anything as cheap and more reusable than gallon water water jugs?  I have pretty much tapped out my neighbors for their empties and lose too many bullets that exit out the sides.  Has anyone tried lining a box with plastic and slapping some duct tape over the holes ?

I have seen a trough consisting of wooden boards nailed together.  Water filled plastic bags are placed in it.  It gives you a good indication of how far the bullet travels.

Long time ago, long before cell phones, we used wet phone books and newspapers. It wasn't the best but it did a decent job.

Stack of old magazines.  You can usually find them in old dudes' sheds or out in the woods in the hobo tents.

next project!  I'm in the process of breaking down a planter that would give me the right size of wood! and I have a bunch of plastic lawn bags to hold water

leather jacket skin, followed by pork chop pectorals, pork ribs, a bag of oranges to simulate lung tissue, more pork ribs on the back, 4 layers of t-shirts in the back, 4 in the front, followed by the new-and-improved high-tech fleece bullet stop . . . is not cheap!

Watermelons in summer, pumpkins in the fall.

I have an inspiration.  How long of a "trough" do you think would be necessary?  Removable partitions like in a tackle box?  Plywood?  How thick?  Would need a cheap and easily replaceable front plate.  Plywood?  Could use some type of weatherstrip as a gasket?  Got me thinking....

You need to visit

theboxotruth.com

A member here, OldPainless, has already done all of the work for you.

Great site to visit!

I've been saving my gallon milk jugs for ballistic testing.  I have so many that I am afraid my girlfriend may take the kids and leave 😅

I've shot HP's and other bullets through gallon jugs of water for years... I can't ever recall a bullet going off to the side and exiting. I have under estimated penetration potential and failed to use enough jugs... but never a side exit.

I make sure the jugs are aligned straight and my aim is aligned straight and level to hit the lower third of the main jug body.

Wife gets mad at my jug collection from time to time...

I had a trough for a short while. I first tried a plastic tote, but that broke right away. I had one out of plywood for a short while, but they don't last long before they break either. The biggest problem is you have to use them somewhere with a hose to fill them, basically private land only.

Another option is gelatin, not real 10% ballistics gel, but knox gelatin that is kinda sorta close. You can find the recipe online. It looks like the price is pretty steep $21.50 per pound now, and you need 2 pounds per block. Unless you are only testing light calibers, you will probably want 2 blocks, or what I did was a block and some rags and towels to catch it out the back. These blocks are not reusable, and for that price, I consider it a waste of time. They also have a short life, have to be kept cold right up until use.

You can buy real 10% ballistics gel for about $90 per block from clearballstics.com. These are reusable at least a handful to times. They can be stored anywhere that isn't super hot. I'm not sure how long they last if unused.

The old wet phonebook and newsprint isn't relevant anymore. You would never get enough newsprint type paper anymore.

Or just buy water jugs. They are like $1.25 at the store, probably less from a Costco or something like that. If you are really shooting enough that this is too much, just buy ballistic gel blocks.

55 gallon drum filled with water and sand on the bottom.

I rested rifle bullets for big game with soaking wet newspaper.

I inserted cow bones or even elk bones sometimes to make sure they didn't break up. Leg and rib

The paper was absolutely dripping wet like bought out of the tub dripping wet.

Test howclose or far the would open up or go to pieces.

Back then you could go to the local newspaper and get a pickup load for 10 bucks for the start up or over run.

Never liked water damn near anything expands it so hard

The above paper  and bone simulated pretty good

I just go shoot a hog with whatever load I'm curious about.

If you want to use milk jugs, or 2 liter bottles, , set them up in a triangle shape, leaving no gaps between the jugs. First row, 1 jug. Second row, 2 jugs. Third row 4 jugs, etc, forming a triangle pointing at you, with the jugs / 2 liters being 6 rows deep. Shoot the 1st jug. It will either go straight or it won't, but set up like that, if it goes wide, it will enter the next jug, and 99% of the time it will stay in the jugs. Generally a pistol bullet will stop in the third jug if it performs well. If it doesn't expand, it may get to the fourth row. The extras are back there just in case, and for you to set up more test shots. With a six deep set up , you can usually get 4-5 tests with pistols.

With rifles, use the same set up, but you'll get one ot two less tests out of t.


Water tests can't be relied on to be accurate and relatable to gel or flesh and bone as far as penetration or expansion are concerned, but what they will do is tell you if a bullet will expand or not in tissue or gel. Water is like concrete, anything that will expand in tissue or gel, will expand in it. It can help you determine the velocity needed to expand in real tissue.

Those ballistic gelatin blocks are impossibly costly for a disposable item.

If it is only gelatin, can you make your own?  

A simple, inexpensive mold would suffice, perhaps from bent up sheet metal or scrap plywood sheets.  A plastic bag in a cardboard box would suffice, too.

You can get a gallon of food-grade gelatin for $60.  If a non-food grade were found, it should cost less.

A 10" x 10" x 24" target holds 10.4 gallons, perfect for use with 1 gallon of gelatin (10% gelatin).

You would need a turkey fryer or several pots to prepare 10 gallons all at once.  All the gelatins I saw were food-grade, so the pots could easily be cleaned and reused.

Ahhh. The old days. Duxseal.
Modeling clay. (don't shoot it when it's warm)
Phone books/newspaper. We made a "rack" out of scrap steel. I-beam bottom, bout as wide as a phone book. Sides were spaced rebar with a top rail. Material was packed front to back, with witness sheets every couple (or so) inches. Milk jugs were easier to manage and fit in the same rack. SchWING!!! LOL
I made a bullet trap out of a 55gal barrel once. Once.
One barrel, didn't stop the round fired out of a 9mm Glock. Out the bottom then the water leaked out. I wanted a recovered bullet to see if they expanded. (SWAT bubbas were mad they shot a guy with an MP5SD with WW 147gr Subsonic nine and he didn't wanna stay shot AFTER I tolt them they needed hotter ammo and tried to give them hotter stuff than standard issue. No, we want to use the issue stuff which was what we issued at the time for pistols. IYKYK why you shouldn't use this round in an MP5...because the design takes the velocity down subsonic.
Anyway.
Ended up TWO barrels tacked together with the seam caulked worked. Subsonic ammo no joy. Perfectly non-expanded pristine bullets. Better than the water tank the crime scene guys used for forensic testing. Kinda hard shooting straight down on a rickety ladder. Winchester SXT 124gr +p+. MMM. Expanded nicely and worked as advertised the next OIS.

Years ago i ran some test with milk crates and good heavy duty trash bags.

My problem is everywhere i shoot water is non existent so i had to carry the water this made my testing verry limited.

I know its not balistic gelatin but it will most certainly paint u a picture.

3 milk crates was enough to stop all the 223 bullets i tested.

I was shooting them at 50 yards to get a more realistic idea of fragmentation etc with sbrs.

I so need to put a cistern in at deer woods so i can have lots of water.

My first thought when I noticed the thread.

I've used a stack of wet phone books.

And cans of expired refried beans...you won't recover the bullet, but you get to see how much damage is done vs. fmj.

Personally, I do not have even a single phone book and have not even seen a phone book in probably 20 years.

We have water at my club so I would do a trough and a plastic liner if I wanted to do it.  Or just get some clear ballistics gel- not anywhere as good at simulating tissue as FBI spec organic gel, but close enough for rough approximations….

Wet newspaper

Personally, I have not seen a newspaper in about 20 years.