Penetration test for RB n Shot

[whummell]

RB...... If I wanted to know that my hunting load would penetrate a deer broad side, what kind of target medium could I use to determine this.... IE i heard using wet newspaper..... But how much newspaper to use n how wet? What else has anyone used? Shot..... I have heard using a coffee can if it penetrates both sides of the can it can take a turkey. Same question. What else can be used? Now I have read all I can stand on muzzle energy. I have heard you need between 500 n 2000 FPS to drop a deer... My head hurts from dealing with numbers.... Im a simple hillbilly. I want somethin I can take to the range shoot it see how well it penetrates n say ok that RB will take a deer at this yardage n this shot will take a turkey at this yard. CAN YOU HELP ME OUT?

 

[roundball]

It's very difficult to use modern "energy numbers" with muzzleloaders and patch balls...they're not a good measure of the actual capability of a patched ball...so here are a couple examples of how I approach it to give you some sort of reference:

PATCHED ROUND BALL DEER LOADS
I use TC's load data charts...and specifically I use their max round ball load data in all calibers for my deer hunting. Every deer I've shot have fallen within sight of where I was standing.

Every deer I've shot with .50/.54/.58/.62cal PRBs out to 70yds have been complete broadsides passthroughs.
Longest .45cal broadside was 60yds and the ball stopped under the hide on the far side bulging the hide out.

When I fired a Hornady .440 into a line of 5 one gallon jugs of water at the range, the ball stopped inside the 3rd or 4th jug, completely exploding the first two jugs and spraying water in a 20ft radius...never bothered testing larger balls as they would have been equal to or greater in performance than the .45cal.

TURKEY SHOT LOADS
I took the advice from another poster and used those fairly thick, strong tuna cans as a measure of penetration testing...built a .62cal turkey load to go through them at 40yds...took two turkeys this spring with head/neck shots at 40yds and 30yds respectively, collapsed where they were standing.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Shoot yer load into a 4" thick plank of pine at 25 yards, if it goes thru and takes a chunk out the back it will take a deer at that range easy.

 

[whitetrash078]

One can't use standard energy figures for BP guns in general as Roundball said. I would not worry about trying to test penetration, unless you are just curious about what it'll do. So long as you can get that roundball delivered to the vitals 99% of the time is what I'd worry more about. Roundballs

 

[paulvallandigham]

We have no substance that can accurately equal the bone and tissue of a live animal. Not even ballistic's Gel, commonly used as a test medium duplicates a bullet's performance in living flesh well. But its close. Everything that will allow a bullet to penetrate has been used as a test medium. My first testing was into the ground, and we then dug the bullets up with pocket knives. Later, we used a stump from an American Elm tree that had been cut down at our house. I have used dry wall, sand bags, dry paper, wet paper, wood- solid, spaced, plywood, and standard pine lumber.

Since you can't get any medium to exactly duplicate living tissue, all you can do is COMPARATIVE testing. You use a known load that has been written about by someone with ballistic's gel, or who has killed a deer with that load, and you shoot it into your test medium of choice, and measure how much penetration you get. That becomes your standard, and the basis for an equation to use in determining in reverse how much another load and ball, penetrating " X " distance in your test medium would penetrate in a live deer, based on the performance reported by the other shooter using that load to kill his deer.

Lets use as an example a story that someone with a .45 cal. longrifle uses .60 grains of FFFg powder in his percussion ignition gun to kill a deer with a broadside shot. The ball breaks a rib entering the body, goes through both lungs and exits betwee two ribs. The measure distance of that penetration is 8 inches. You have a .45 and load it with the same load, which give you 5 inches of penetration in wet newspaper bundles tied together. So, 60 grains in your wet newspaper bundles goes 5 inches by comparision to the same load going 8 inches through a deer while breaking a rib on entry.

Now, you want to test a .54 caliber round ball load. You load 80 grains of FFFg and shoot it into your test medium. The ball travels 6 inches, and mushrooms to more than 1 inch in diameter. comparing the test of the .54 to your .45 testing, the .54 still penetrates further than your .45 bullet did, so you have no doubt that it will completely penetrate a deer and then some. 5:8 vs. 6:8. It gets trickier to put your faith in when the larger ball penetrates LESS in your test medium. Lets say because you have an old shoulder injury and are particularly sensitive to recoil, you decided to use FFg powder, and reduce the charge to 60 grain, a good target load, but not a bone crushing hunting load. Now, in your test medium, the ball only pentrates 4 inches. Will it still kill a deer? Yes, of course it will. Penetration is more more correlated to the weight of the projectile, particularly with round ball, than with velocity. If that .54 RB penetrates 4 inches of wet newspaper at 50 yds, it will easily penetrate a deer at that range. Your test medium is much more " solid " than deer flesh. Remember, the .45 load penetrated 8 inches of deer when it only penetrated 5 inches of your test medium. That is a 5:8 ratio for the comparison between the two media.

4 inches of penetration compares to the deer medium as 6.4 inches.( 4 x 8 divided by 5 = 6.4 ), Giving you actually deeper penetration than you got with the .45 caliber load, which was only 5 inches.

So use whatever test medium you have handy.

I used 1 ich board lumber( actually cut 3/4" thick in America) spaced 1 inch apart. With my .50 cal. RB target load of 60 grains, the ball penetrated 6 boards and smacked into the 7th! I upped the load to 100 grains, and that ball went through 6 boards and barely stuck, flattened, to the face of the 7th board, but fell off as soon as I touched it. The aditional VELOCITY did not give me any more penetration. The additional powder did not give me more penetration, because the two balls shot weighed the same. Even the backside of each board was examined to see if there was a discernible difference in the damage shown between the two balls, and no general conclusion could be made. Both balls flattened quite fully, and were ragged pieces of lead when they stopped.

Later I found that on a 100 yd. range, I got slightly more accurate and a flatter trajectory using 70 grains of FFg. I later took a large deer at about 35 yds with that load in my .50 cal. rifle. It broke a rib going in, and another going out, taking the lungs, and some of the major blood vessels above the hear on its way through. She stumbled to the bottom of the ravine and died there.

Just remember that the larger the caliber of gun you use, the heavier the ROUND BALL, and it penetrates farther even at lower velocities than a smaller caliber RB will do, all other things being equal. At the short ranges where most deer are shot, there is no need for shoulder-breaking loads. The added velocity only affects the trajectory, and at short range the trajectory is not a problem, anyway.

 

[cptleo1]

Seems to me 85 Gr of fff behind any PRB .45 Cal
plus will put venison in the freezer.

Truth be known you can probably do it with .65 Gr of fff. under 50 yds.

With 85 gr you are good to go out to about 100 yds.

Sort of a redneck myself.

All those numbers get kind of confusing.

PRB thru both lungs keeps it real simple.

 

[paulvallandigham]

65 Grains sends a .45 ball down range at about 2000 fps. That is screaming. However, because of the weight of the ball, it loses a lot of that velocity. Its still shooting flat enough to hit a target at 135 yds, so I can't recommend using that much heavier load of 85 grains of FFFg. I do know that what begins fast, slows fast in the air, so you would be losing even more velocity over that 100 yds. using a heavier powder charge. Also, you have to take into consideration how long your barrel is. My brother's new .45 rifle has a 38 inch barrel, and his maximum charge is 68 grains. If you are shooting a barrel that is 42, or 44 inches long 80 grains is the maximum charge that will burn efficiently in the 44" barrel. That does not mean you can't stuff more powder into the barrel. It means that you are not going to be getting much for the extra money spent, other than increased recoil.

A .45 with the lesser load ( 60 grains)will kill quite adequately out to 100 yds, and slightly beyond, any deer you can put in your sights.

 

[Runner]

I use 70 grains of FFg as my deer hunting load in several 50 caliber guns. That will shoot completely thru a 200 pound deer at 60 yards unless you hit big bones or the paunch. If the exit is in the ribcage area, it will almost always exit. If you hit big bone going in, the ball will stop under the hide on the off side sometimes. You really don't need the heavy loads at roundball ranges. My penetration figures are from the results of shooting deer, not an artificial testing medium. At 30 yards I hammered a huge buck in the neck years back. That was with 100 grains of P. That ball penetrated 18 inches of solid muscle and took out just a sliver of spinal bone on the way thru. The ball stopped on the hide and did not exit. 18 inches of penetration in solid muscle is good enough for moose or big bears if you place the shot. It is excessive on whitetail with any reasonble placed shot.

 

[Itegorm]

I have found gallon jugs of water to work pretty well for testing. Set up several gallon size milk jugs full of water so that they are touching and fire into them (you can even make a box to hold them together). Figure that each jug that the projectile goes through is roughly equal to 3 inches of flesh (6 inches of water=3 inches of flesh). It isn't exact (You really can't simulate bones and some of the angles that shots are made at) but it seems to give one a rough idea. I've done this for several years and found it to be an entertaining time at the range. Here is a guy who has been doing it with mostly modern stuff and has had about the same conclusions I have had. Neat website. [url] http://www.theboxotruth.com[/url]/

 

[Blizzard of '93]

That is what I use in my .50, an '06 caseful holds 72 gr. 3F. any more powder than that in my 24" barrel burns outside the barrel as near I can tell.

 

[Kentuckywindage]

My deercreek manual says that in a 32" barrel, 100 grains is all that will burn in a 32" barrel. Ive shot this rifle in late evening and never seen any sparkler show.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Have someone else shoot the gun at night, so you can stand to the side and watch the muzzle. If you want to load and fire more powder than the barrel will efficiently burn, go ahead. But some time, please use a chronograph and shoot test shots starting in the target shooting load range, and work up by 10 grains. Record the velocity you get for each 10 grain increment. Stop of you wish at your " best " load. You will find that as you load more powder, you get comparatively less velocity for each 10 grain increment in powder charge. When you pass the formula maximum load, the efficiency of the Powder/velocity ratio drops much faster, whether you see powder burning outside the muzzle, or unburned powder falling to the ground or not.

In my gun club, we had guys shooting maximum loads for our 20 round target course of fire every month, where the rest of us fired a much nicer and lighter target load. I don't recall any of those guys winning a match, or even coming in as close as third place. But they sure had fun shooting those heavy loads. When you are shooting at targets, all you need to do to score is get the ball through the paper. Anything beyond that is wasted energy, no? Maybe making money is a lot easier for you than it is for me. One of the reasons I started shooting BP is because I could shoot a lot of large caliber rifle rounds down range for next to nothing in cost, particularly when compared what it cost me to feed a center fire breech loading rifle.

 

[Kentuckywindage]

right now im shooting 92 grains triple 7 and actually did watch my brother shoot it yeserday evening. Lots of smoke but no sparks coming out of the barrel. So far so good @ 100 yards with 285 great plains bullet. Gotta love the 45's, almost no recoil.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Triple 7 is not Black Powder. I don't even want to talk to folks who use that stuff! You get what you deserve when you use the subs.

 

[Kentuckywindage]

excellent groups and more shots per pound? I used to never like it until i tried it. Only using real blackpowder in my flintlock.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Paul V. I can see why you are an attorney, I hope the 777 shooters don't come into yer court if you get to be a judge!! :rotf: :rotf:

 

[Kentuckywindage]

You gotta be fair and let people make their own decisions. The mtn men went from flintlocks to percussion to the 45-70. Im sure they would have used 777 if it had been available. Gotta try new things in order to see if you're getting the maximum accuracy with what you're using at the moment.

 

[Rat Trapper]

Glad to hear someone else posting good results with Triple Seven. There are more people out there who only go through one can of powder each season than those who shoot all the time. These guys don't care that the real black powder may be cheaper as they don't shoot a lot. What they care about is powder they can buy locally and results. If the rifle always goes bang, the groups are small and the deer is on the tail gate, what else matters??? The Hornady great plains bullets have worked very well for me too.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Anyone who will take the time to actually compare Black powder loads, using a chronograph, to loads fired with substitutes, and shoots groups off a bench soon finds out that Black Powder is better, cheaper, and easier to clean. Those who don't do the testing are the kind of hunters I don't want near me in the woods. They cut too many corners, and as a rule are just not very safet to be around. i am sure someone here is that rare exception, but I would be watching you so much I would probably miss a shot at a deer that stood in front of me at 5 yards and said, " shoot me ". 40 years of being around guys who barely know the correct names for the various parts of their guns, can't tell me what the bore diameter is, or rate of twist, or the diameter of the ball or bullet they are using, Don't know the difference between grains and grams! shoot whatever they can buy the night before at the local sporting goods store, sound like a freight train walking into the woods, sit in tree stands munching on candy, and potatoe chips, crunching plastic bags, coughing, smashing aluminum cans on their foreheads, and throwing the cans into the bushes below their tree, singing on their stands, loadly spitting from their stands, Peeing off their stands, so that it sounds like a brief rainstorm squall, and then wondering why they aren't seeing any deer, so that in desperation they fire at deer hundreds of yards across an open field, not knowing what is beyond( or who) and not giving a darn about it, particularly when they don't have permission to hunt that field or the other side of it, has taught me to avoid such folks out of self defense.

I know everyone has to start someplace, but when someone comes on here and says that we confuse him with all this scientific stuff, and he's not interested in doing anything more than just shoot his wondergun, I don't think he is really a tradional ML shooter, or a tradional Hunter, and has no interest in becoming one. I'd like to think that any new member here would be overwhelmed by all the great advice we can give him here, and change his tune, but that is obviously not happening all the time. Its a shame. Guys like that have no idea what they are missing, and never will.

 

[Runner]

Take a deep breath Paul!

I use the subs myself most of the time. My loads are worked up with them. Black is all Paul says it is, but the others are servicable. Ya don't want to wager money on the fact that my powder is going to fail! I use the worst of the lot. Pyrodex. All that means is that I have to be more careful cleaning my gun and I have to take care of the flash channel on my gun. I don't even use magnum primers myself.
Using 777, just watch it on high humidity days with a fouled gun. Being fair, black fouling does it too, but the 777 fouling draws moisture bad. I switched my squirrel rifle to another powder because of that after field testing it in day long hunting conditions around a lake. The afternoons could be bad on high humidity days.