Today, we are going to shoot some Jacketed Hollow Point ammo into some water jugs with cloth in front, to continue some research we started in the "Rags O' Truth". We will then see if various types of ammo expand as designed.

Following some suggestions, this time we will have the clothing right up against the first jug, to better simulate the way clothing is worn.

GaryM, and Dragracer_Art both were kind enough to send me some ammo to test, and that's what we will be shooting today.

This is a picture to show how much trouble it is hauling all this stuff to the range

This is a picture to show how much trouble it is hauling all this stuff to the range.​

First, just as a matter of my curiosity, I shot a .22 LR cartridge into the box.

It is a .22 LR Mini-Mag HP.

It went through the clothing and penetrated 3 jugs.

Each jug is 6 inches thick, so that was 18 inches of water.

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DocGKR, a recognized expert, told me, "Be aware that water generally reveals the maximum upset which can occur to a projectile in soft tissue -your actual result in living tissue may be somewhat less. You can also use the water testing to get a rough estimate of bullet penetration depth in soft tissue--bullets penetrate approximately 1.6 to 2 times as much in water as in soft tissue".

So, we'll look at penetration using those standards.

This picture shows the round, slightly expanded.

This picture shows the round, slightly expanded.​

Next, a Winchester 115 gr JHP, White Box.

It costs less than top quality ammo, but does it work?

If you look closely, you will see 4 jug caps all in the air at the same time.

Here I am, shooting it out of my Springfield XD.

Here I am, shooting it out of my Springfield XD.​

It expanded pretty nicely, and penetrated 4 jugs.

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Then a Federal Premium +P+ 124 gr Hydrashock.

The first round failed to expand at all.

It penetrated 5 jugs and hit the side of the box.

I told Tman that we needed to shoot another round, as I felt that we still didn't have a good idea of what it would do.

So, we tried again.

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The second round expanded as designed.

This is the first round on the right and the second one on the left.

This is the first round on the right and the second one on the left.​

If you look closely, you can see some blue jean material in the nose of the first round.

Maybe that's why it didn't expand

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Let's shoot some .45 ACP.

First, some .45 ACP Carbon +P, 185 gr JHP, out of my Gold Cup.

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It expanded well, but the jacket and core separated.

It penetrated 4 jugs.

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Then some .45 ACP Remington 230 gr JHP, Golden Saber.

The jacket and core separated.

It did not expand as well as expected.

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Lastly I tried a round of .38 Special Glaser Blue Tip, out of my Python.

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It blew the first jug to pieces. You can see the BB's in the bottom of the jug.

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Here's all that is left of the jacket in the second jug. It barely made it into the second jug. That means approximately 9 inches of water.

Here's all that is left of the jacket in the second jug. It barely made it into the second jug. That means approximately 9 inches of water.​

We then shot a .40 S&W Corbon 150 gr. JHP.

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It penetrated 3 jugs and ended up in the 4th.

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We had only 5 gallons of water left, so we tried a last round of .40 S&W Hydrashock.

It penetrated all 5 jugs, and blew a nice .40 caliber hole in the back of the Waterbox O' Truth.

From the looks of the hole, Tman said that it didn't expand at all.

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I wasn't sure if I could draw any conclusions, but Tman assured me that as an Engineer, he could draw "a family of curves" from one data point.

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Lessons learned:

Today was full of surprises.
  1. The .22 LR penetrated and expanded more than I would have guessed.
  2. The Hydrashock rounds, both the 9mm and the .40 S&W seemed to fail to expand some of the time. This was disappointing.
  3. The Golden Saber .45 ACP sure looks like a great round before you shoot it. But the core and jacket failed to stay together.
  4. The Glaser .38 Special blew up the first jug, but did not have much penetration. This is a concern to many folks that believe defense rounds need to penetrate into the vitals of a bad guy to work well. Penetration was very limited.
  5. Some folks are critical of Corbon ammo, but what we shot today worked as advertised.
  6. And, to keep everybody happy, Shooting stuff is Fun.
Looks like we still have more testing to do.

Thanks to GaryM, and Dragracer_Art for the ammo, and to Tman for the photography.