pick-up-sticks (the remains from after a fire swept through the area about
a decade ago). Easy to hide in, lots of forage, and a cast-iron bitch to get
things out of.

I creep along thorough the brush, keeping eyes and ears
open, picking the occasional acorn and popping it into my pockets, which are by
now bulging with them. I find a decent spot with a clear view across the draw
– the far side is about 450 yards away. Visibility closer isn’t great because
of all the oak stands. I stand up on a fallen log to get a better view. Lots of
acorns in reach from there, too. I watch across the draw, watch closer in, pick
acorns absently. Listen to the chipmunks, magpies, and woodpeckers. Wind swirls
around. Nothing moving but birds and leaves. Pretty, but no sign of hunter
orange coming down the far side of things yet. I take off my pack and drop it quietly
to the ground, still standing on the log. A few more acorn are in reach, and
they end up in my pocket.

Then I hear a noise – just barely loud enough to hear, and I
still can’t remember what sort of noise it was, but it WASN’T any of the things
I’d been listening to all morning. I jerk my head to the right toward that
marginally registering sound, and there, plain as day because I know the exact direction to look, I see the “Y” shape of a
deer staring straight at me, mule-deer ears and nose. Just the head – from the
neck down it was hidden in the heavy brush. Not fifty yards away. With a rack.
A small rack (of course), but it’s got a least one clear fork. I’m standing,
balancing on a log, body one way, and it’s off directly to my right. Well, that’s
kind of awkward.

I figure he must have been there this whole time, so slow motions
shouldn’t spook him. I turn slowly until I can get the rifle up into a good
scoping / shooting position. I look. Damn! Only 3 power on the scope, and I can’t
see if there is an eye-guard! I crank the scope to 9X, and look again. Can’t
quite be sure… then the light falling on him changes ever so slightly, and I
can see it! ONE eye-guard! Given the brush and stuff, I figure I’ve got about a
2” square target to hit, off-hand, standing straight up balancing on a log, at
fifty yards. Can’t move to a more stable position because lower would hide him
totally in the brush. Aim too high, miss. Too low, take his jaw off and he runs
and dies miles away or it gets deflected by heavy brush. Left or right, running
injured or clean miss. Just gotta stand tall and deliver. Sure, no pressure. Aim
carefully, breathe in, breathe out, double check the eye-guard to make sure it’s
long enough, breathe, squeeze. BLAM!

I work the action keeping my eyes on where he was. I see no
movement. I walk up carefully. Motionless on a grassy patch amidst the brush. Right
antler blown away. Brains and blood leaking out through the large hole just
above his right eye. I do a double-take, and I don’t see the eye-guard! ARRRG!
Oh, wait. False alarm – just didn’t see if from that angle. WHEW! I measure the
eye-guard; one and a quarter inches – legally counts as a point (1” minimum). Now
I just have to get him OUT of the deep weeds. He’s down amidst the log-sized
pick-up sticks, and a live weight in the neighborhood of 200 pounds – small enough
to be tender and tasty, big enough to be a pain in the ass hauling him out. Then
I hear a shot from up across the draw. Looks like the other guy I know is now
going to be busy with his own deer for a while, so I’m on my own. I gut him
out, drag him uphill as best I can about a hundred yards to where I think it
might be possible to get a vehicle sort’a close. I flag a nearby tree with
engineer tape, and boogie back to the “RV” to see how well a Honda Odyssey is
at off-roading. Turns out, pretty good, if you are careful. Nothing that Ry
would have flinched at, but it’s mostly my wife’s, not my car, and there are
lots of logs and large volcanic rocks around, so….

Anyway, got the deer whacked up, then double-check the regs just
to make sure I wasn’t missing something – last year there was a Fish-n-Feather
check-point examining all hunters at a choke-point in the road out of the area for
the first few days of the season, so I want to make sure I’m all totally legal.
Hmmm… must transport with proof that it was male, either “naturally attached
penis and testicles” (nope, can’t do that, cut off while gutting) or BOTH
antlers “naturally attached to the head”. AH, shit-meister! I must have spent
two hours looking for that blasted second antler. Finally found it about 45 or
50 feet away in the brush – a small, brown, forking, stick-like-looking antler
hides VERY well in the brush and fallen oak leaves, let me tell you.

Finally, I got everything cleaned up, packed up, and back on
road, and just then the rain started. So it all worked out, in the end, pretty
well.

A few of things of note:

 1) There was no
obvious exit wound from the bullet. A 165 gr slug from a 30-06 at 50 yards
still has well north of 2000 ft-lb of energy, and while the skull was
dramatically broken up and brain bits here and there, but the bullet didn’t
seem to have come out the far side, and there no obvious bullet fragments left
in the cranial cavity, which was mostly filled with partially coagulated blood and
bone fragments by the time I examined it more closely. Not clear exactly how all
the energy was expended, or what happened to the bullet; totally exploded and
the fragments fell out with the brain, or ricochet out essentially through the
same hole and all the brain pulping was done by bone fragments, or just what.
File it under “weird terminal ballistics event.” and “bone is STRONG.”

2) It was obvious he was totally dead from the hole and
brains-on-the-ground thing when I got close to him, so I slit his throat to
bleed him out. Squirt, squirt, squirt. His heart was still pumping! Weird.

3) The kids both thought the carcass pieces I brought home
were interesting. The daughter though it was gross, but she couldn’t take her
eyes off it, so it turned into an impromptu biology and physiology lesson, comparing
front and back leg structures, pointing out tendons versus ligaments, ball
joints vs hinge joints, bone vs cartilage, what a whole muscle looks like when
not wrapped in plastic as the market, fat deposits, what a heart and liver REALLY look like, etc.
They also thought the ribs looked awfully fatty, but agreed that they tasted good
broiled with a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

3.a) The only things that got left on the scene was a spine,
feet, hunks of fat, guts, and hide. I need to get better at skinning them out
so it’s worth getting tanned.

4) The kids ALSO thought that learning how to prepare the
bag of acorns I brought back sounded like fun, particularly for the 4th
grader, who did a big unit on Native Americans last year in school, many of
whom ate acorns as a significant part of their diet. We’ll also be planting
some of them as a science experiment (Oregon white oak are native to the area).

4.a) Last year, very few acorns, very few deer. Normally,
lots of acorns, lots of deer. File data for future reference; check the acorn
crop in September – no acorns, find another place to hunt.

5) Does seem to spook and run easily. Bucks, especially
older ones, are masters of immobility and camouflage, and don’t want to jump
until you darn near step on them. Means you have to have REALLY good eyes, good
binoculars, or have a couple of guys that are willing to spend a LOT of time
stomping around trying to kick them up.

6) I am amazed, again, at the fact that even though guns are LOUD, especially high-powered rifles, I never remember hearing the shot go off, or the recoil as it applies to my shoulder. I remember watching the target, working the action, basic body position, getting the sight back on target, listening for and hearing sounds immediately after the shot (even quiet sounds), but never the sound of the gunshot itself.

Optimum cartridge pondering

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Every choice is a trade-off. “You want armor to be light,
effective, and cheap. Pick any two.” So, sometimes you have to figure out what
are the most critical limiting factors, and go from there.

An ideal gun is light weight, accurate, shoots flat, hits
hard, has little recoil and comfortable ergonomics, has long barrel life, is reliable,
is low maintenance, has inexpensive and light weight ammo, and is easy to
operate… Yaahhh…. Riiiight…..

Back to reality.

The bullet does the work – everything else is just delivery
system. So, to stop a person or other living target (or set off a boomer), the bullet needs enough energy when it hits to do the job. Launching
the bullet imparts the energy into the bullet, and that causes recoil, requires
a gun, etc. Generally speaking, the greater the muzzle energy, the more the
recoil, the more wear on the gun, the greater the cartridge weight required, the
higher the chamber pressure, the more difficulty there is in noise suppression,
etc. So, an ideal cartridge would have some maximum tolerable muzzle energy,
and a minimum retained energy out to some desirable range.

What should those three numbers be? It depends on the
application. For the moment, I’ll consider military rifle cartridges (and perhaps Boomershoot guns). Maybe a
future essay will consider other applications.

If you generate much more than about 2000 ft·lb
of ME, a lot of smaller or less experiences shooters may have a problem flinching
or bruising from significant use, unless well trained and given sufficient
practice. Also, at closer range most bullets with more than 2000 ft·lb
will just waste an increasing percentage of their energy beyond the target,
after full penetration, on the backstop. (For comparison, 2000 ft·lb
is a typical muzzle energy for a .243 Winchester). Much less than about 400 ft·lb
is getting into a very marginal area for stopping power, cover or body armor penetration,
etc. (around 400 ft·lb is a typical 9 mm or 45 ACP round ME). For most
shooters, anything beyond a thousand yards is problematic for all sorts of
reasons, but out to that range an argument can be made, especially in places
like Afghanistan or Iraq, or in farm country with large fields, where distances
are long.

Challenge Summary: Muzzle energy less than 2000 ft·lb, greatest possible retained energy at
1000 yards, preferably at least 400 ft·lb.

It’s easy to find cartridges with less than 2000 ft·lb
muzzle energy. The problem is that most of them in larger calibers (30 cal and
up) are relatively fat, light, low BC bullets, or slow heavy ones that have a
trajectory like a rainbow and a time-of-flight measured in cups of coffee. The
smaller calibers (like .223), bullets are too light to carry much energy for
the distance, and start having severe wind problems at significant ranges. (For
comparison, a 5.56 NATO 77 gr bullet has a bit less than 1400 ft·lb
ME, and a 7.62 NATO 175 gr bullet has about 2600 ft·lb ME.)

It’s also easy to find cartridges that retain at least 400
ft·lb
at 1000 yd: just GO BIG. Heavy bullet, big brass, lots of powder, good to go.
But that generates more recoil, higher pressures, needs heavier guns, has
heavier ammo, more recoil, shorter barrel life, and so-forth.

Retaining energy argues that only high ballistic coefficient
bullets will likely manage to meet this challenge. A 6.5mm mid-weight bullet
with a high BC, like a Lapua 123 gr Scenar (BC of .547) launched at moderate
velocities, can be loaded to have both a ME less than 2000 ft·lb,
and have more than 400 ft·lb
at 1000 yards. One of the few current cartridges that meet this challenge is
the 6.5mm Grendel. It still has 372 ft·lb at 1000 meters in a factory loading, shot from a mid-length barrel. For
comparison, at 1000 yards, a 5.56 NATO 77 gr bullet has less than 200 ft·lb
of energy (similar to a .32 Auto), and a 7.62 NATO 175 gr has retained a bit
under 600 ft·lb
energy (similar to a typical 40 S&W shot from a 5” barrel). Also note that for reliable boomer detonation, a velocity of at least 1500 fps is generally required, and a typical 6.5 Grendel round is still moving faster than that at 700 yards (unless you are using a fairly short barrel).

The 6.5 mm cartridges have an excellent reputation with
hunters, as well as target shooters, and smokeless powder 6.5mm cartridges have
been around for well over a century, so there are a wide range of bullets
available for loading your own for any particular application you might have.

Ponder, think, consider, contemplate….

The Kaboom That Wasn’t

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Yesterday I had a bullet in the bore in front of another complete cartridge that was fully chambered.  The bolt was in battery, the hammer cocked, and the safety was in the Total Devastation position.  But I thought better of dropping the hammer.  Well I didn’t think so much as feel that for some non-specific reason it might be a good idea to get out of my ready-to-shoot position and open the action.

I had fired hundreds of these cast bullet loads for a Win ’94 carbine and was having quite a good time shooting, using the new tang aperture sight after getting the sights dialed in.  The 311291 mold puts out a “bore rider” bullet, meaning the shank of the bullet ahead of the drive bands kisses the rifling as it’s chambered.  It’s supposed to make for better accuracy, and so far these have been pretty good in that department.  But my mold produces bullets that more than kiss the rifling– they have to be jammed in with just a tad bit more force than optimum.  I’ve chambered and un-chambered lots of them before without observing any sort of problem.

Yesterday, I don’t remember why, I decided to check the status of the rifle before taking a shot.  It was harder than usual to extract, so when it came loose, the bolt came back rapidly, expelling an empty case.  “Odd” I thought, “I’m pretty sure there was a loaded round in there.  Oh well.” (first red flag).  So I rammed the lever home to chamber another round.  It took more than the usual amount of force to chamber (second red flag).  But it chambered.

I actually had the rifle up to fire, and then…”Naw…I’ll be needin’ to see that cartridge.”  Again it was harder than usual to extract, and this time I could see fine ball powder all over the action and my hand.  “OK then, I’m done with the Winchester for the day.”

That first hard extraction had pulled the bullet from the case, but I didn’t notice the spilled powder because I had my long-range shades on (can’t see close-up very well) and the low, direct sun made for so much contrast that anything in shadow was much harder to see.  I didn’t notice the little detail of the still un-dented primer.  The next round was harder to chamber because I was forcing the first bullet deeper into the bore in front of the fresh cartridge.  The new brass was maybe a little soft, and maybe that bullet was on the large side of the size variation range, and maybe the case was on the short side of the narrow length range I had allowed, the crimp design is very good at preventing bullet set-back (which is the concern with tubular magazines) but poor at preventing bullet pull-out, so anyway the bullet pulled free and stayed behind when I extracted the case.  Never heard of such a thing, which is why I bring it up here.  Maybe I should get another bullet mold.

You know they say that for a single shot action, you don’t need any crimp at all.  After yesterday, with any bore rider design I would recommend a crimp no matter what.

Shooting alone is a real pleasure for me.  I love taking other people along and having a good time that way, sure.  Some of my best shooting memories come from having other people along.  I have to get out alone once in a while though, especially with rifles, and I highly recommend it for everyone.  It allows focus, and the contrast between the fire and the total silence during breaks does the heart good somehow.  On the issue of focus; I believe that the chances of my pulling that trigger on that double bullet load were fairly high, had there been company along.

Edited to add; Below is the bullet in question.  You can just see the engraving from the rifling.  That individual bullet fit pretty well, but others are a bit tighter (random variations in casting).  I should have posted this photo earlier to avoid some of the confusion.  “Regular” bullets begin to taper off right in front of the case mouth, but this one is designed to enter the bore in front of the throat, touching the lands.  The design helps align the bullet right from the get go.  For actual use, the front drive band at the case mouth (and those behind it) is sized to .309″ to tightly engage the .308″ barrel groove diameter and produce a good seal.  Also notice the ring around the back of the short ogive, from the seating plug that was designed for longer ogive bullets.  This photo was taken over a year ago, before I fired any of these rounds, and you’ll see that the case is either crimped very lightly or not at all.  This was a test seating.  You also see that the chamber throat is super short (the rifling comes very close to the case mouth, but it’s a largely non-issue here).  That’s not a problem with most modern full-copper-patched bullets either, but it does limit the styles I can use.  This #2 alloy cast 170 grain gas checked bullet load reaches 2,000 fps from a 16″ barrel, using White Label Carnauba Red lube and 33.5 gr of Win 748 with a WRLM primer.  The powder charge and primer are from the Speer manual as a jacketed load.  After 50 shots, the bore looks like a polished mirror (the powder burns clean and the bullets don’t leave lead behind).

5.56 versus .223

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This is probably more information than you are really want to know—unless you are a gun geek. 5.56 vs .223 – What You Know May Be Wrong

The differences between .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO have been hashed out many times on the internet. Unfortunately, many of the “facts” that are often thrown around are simply what someone has heard from someone else, leading to a lot of misinformation being accepted as gospel.

…

My findings, and the opinions of many experts in the industry who deal with the topic every day, were not exactly what some might expect. In fact, many of them had already discovered what I am reporting, although my research was conducted independently.

I liked it.

Velocity

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As kids, we liked to shoot, and one of the things we liked to shoot was cans.  Bottles were cool too, but we mostly did that at the dump since it sprays broken glass all over the place.  One of the first cans I shot was with .22 Shorts (very low power ammunition) from a handgun.  One bullet entered a can at a tangent and spun several times around the inside (“PZzzzzit!”) making the can levitate off the ground a little and leaving raised ridges protruding around the outside of the steel.  Fascinating.  That was in the 1960s.

So of course when I recently got some good performing loads worked up for a 30-30 Winchester carbine model of 1894, I was going to shoot some cans.  It’s the natural order of things.

The two milk cans below (both were filled with water) were shot using the same 170 grain bullet cast from #2 lead alloy, from the same carbine at the same distance.  The only difference was the powder charge.  The can in the first photo was hit at around 1600 feet per second, with the bullet coming in from the left and exiting to the right.  Note that the entry side is blown out much more than the exit (a not uncommon phenomenon when you have a harder outer shell containing a softer, more fluid material).  You can see that the neat little bullet entry hole is split in half.

The can below was hit at around 2000 fps, again with the bullet coming in from the left and exiting to the right.  It’s more like a cherry bomb went off inside it.  The top separated and flew waaaay up into the air.  I never did find it.

Yes it’s a little bit childish, and yes it is a lot of fun.  Though I’ve done this sort of thing hundreds of times and I’ve had this carbine since the mid ’90s, just the other day I found myself chuckling like a ten year old boy with a new toy.  It’s hard to explain.  Several previous outings were for the purpose of recording velocities, accuracy and sight adjustments for various loads.  That may be some fun, but it resembles work too.  This time out, just for shooting, was very different– more like a meditative state of near total concentration and peace.  Would that we could spend most of our lives in that state.

In case you’re wondering; I doubt there was any significant bullet expansion.  The hard cast round nose bullets were not recovered, but at those low velocities (for a rifle) I’d bet they held their shape fairly well.  I plan to try recovering some later, using several water jugs as a trap.  So we’ll see.

Laser Guided Bullets

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We had radar proximity fuses in use in AAA rounds during W.W. II, and they of course used vacuum tube technology.  One of the members of our local ham radio club worked on that project in the ’40s.  One of the challenges for his team was developing tubes that could withstand the 10s of thousands of Gs at launch.  Ouch.

Now we have this, via an e-mail from my nephew.  I find it fascinating, funny, and a little disturbing all at the same time.  Ordinary rifles spin a bullet at 2K RPM?  They missed that one by an order of magnitude or two.  A rifle chambered for the 5.56 NATO round for example rotates the bullet at around 300,000 RPM, more or less depending on barrel length, rifling twist and bullet weight.  But as I often say; what’s an order of magnitude (or two) between friends?

It is very telling, if not entirely predictable, how they smear the general public in the article– government = good, whereas regular citizens = dangerous or at least troubling.  They of course have it entirely upside down and backwards in that department.

Standard Deviation = 1

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Never heard of it, though mnaybe y’all are getting it all the time and haven’t told me.  The first time I thought is was a fluke.  20 shots from a G20 pistol with SD of one foot per second.  During the string I thought something was wrong with the chrono, because shot after shot it displayed the same number.  Then there’s the saying; if you test your velocity once, you’ll know it.  If you test it a second time, you’ll never be sure again.  Though I never got any error readings, I discarded the data.

So I went out a second time on Saturday with the same load.  The CED chrono was unwilling to get any readings from the 30-30 loads I really wanted to test.  It’s like that sometimes, even with the IR LED screens.  But it took readings from the slower, bigger 10 mm bullets just fine.  I only measured ten shots this time, so a SD is of little meaning, but the extreme spread was 6.  It might correlate to a SD of 1.  I don’t know about anyone else, and the ammo manufacturers rarely say anything about it, but I’ve thought I was doing pretty well in the past if the SD was 12 or so.

This is a light load for the ten, getting barely under 1100 fps.  More like a 40 S&W.  It’s 9.6 gr. Blue Dot (checked against a check weight) with new Starline cases, 180 XTPs and a CCI 300, just going by the dimensions in the Hornady manual.  Nothing special.  This was my starting load, but it may end up a keeper.  We’ll see.  At the moment it’s my carry load, with 43 rounds on board.

I know – handloaded ammo for self defense, blah blah.  Don’t care.  I can practice a lot more with this stuff because I can afford a lot of it, and practicing with the same load you carry makes sense.  That’s what I’ll tell the lawyers– I can shoot this load more accurately and therefore more safely, etc., because it’s exactly what I use for practice.  I tried some of the hot Double Tap 200 grain FMJ stuff.  It’s affordable for practice, and while I’m sure it’s fine ammo for some guns, my Glock did something with it that it’s never done before.  The fired case would stick in the chamber (that’s what you call a pressure sign, right there) the extractor would strip off over the case head, and a fresh round would feed into the back of the fired case.  Yikes that’s some hot stuff, but no thanks.  Two stoppages or so per magazine is more than a deal killer.  If your 10 mm can cycle it properly, it would make a good deep penetrator though.

The crimp has to be a touch under the case diameter just below the crimp though, whereas I went with “about equal”.  A couple of these XTP handloads (2 of about 150) did fail to lock up all the way – something else that’s never happened with this gun.  I’m sure it’s the crimp, and maybe that I need a new slide spring as this one is the original from the early 1990s and has been cycled umpteen thousand times.  A gentle “forward assist” on the back of the slide was all it took.  Yes; more crimp.

Tree Rides, a Hair Trigger and a Very Bloody Flashlight

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That’s right; it was varmint control (hunting) season, also known in my house as step-one-food-processing season.  So this is a month late (and I’m sure you all were chomping at the bit for it).

It was windy on the first day of muzzleloader season and the deer tend not to roam or forage as much in high wind, so I saw nothing, but I did get a nice “tree ride”.  I wrote a little song while swaying this way and that in my tree stand;

Rock-a-by hunter
In the tree top
When the wind blows
The tree stand will rock
When the bow breaks
The tree stand will fall
And down will come hunter
Rifle and all

But later I realized that thousands of tree-climbing hunters must surely have thought of those exact words over the years, and so I can’t claim patent rights to the song.  Anyway; I’m not sure you can call it “hunting” when all you’re doing is sitting there waiting to snipe a deer.  “Waylaying” maybe, or “Ambushing”.
“I’m going ambushing, Honey.  I’ll be back after dark.”
“OK.  Good luck, Deer.”
“Wait.  What?  No– it’s good luck me, bad luck, deer.”

Thanksgiving evening I saw a nice buck come in from the wheat fields (our deer feed off of the farmers’ efforts most of the year in these parts).  Now I never thought I was capable of doing this – you only take a shot if you’re going to make the shot, right?  Therefore you don’t miss.  That’s been my understanding and my experience up until now.  In practice I’ve hit a target the size of the kill zone virtually 100% of the time, and in hunting previous years I’ve always put the ball close enough to where it belongs.  So much for that as an axiom.  I attribute it to a combination of a hair trigger on this percussion lock and cold fingers, but mostly to a timing error of the brain at that moment when timing is everything.  Line up the sights under the target so you can keep the target in view the whole time, raise the front sight up to the A zone, fire.  1,2,3.  Steps two and three ended up reversed somehow, such that once I got onto the A zone the ball had already escaped my control.  The shot went right under the brisket, he jumped a little at the flash, the huge smoke cloud and the horrific blast, and went sauntering off unperturbed, flipping his tail and sniffing the ground.  Moseying even, as if to show me how little he cared that I’d just shot at him with a fifty caliber rifle.  Bloody show-off.

If that weren’t enough, I did it again with a nice doe two nights later, so a range session was in order the next morning.  100% “A” hits from standing unsupported.  Two holes touching at 50 some yards, and a third right where I knew it went without using the binoculars—I’d pulled slightly low, but still a good shot.  What the hell?  I adjusted the lock for a slightly heavier pull, gritted my teeth, and kept climbing the tree.

The Tree is on a very steep slope between the farm fields and the Palouse River, and it’s a slog through brambles and fallen branches to get up there.  Very good exercise that, and I feel much better now thank you, but one piece of advice; fighting through brush and thorns with very long hair is a problem.

More advice as if you’d asked for it; Doe urine is attractive to deer of both sexes.  We humans tend to think of a urine smell as something to be avoided, but deer find it fascinating and it makes them relax– “Someone’s been peeing around here.  Cool!  I think I’ll stick around.”   I once had two does trot in, calling to the non-existent doe that they’d smelled from downwind.  They then stopped to hang around for a while and chew some cud.  Urine is good stuff.   I won’t tell you how to acquire doe urine.  If you’re not interested it doesn’t matter, and if you’re interested enough you’ll figure out on your own.

Fifth day of season, fourth day out.  The weather is too good this evening – no wind.  No tree ride, but the chance of a close encounter is very good.  Right on schedule, the huge covey of quail came chirping and fluttering in to roost just below my stand after sunset.  As if on cue, a doe comes in through the brush with another full-sized doe and a smaller one following.  Good enough.  I’ll take the lead doe.  Not gonna touch Mr. Trigger until the time is right. Full cock, ready to fire, taking aim.  A quail explodes just under my target doe, causing her to leap reflexively, then settle down to a walk again.  She’s more alert now.  Damn.  Why can’t this be easy?  No.  It is easy if I do everything right (that’s good advice there – marble sculpture is easy too, and eye surgery, so long as you do everything just right, see).

Blam!

“And…There!” I thought to myself.  “Good let-off.  That’s a hit.”  No wind, so the smoke cloud lingers and I don’t see what happened with the deer.  She’s just gone.  But then I see all three deer just standing there off to my left, with stupid looks on their faces.  These must be Republican deer– no ability to understand the situation and react appropriately for their own benefit.  OK then, one of  ’em’s going to expire right there, ’cause she’s been shot good, but I can’t just sit in the tree and do nothing, hoping.  I’ve taken to reloading after a shot no matter what, so the rifle was charged as I lowered it on a cord and then climbed down.  Prime the nipple.  The three deer are still standing above me, very close at the top of the slope, as if caught in your headlights (Republicans alright) so I walk toward them.  They just walk off, slowly, so I follow at a distance, waiting.  One of the two larger does is hit, but which one is that?  A little farther along the ridge now, and they’re all in view, all standing still, looking.

Now here is an ethical question for all hunters to ponder.  You have one tag and three easy targets.  One of them is hit for sure but you don’t know which one at the moment because in the smoke and confusion they shuffled and relocated.  Light and legal hours are expiring fast.  Do you, a) simply wait for the hit deer to expire, which risks having it run away first when you know you can’t track it worth squat in the coming darkness and the thick foliage, b) shoot the nicest looking deer and possibly let the currently injured deer get away, or, c) …..

It’s like phase two in the underpants gnomes’ plan (“…..”) yet the the only good choice I can think of is the technically non existent one.  I’m not trying to be funny about it either.  I have the gun up, ready to fire; eeny meeny my-nee moe…which one is my target doe…

“Use the Force” is as good a bit of advice as anything.  It doesn’t really help but it might make you feel better.  Actually that didn’t come to mind at all at the time.  “Why doesn’t she go down?” came to mind.  Gun up.  Good backstop. They’re all standing broadside, like statues, presenting themselves as perfect targets, waiting for something to which they might react (Republicans for sure and for certain).  I need a sign.  Then two of them bound off, high-tailed, and one stays locked in place, head lower than normal alert status, maybe darker at the mouth.  That’s her.  Good backstop.  Good angle.  This one’s going right through the bioler room.

Blam!

Good sight picture, good let-off.  She is double whacked, and hard.  Still there is no wind and the big smoke cloud lingers.  Again, no deer visible when the smoke clears.  Just plowed Earth.  I’m beginning to think muzzleloaders are a pain in the neck.  Hope for some crosswind if you’re going to do this.

It’s getting dark – about 4:20 PM.  That shot has kilt that doe plenty dead here at the top of the ridge on plowed ground, but she’s simply gone.  The ridge falls off right here though, with brush and trees below.  I am not happy as I don’t know which direction to start looking.  In the undulating hills of the Palouse loess farmlands, you don’t have to go far to be over the horizon, and this spot is a prime example of that.  My head’s on a swivel as I’m trying to decide where to go from here.  Worry.  Doubt.  It probably would have looked comical for a couple seconds— one of several examples of why smokeless gunpowder is superior to black, but I soon find the two other does lingering in the bushes down the slope.  OK.  Search in that direction.

Below them is my target doe, dead as a hammer, belly up against some bushes at the bottom of a steep clearing.  Relief.  All is well.  That first shot had gone in behind the diaphragm, busted the gut, busted the liver, penetrated the diaphragm on the far side, nicked one lung and busted a rib.  Certainly lethal.  A liver shot will bleed you out for sure, but too slowly to stop a deer before it gets some distance.  The second shot went in right behind the left shoulder, wrecked both lungs and exited through the right scapula, busting ribs on both sides.  A classic hit.  She couldn’t have taken more than a bound before dropping a few yards from where she stood and then sliding down the incline.  In hindsight, the second shot probably was not strictly necessary, but I had no way of knowing for sure at the time.  A standing deer is still a target, I figure.  From the first shot to finding the kill couldn’t have been more than four or five minutes.

I call several times on the radio for Son to bring the pickup.  No answer.  No answer on the cell phone either, but almost no coverage.  Crap.  Coyotes are numerous in this area and I don’t want to leave the kill.  Texting works OK with a poor signal, but everyone’s at jazz band rehearsal I bet.  Nothing for it.  I tag the deer, then half drag, half carry it down the slopes and through the brush and thorns (did I mention that very long hair really sucks in this environment?) and run home with my gear.  It’s down and across the river on a bridge and then up to the house (I said this was good exercise and I meant it) then a drive back to the bottom of the slope, panting like an over-worked sled dog, windows open to the 30ish degree air so I can cool off, back the tailgate against the slope and slide the carcass into the truck.

Cleaning (gutting) a deer in the dark is even more unpleasant than doing it in daylight, and that Maglite you hold in your mouth all the time so you can have both hands free– Na ga dah when it’s covered in blood and gore (I know – head mount – sure – you know everything).  Son was home by then so he got flashlight duty.  Hours after the first shot I had the cleaned carcass hung tidy in the garage, I was cleaned up, showered, and had a plate of really nice fried venison liver (the best in the world, and if you don’t believe it I don’t care) with home-grown mashed potatoes and leftover turkey gravy.  That and a pint of homebrewed pumpkin ale, still pretty flat having been bottled only three days before, but still wonderful especially after not having eaten for ~12 hours.

It’s been a disconcerting and humbling season (knocked me off my high horse) but I’m happy with the outcome.  The deer have to cooperate as I’ve said before, and this season was a good example.

Here’s where I get criticism, I suppose, for making what was technically a gut shot (plus I could have mistaken the deer for that second shot and had two dead deer with one tag).  I could have simply omitted those details, had a fairly clean “true” story and elicited some praise, however I know from talking with more than a few hunters in private over my 50 some odd years that it can and does get uglier than that, and I figure you should know how it is in addition to knowing how it is ideally.  I stand by my choices and actions.  So there.  Last year’s buck went down in its tracks due to a CNS hit, in turn due to the angle of the shot, but I was simply aiming for, and hit, the heart/lung cavity.  That the ball grazed the spine on the way out was an unplanned bonus.  One dead deer hung in my garage, was planned and that’s what I got each time.  Primitive weapons and iron sights in low light are considered primitive for good reasons.  A modern high velocity rifle round, say in the 6 mm to 30 cal range will cause far more trauma and therefore kill faster than the 50 caliber smoke pole, all else being equal, but even then a classic A zone hit with a modern system will often result in the deer running 40 yards or more before expiring.  Expectations regarding the effects of gunshots have been taken completely away from reality by Hollywood types, and I dare say by gun writers and advertisers too.  Killing is not a clean or tidy business.  I don’t know; maybe next year I’ll try my luck at modern season.  I’ve avoided modern season so far because I don’t like the extra company in the field, and because I can take a doe if I like.  Some hunters go for neck shots, which will put them down quick and don’t risk destroying a picnic roast.  That’s another option I guess.

Common Wisdom

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When loading black powder guns, you must always seat the projectile hard against the powder charge, no matter what.  Never, ever, ever leave an air space between powder and bullet, or it could create a pressure spike and blow your gun to smithereens.

When loading smokeless powder, never, ever seat the bullet too deep, even if there’s a huge air space in there (38 Spl comes to mind) or it could create a pressure spike and blow your gun to smithereens.

You should never, ever use smokeless powder in a black powder gun, because it could create a pressure spike and blow your gun to smithereens.

If you’re loading smokeless powder in a metal cartridge case designed for black powder, to be loaded into a gun designed for black powder cartridges, it is not only OK, it is recommended, and universally used both by hand loaders and ammunition manufacturers.  Using black powder in a black powder metal cartridge is a relatively rare, esoteric art. So rare in fact that the loading manuals almost never mention doing it.  It will dirty up your gun, so always use smokeless unless you just want to make some smoke and be a show-off.

Smokeless will blow my percussion revolver to smithereens!  Unless I install a cartridge conversion cylinder, in which case it will be fine with thousands of 45 Colt smokeless loads.

So can I take from all that, assuming it’s all true, that I can safely use smokeless powder in my 1858 Remington percussion revolver, using the percussion cylinder, so long as I observe loading data for, say, the 44 Russian cartridge, and be SURE to leave a sizeable air gap between powder and ball?  Or is something in the above paragraphs not true?  Surely it’s either/or.

Not that I intend to try it, or that I even want to try it, mind you, but to make a point about Common Wisdom.

5.56 x 45 Wound

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Very nasty.  You’ve been warned.  Lots of discussion from both medical and ballistics points of view, so I thought you’d be interested.  It’s here on the Philippine Defense Forum.  I found it as a link off of GunRightsMedia.  Femur was not hit but was broken by shock wave, they say.  M193 Ball at close range.

For comparison; a fifty caliber (.495″) soft lead ball at ~1000 to ~1500 fps on impact will not do anywhere near that much damage, and I can say that with some authority having necropsied four deer shot with same from various angles.  The slower round pretty much digs a straight, caliber-sized hole through anything it touches (though I haven’t seen a 50 ball hit a femur.  I have seen a 7 mm 168 gr match HP hit a femur, on the way out of a deer, having struck initially at ~2.5Kfps and passing through much of the animal, and that broke the heavy bone into several pieces).  You learn a few things about terminal ballistics when hunting, so you don’t have to listen to much of the talk.  The phrase; “Your pistol is the weapon you use to get back to your rifle” comes to mind, only the rifle should be putting lead on target at over 2Kfps according to these chaps.

Now clean up your lunch.

It Isn’t Complicated

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It’s pretty common to get a response similar to; “I didn’t want to spend that much on an optic setup, since I only paid X for the rifle.”

A customer today said he has a WASR AK he keeps for defense, but can’t justify the price of a good optic.  That’s a contradiction in terms, see– you’re going to count on this weapon, possibly, to save your life but anything more than 60 or 75 dollars for a sight that you can rely on is just too much?  “I have another rifle that can put five rounds into a half minute or arc, so…[I don’t need a good optic on this one]”  He said.  So your 3 or 4 MOA Kalash doesn’t warrant an optic that will withstand a few knocks and hold zero, and has a battery life better measured in years than in hours?  Why not?  What is your life worth?

I don’t know if many people are aware of the number of thousand plus dollar scopes that are currently sitting on five hundred dollar rifles.

It’s not about matching the price of the sight to the price of the rifle.  It’s about the setup you want, and you should want something on which you can rely.  Reliable rifles with decent accuracy aren’t expensive, but good optics are.  If your optic costs multiples of the price of the rifle, so be it.  You have a good setup that didn’t have to include a super expensive rifle.  Be happy.

I recently saw an article about some AR or other and the writer had one of the new Leupold Mk 8 variables on it.  It seemed like just the thing I’ve wanted on my (700 dollar) Colt HBAR, so I looked it up.  Four Thousand Dollars!  Will I have to spend an additional 3,000+ dollars on a rifle only so I can justify a good optic?  That sort of “reasoning” doesn’t make any sense to this shooter.  It’s only a matter of coughing up the cash if you can (I do very much like the Trijicons too, and they’re not near 4K, but they don’t do all the same tricks).  Choices choices, but the price I paid for my rifle won’t even be thought of during the process.  I’ll only be thinking of what I can do with it once I have this rig setup nicely.

Disclaimer; …No– On second thought I don’t have to disclaim squat to anyone.  I’m sick and damned tired of the notion that we have to qualify ourselves, or document any aspect of our lives or explain our behavior.  If you can’t take my words at face value, or reject them purely on merits, that’s your own problem.  Live with it.  I’m not demanding anything of you, so stay out of my face and leave me the hell alone.  Or else.  This is the last discussion I will ever have with anyone on the matter of disclosure.

Ammo makes a difference

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I have had lots of experience with rifle ammunition being the cause of extreme inaccuracy. But I had not seen a huge difference in accuracy with handguns. Shooting offhand at handgun distances I just couldn’t see it making that much of a difference. For nearly all my purposes I just didn’t think it could matter when the human error was going to dominate (I thought) the results.

When loading rifle ammo for accuracy I measure each charge down to the 0.1 grain. I measure and trim the necks of the shell casing which are all of the same brand. I clean the primer pocket. I weight the cases. I use a special seating die that aligns the bullet precisely. I use match grade bullets. I sometimes weigh and sort all the bullets. All total, each round takes about two minutes of my time to assemble.

When reloading for pistol I shop around for the cheapest bullets I can find. I use whatever cases of whatever brand I happen to find on the range. I load 300 to 400 rounds per hour.

As I reported a couple weeks ago I discovered some cheap gun show pistol ammo was key-holing once the range exceeded about 30 feet. This was 180 grain .40 S&W BVAC remanufactured ammo.

The ammo will still work fine for USPSA short range practice on the indoor range which doesn’t allow lead bullets. But for an actual match or where the range exceeds 30 feet I needed something better. I had some 180 grain Montana Gold JHP bullets that I loaded up last weekend with 6.0 grains of VV N350 in mixed casings with Winchester primers.  Yesterday I tested my loads. I also tested my carry ammo, 180 grain Winchester Ranger in .40 S&W, and some other cheap ammo I bought at Wal-Mart a year ago.

Here are the results from shooting offhand at 75’. Some of the outliers are my fault but you should still get the idea:

IMG_6357
This is my target from two weeks ago with the BVAC ammo.

IMG_6356
This is another tests of the BVAC ammo (8” group).

IMG_6354
This is another test of the BVAC ammo. Ignore the 2.5 holes at the top center. They do not belong to the same group. That outlier at the top left was not my fault. I know when I pull the trigger wrong. This was not one of those times.

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This is 180 grain Winchester Ranger ammo that I carry on a daily basis. The four holes at the bottom are probably my fault.

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This is 135 grain Winchester Ranger ammo.

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This is 180 grain Federal FMJ AN from Wal-Mart.

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This was my new handloads with 180 grain Montana Gold JHPs over 6.0 grains of VV N350 (5.25” group).

It looks like I have some new loads that work well in my gun and that are welcome at indoor ranges.

Key-holing

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I have known for a long time that often something strange happens out between 30 and 40 feet when shooting my STI Eagle 5.1 (chambered in .40 S&W). The groups get much larger. At about 20 feet I can almost keep it on ragged hole even when shooting unsupported. But at 40 feet it’s about 6” to 8” groups. At 75 feet they will just barely stay on an USPA target.

I went to the range today and finally figured it out. Below are three different bullet holes from a target at 75’ feet.

WP_000151(2)Web_2011

WP_000154(2)Web_2011

Some of the bullets are key-holing the target. This means the bullets are not stable in flight.

The same thing could be seen at 40’ but less frequently. On the 40’ target, which used a different type of paper you could actually see an imprint of the side of the bullet.

This was cheap “gun show ammo” in 180 grain FMJ but I’m pretty sure it happens with at least some of my hand loads too.

I then tried some Winchester Ranger in 135 grain HP. It was a 16 shot 2” group at 40’. I tried Winchester Ranger in 180 grain HP with the same result; a 2” group at 40’.

I have some 180 grain Montana Gold HPs that I should load up and see if they give me the better results. Fellow shooter Don W. told me a year or more ago that he did experiments with various bullets with his STI chambered in .40 S&W and the Montana Gold 180 grain HP gave him much better accuracy than the FMJs.

I think I will have a chance to do the tests next weekend.

More Shooting Last Week

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Dan here at UltiMAK put a new trigger on his Mosin, and since the snow has been out of the hills long enough to let the ground firm up, we had to get out to a favorite spot and try it.


Dan hit an aerial clay with the Mosin on his fifth shot, so I had a go at the clays with an M1 30 Carbine.  I did poorly – only three hits in about 40 rounds, whereas at time I’ve made 20% or better, which would have been 8 hits  On the 500ish yard targets, using a Rem 700 .308, I did a bit better, after some confusion over yards and meters.  My cold clean bore first shot was a near miss on a gallon jug.  Second shot was a hit, and by the third shot I felt it was not a matter of whether, but where I could hit the target.  The jugs don’t explode from the .308 fire at 500 yards like they do closer in, so I got to hit the same one twice.


Lessons learned were; 1. My Remington 700 trigger sucked as delivered, compared to Dan’s new Timney.  2. As a shooter/spotter team we suck at communication.  This happened at Boomershoot too– spotter on one target, shooter on another, and after many words thrown this way and that.  Very frustrating, and a waste of time and ammo.  We made a pact to fix that.  3. My rangefinder is not adequate beyond 400 or 500 yards, depending on conditions, and that is not acceptable.  I guess I know where my next 500 or so bucks are going.  4. See, I’m doing it right here– talking in yards, when I was in fact ranging in meters, because my scopes are BDC graduated in meters.  That’s been a source of confusion in the past, as I was accustomed to ranging in yards.  This time, I was ranging in meters, but still doing the corrections from yards to meters out of habit.  That of course wasted more time and ammo.  I seem to recall NASA (or was it JPL?) having a similar problem with a Mars probe that made an expensive crater instead of a soft landing.  OK.  Got it now.  Reading in meters, BDCing in meters.  No conversions.  5.  I don’t know how you can dope the wind when you’re shooting across a very deep ravine.  Surface clues aren’t necessarily applicable.  Come to think of it, I’m a lousy wind doper anyway.  Must fix that too.


I found out only recently that Timney uses the Remington trigger design, which means I could have adjusted my 700’s trigger a long time ago.  I knew the Timneys were adjustable for weight, engagement, and overtravel.  I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t taken apart my Remington strictly for the purpose of understanding every aspect of its design, as I’ve done with my other guns.  That means that only as of yesterday do I have a decent trigger after using this rifle, on occasion, for several years.  Much better now.  JEP (Joe’s Evil Plan) marches on.  We have to get right back out there very soon.

A simple physics problem

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Given: Ry uses his AR-15 to shoot 1200 grams of Boomerite contained in a coffee creamer container. On top of the coffee creamer container is a 60 pound steel contraption for crushing charcoal briquettes and launching the dust into the air. Joe takes a video using his Windows Phone 7 phone and puts it up on YouTube*. In the video you can see the explosion occurred at 11.18 seconds into the video. The charcoal dispenser hits the ground at 14.48 seconds into the video. Afterward Ry measures the horizontal distance the charcoal dispenser traveled. It is 13 yards. Assume the acceleration of gravity on this planet at this location is 32.174 ft/sec2.


Problem: Ignoring air resistance and assuming the initial acceleration was for all practical purposes instantaneous answer the following questions:



  1. How high into the air did the charcoal dispenser go?
  2. At the instant after the detonation what were the horizontal and vertical velocity vectors of the charcoal dispenser?
  3. At the instant after the detonation what was the total velocity vector of the charcoal dispenser?
  4. What was the USPSA power factor of the charcoal dispenser at launch?
  5. If used at an USPSA match does the charcoal dispenser “make Major” for both pistol and rifle competition?

Be sure to use consistent units during the calculations and give the results in English units.


Solution:



  1. The total time in the air is 3.3 seconds. One half of the time is spent going up and the other half is spent going down. The equation of motion for an object dropped in a gravitational field is:

    d = 1/2 a t2

    Where d is the distance traveled in feet, a is the acceleration of the gravitational field, and t is the time in seconds.

    The maximum height can be expressed as:

    d = (32.174/2 ft/sec2) (3.3 sec/2)2
    d = (16.087 ft/sec2)(1.65 sec)2
    d = (16.087 ft/sec2)(2.7225 sec2)
    d = 43.8 ft
  2. The equation of motion for an object traveling at a constant speed is:

    d = v t

    Where d is the distance traveled, v is the velocity, and t is the time.

    This can be used to give us the initial horizontal velocity component.

    Since the total time in the air was 3.3 seconds and the horizontal distance traveled was 13 yards the velocity can be solved for in the following equation:

    13 yards = (v)(3.3 sec)
    v = (13 yards)/(3.3 sec)
    v = 3.94 yards/sec

    or expressed in the more common feet per second:

    v = (3 ft/yard)(3.94 yards/sec)
    v = 11.8 ft/sec

    The vertical component at launch is the same as the final vertical velocity at the moment of impact. The equation of velocity with respect to time is:

    v = a t

    Where v is the final velocity, a is acceleration, and t is the time.

    Hence the initial vertical velocity is:

    v = (32.174 ft/sec2)(3.3/2 sec)
    v = (32.174 ft/sec2)(1.65 sec)
    v = 53.1 ft/sec
  3. The total velocity is the square root of the sum of the squares of the horizontal and vertical velocities. Hence the total velocity at the instant after detonation was:

    v = SQRT((11.8 ft/sec)2 + (53.1 ft/sec)2)
    v = 54.4 ft/sec
  4. IPSC Power Factor is expressed by the following equations

    PF = (m v)/1000

    Where m is the mass of the bullet in grains and v is the velocity of the bullet in ft/sec.

    There are 7000 grains in one pound. Hence the mass of the “bullet” is (7000)(60) or 420,000 grains.

    Hence the IPSC Power Factor is:

    PF = (420,000)(54.4)/1000
    PF = 22,848
  5. The minimum USPSA power factor required to make major with a pistol is 165. For rifle it is 320. Since 22,848 is greater than both 165 and 320 the answer is “Yes”.


* The YouTube video:



Instant Incapacitation

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Apparently it’s not possible to tell a hunting story in under 1,000 words.  Something about the laws of rhetorical physics.  You’ve been warned.


 


I choose Late Muzzleloader season in Eastern Washington because it allows the harvest of almost any deer – three point minimum or antlerless.  We see few bucks around here, and since I hunt for the table I don’t care about old, tough bucks with big racks.  They’re chewy and don’t taste as good.  All that and there are very few other hunters out this late.  It’s win win.


 


Late Muzzleloader lasts one week, so I’ve been out twice a day since last Wednesday.  The below zero temp Wednesday morning was hard to take, but it was beautiful and I remember sitting up in the tree thinking, “This is definitely worth it even if I don’t get a deer.  Wow!”


 


The tree I sit in is on a steep slope, with deer tracks crisscrossing all below and behind me, with a few tracks in front along the top of the ridge overlooking the Palouse River.  I’ve seen at least six deer by Sunday (or two deer three times) but no clear shots.  Mostly I’ve seen them on the run or behind tens of yards of thick brush as I walk to the stand, or after legal hours.  One of them got stuck in a snow drift.  We usually think of deer as graceful and poised at all times, but this fellow was flailing all over the place, feet in the air even, trying to get away from me.  I was a little bit embarrassed for him.  By the time I’d stumbled out of the brush to get a clear shot though, he was gone.  That’s how it went for several days.  Several shots I could’ve taken, but no.


 


Sunday evening I was going to stay in and rest up, by my son convinced me go out again.  Good thing.  I see no deer on the way up to the tree.  That’s good.  Infiltration without detection means I have a better chance of sniping one unawares.


 


I’d been up there for no more than half an hour, mostly looking around behind me where most of the tracks were, trying to spot a deer before it got to me.  Therefore I failed to spot the nice three pointer walking casually along the ridge above, silent as a ghost in the powder snow, until he was right in front of me and already walking away.


 


It’s a sharp quartering away shot, 20 yards or less at eye level.  Good backstop with several miles of empty farm fields behind.  The time for the ideal shot was spent with my back turned.  Hurry with getting the mitten open so the trigger finger is exposed.  Silently cock the sidelock.  He’s oblivious.  He’s going to be out of view in a few seconds.  I have to duck so I can sight under some hanging pine boughs.  Aim for the heart.  That means hitting behind the rib cage at this angle.  Since I’m bending way down to see under the boughs, my glasses frame is in the way of the rifle sights.  Crap.  Have to dismount and push the glasses farther on.  Take aim again.  Time’s up.


 


Crack!  I hadn’t thought to worry about the powder charge that had been in the barrel for several days.  After that morning in below zero temperature, the barrel had frosted over when I came inside, and it had been snowing every time after, such that I’d take the barrel out of the stock to dry things out each day.  No problem.  120 grains of FFG under a patched soft lead 50 caliber ball with a #11 percussion cap.  Perfect ignition.  This newfangled percussion system you kids have been using just might catch on.


 


There’s always a moment of uncertainty for me, especially with black powder because you’re peering through a smoke cloud trying to see what happened to the target.


 


I’ve heard of “anchoring” the animal in its tracks, but was beginning to think the phenomenon a myth.  My son and I have killed around 9 deer and this has never happened, even with both lungs, and the heart, obliterated they always run some distance.  This time the ball must have upset the central nervous system because the fellow went straight down.  Zap! And he only twitched for a short while.


 


Some sense of reverence comes upon me when I approach the animal.  It’s happened every time.  They are very beautiful, strong, sleek, and delicious with new potatoes, turkey gravy, fresh fruit and red wine.


 


The ball had gone in at the back of the ribcage on the right side and exited through the base of the neck under the spine on the left.  ~21.5 inches of penetration, and though you could fit your thumb in the entry wound, I couldn’t get but the tip of my little finger through the skin at the exit wound.  The ball had just barely pooped out of the skin.  Though it’s what we would call a short range prospect, I’m beginning to trust the 50 caliber patched ball load.


 


It was a good day.  I’m happy, and the freezer will soon be full.


 


I’m still puzzled.  That pure lead ball leaves the muzzle at around 1920 fps according to my CED chronograph, or a little more ’cause that’s averaged at 15 feet.  Last year I shot a deer at 85 yards and the ball penetrated 25 inches with almost no deformation.  We here concluded that the velocity at impact had been subsonic due to the very poor BC, hence a lower pressure at impact, hence the pristine ball (I recovered it from just under the skin and thought it was probably good enough to load again).  This shot Sunday was at no more than 20 yards, maybe more like 15, yet I see no sign of ball deformation so far (I’ll check it out more closely upon butchering in a few days).  You’d think with all the talk about bullet integrity, hard alloys and such, that a pure lead ball at that velocity would obliterate, giving shallow penetration.  So what gives?

Ammo test

Posted on by

About a month ago I received an email from Steven Otterbacher at BulkAmmo.com:

Hi Joe,
I really appreciate your posting about our opening a few weeks ago (https://blog.joehuffman.org/2010/08/30/bulk-ammo/) ; things are going well and I appreciate your help!

I have an idea I wanted to run past you:

We just started carrying Fiocchi ammo and are trying to get the word out about it.  If we shipped you a box, would you be willing to give it a fair try and post a review about it?

As long as you link back to the category page on our website (i.e. http://www.bulkammo.com/handgun/bulk-.40-s-w-ammo – maybe with anchor-text like “Bulk 40 cal ammo” or “bulk 40 S&W ammo”), not the product page, we are 100% fine with a positive or negative review – whatever is truthful based on your experience – we just want you to give it a chance!
If you are interested, which product/caliber do you prefer:

•         http://www.bulkammo.com/bulk-9mm-ammo-9mm158fmjsubfiocchi-50
•         http://www.bulkammo.com/bulk-223-ammo-223rem40hvmaxfiocchi-50
•         http://www.bulkammo.com/bulk-40-s-w-ammo-40sw180jhpxtpfiocchi-50

If you are interested, just confirm you are on board, let me know which caliber you prefer, and then give me your shipping information (and confirm that you meet are terms of sale – i.e. you are over 21, are legally able to own this ammo, etc, etc) and I will get this ammo shipped out to you ASAP!

If this goes well, we might even be able to do a few more as time goes on!

I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you soon!

Thanks,
Steven

I accepted his offer and asked for the .40 S&W 180 grain ammo. I was on vacation at the time and there were various things like blowing up pumpkins that kept me from getting to the ammo testing until today. I don’t have a good place to do this type of testing in the Seattle area and had to wait until I could get out to the Boomershoot site.

Since I was going to have everything set up for group and velocity testing I decided to test some other ammo at the same time.

The ammo I actually received was not the JHPs but FMJ. I didn’t realize that until I got out on the range with all the JHPs I was ready to compare to. I did the comparisons anyway.

Rounds fired: 10
Gun: STI Eagle 5.1 with a KKM Precision barrel.
Temperature: 30 F
Elevation: 3000 feet
Chronograph: CED Millennium
Distance to Chronograph: 11’ to first screen
Distance between screens: 2’
Distance to target: 25’
Bullet mass: 180 grains (except the Remington Golden Sabers which were 165 grains)

Here is my setup and the ammo used:

IMG_4246Web2010IMG_4247Web2010

The bag of lentils was torn by the muzzle blast on the first shot and I switched to a roll of paper towels to replace the leather sandbag I had left at home.

The handloads were assembled in 1998 for bowling pin shoots. I used Winchester cases with Rainer Restrike JHP bullets over 6.4 grains of VV N350 powder.

The following table describes the velocity performance at 12’ from the muzzle. If you want velocity at the muzzle add about 4.5 fps to the numbers below.

Manufacture

Product

Mean

High

Low

SDev

ES

BVAC

BV40-2N

962

981

948

9

32

Fiocchi

40SWD

1009

1038

975

15

53

Remington

Golden Saber

1120

1138

1093

15

45

Winchester

Ranger SXT RA40T

988

1016

961

18

54

Speer

Gold Dot

1044

1057

1030

8

27

Black Hills

JHP

1050

1075

1033

11

42

Handloads

Rainer Restrike JHP

1001

1033

941

24

91

Feeding was perfect with all ammo types.

Accuracy information can be derived from the picture below (click to enbiggen enough to see the bullet holes and the ammo names on the targets). The target on the top right is the BVAC. I didn’t label that target in the field because I couldn’t remember the name of the ammo. It was a bulk buy and I had transferred it from the original boxes (of 500 each) into ammo cans.

The accuracy was acceptable for everything except my handloads and perhaps the BVAC remanufactured FMJs. The Black Hills and the Fiocchi ammo did the best.

I was aiming at the bottom edge of the black to get the maximum contrast with the sights as that sliver of “white” disappeared into the black. The order in which the targets were shot is as in the table above.

IMG_4248Web2010

For self-defense ammo I don’t really care much if the group size is one inch or three inches at 25 feet. Nearly all self-defense shootings are at ranges less than that and the nearly all ammo is going to have enough accuracy to hit the target. The shooter is going to be the dominate factor.

What is important is the velocity of the bullet, the expansion diameter, and depth of penetration. The penetration depth is also affected by the covering of the target. Shirts, jackets, windshield glass, etc. all make a difference. I didn’t have the time or enough ammo to do a full scale test of everything but I planned to do an expansion test with water.

I put a concrete paving stone in the bottom of a old diaper container that was laying around in the garage and put five gallons of water on top of it. This gave me about 15 inches of water to shoot into. I put the paving stone in the bottom to make sure the bullet wouldn’t punch a hole in the bottom if the water wasn’t deep enough.

As I prepared to fire into the container I tried to remember what had happened when Myth Busters did similar tests. I remembered that the 9mm FMJ had surprising depth of penetration and that the water splash was impressive. I keep thinking there was something more I should remember… what was it?

I anticipated getting severely splashed with water but that wasn’t the thing I should have worried about. I fired from about four feet above the container and only my hand and the gun got a little wet. After firing I was pretty sure I just relearned with Myth Busters had learned. The outward pressure of the water is quite strong. The pictures below tell the story:

IMG_4253Web2010IMG_4255Web2010

Yes. The container was blown completely in two and split down the side. The bullet fully penetrated the water and impacted the paving stone.

The bullet jacket completely separated from the core. Here are the bullet pictures (click to see higher resolution versions):

IMG_4258Web2010IMG_4259Web2010

IMG_4261Web2010IMG_4262Web2010

IMG_4266Web2010

If you know your bullets the jacket in the first picture will tell you which bullet it was. If you can’t guess I’ll put the answer in the comments by EOD on Monday.

Understand your Terms

Posted on by

I see this usage pretty often;

   “Maintains less than 1 1/2 minute of angle accuracy at 100 yards/meters – Guaranteed !”

What I want to know is; how does the rifle know the distances to your targets when there are no electronics involved?


If the inherent angular dispersion is 1.5 MOA at 100 yards, the underlying assumption would be that the inherent angular dispersion will somehow be different at some other distance, else they wouldn’t specify a distance.  Sure; the wind comes more into play farther out, but that’s a separate issue, no?  Or am I missing something?  Maybe for the sake of clarity they should say “…as tested at 100 yards.”  I at least would have more respect for them then, but maybe I don’t know squat.

Gunnies be Patient

Posted on by

I’ve seen it before and let it go, but today I ran into several variations of, “Once you get the sights adjusted, this gun is very accurate” in different places on gun forums and product reviews.


Serious shooters should know the problem with that assertion, but not all shooters know it.  These were shooters making the assertion after all.


Accuracy and sight adjustment (or zero) are not the same thing.


(Joe uses the term “sight angle” or “indicated sight angle” which makes more sense when you think about, which of course he has)


Accuracy is the ability of the firearm system (the gun itself, the ammo and the sighting system) to place shots consistently.  The sights could be “off” considerably (bullets impacting far from the point of aim) and that gun is just as accurate as if it were putting your bullets exactly at the point of aim.


The difference is in sight adjustment, but that in itself has nothing to do with accuracy.  Accuracy = consistency.


It has been said that “Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.”  — George Orwell  (Thank You, Walter Williams, for pointing that out)


You intelligent men have your assignment, then.  Carry on.