Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Water jug tests

Yesterday a son-in-law and I headed to the range to get him sighted in for antelope and elk. For elk he had a custom 1903A3 .300WM that was handed down to him and a Savage 111GNS .30-06 I gave him as a wedding present he will use for antelope. I took three rifles that will be used for antelope - my Ruger M77 .257 Roberts Daughter #3 will use, a Savage FXP3 .243 Win I plan to use and a 20" barreled synthetic/blue Ruger Hawkeye .30-06 that Daughter #3's intended will get as a wedding present next April.

Part of what I wanted to accomplish that trip was to test some cup-and-core bullets by shooting them through a water jug with a target in the background to catch whatever came out of the water jug. We tested six loads at 20 yards. All loads were chrono'd except the Core-Lokt:

.243 Win, 95g Hornady SST, 2925fps (avg.)
.257 Roberts, 100g Barnes TTSX, 3233fps (avg.)
.30-06, 150g Winchester Ballistic Silvertip, 3005fps (avg.)
.30-06, 165g Hornady SST, 2863fps (actual)
.300 WM, 180g Winchester Power-Point, 2825fps (avg.)
.300 WM, 180g Remington Core-Lokt, 2700fps (factory spec)

Here is a photo of the setup after one of the jugs was destroyed. The two 2x10's on the ground are nailed together. For the shots they were on top of the sawhorses and the one gallon water jugs were placed on top, one jug per shot, on the target end of the 2x10s. The boards are lying where they landed after the .300WM/180g Core-Lokt test. Note that the target is completely soaked.


.243 Win/95g Hornady SST/2925fps. Lots of small holes from lead and/or jacket material. This was the case with all but the Barnes TTSX.


.257 Roberts/100g Barnes TTSX/3233fps. Two holes, the second from a broken petal.


.30-06/150g WW Ballistic Silvertip/3005fps


.30-06/165g Hornady SST/2863fps


More photos below.

Apparently you only get to post 6 photos at a time. In any case, the .as t.300WM photo wasn't displaying. I remeved the one that was and am posting it here with the one that wasn't.

.300WM/180g WW Power-Point/2825fps


.300WM/180g Core-Lokt/2700fps (factory spec)

Cool stuff. Thanks for posting the results.

Barnes has yet to let me down..... and all I'll shoot when it really matters. no more testing need be done.

Thanks for the topic!

Note on the Core-Lokt target. The large hole was due to the backing cardboard having been shot away there.

I think the largest hole on the 150g BST target was there for the same reason - the force of the water hitting the target tore the paper out where there was no backing behind it.

I have always wondered which bullet was deadliest on water jugs...

I'm not sure what these results tell me either, but it looks like a helluvalot of fun in the way of data-gathering.

The point, bwalker, was not to kill waterjugs but to take advantage of them as an easy, repeatable and consistent means of testing the bullets.

Every bullet fired into the water jugs expanded, which was the desired goal. The use of a single jug rather than a string of them also allowed the paper target to capture evidence of any particles escaping the jugs, which was the end goal. Mission accomplished.


What the tests showed was not unexpected - every single cup-and-core bullet tested sprayed lead and/or jacket material, some more than others. To some extent, bonded core bullets will do this as well as any weight not retained represents material that gets sprayed.

The all copper Barnes TTSX expanded while in the jug, a fact which did not surprise me at all based on my experience with them on game but was nice to confirm.

It is unfortunate that the photos don't make it easier to spot all the holes in the targets. Nonetheless most are visible. People can understand how the results were obtained and draw their own conclusions. what they do with those conclusions is up to them.

For myself, I will continue on a path I started well over a decade ago - using bonded core bullets (mostly North Fork, A-Frame and AccuBond) as the minimum in my bolt rifles and using lead free bullets like the TTSX more and more as I develop new loads.

This year's antelope hunt is an anomaly in that I will be using a .243 95g SST and have built 150g BT loads for my future son-in-law to use on the same hunt. Range time was too short this year to allow it (both rifles were acquired this year) but the original plan was to work up initial loads using these bullets and use the data gathered as the basis for developing AccuBond or TTSX/LRX loads. Regardless of the outcome, I do not anticipate using these bullets for subsequent big game hunts. (Varmints, yes.)

Billy_Goat has it right - it was fun, and that as much as anything was the primary goal.

Next time I take water jugs to the range I plan to take 50 or more and capture the expanded bullets. Saddlesore has some he wants to test as well. More fun but probably not very informative as the results are fairly predictable.

If you stopped shooting elk in the guts bullets would be an after thought.
This test is completley useless and has no read across in the real world.

Grow up and get a life.

I’ve been hunting Colorado big game since 1982 and Wyoming antelope for about 10 years. During that time I’ve taken my share of game, including 14 elk since 2000. The only animal I’ve lost was in 2014 when I misjudged the wind and, based on the blood trail, shot it in the liver. You might consider that a poor record or one of ‘shooting animals in the guts’. I don’t and I switched to premium bullets long before that event. As evidenced by chest-high blood on the brush on both sides of the trail the North Fork bullet I used exited, which didn’t surprise me at all.

If you don’t find the information I posted useful or informative feel free to ignore it.

ADFMDL

Maybe this year after elk season when I am done using my jugs for ice,I will give it a try.I have a hard time accumulating more than 5-6 at at ime.

Most likely would be laughed off any shooters forum. Probably the only reason that it appeared here.
This is the sort of thing that the better ranges will never allow and even the less restricted ‘gun club’ ranges will be real nervous about.
They all need to be concerned with keeping their insurance and maintaining a professional shooting atmosphere at each facility.
Conducting ‘experiments’ with high powered rifles is going to look a whole lot like a kid who has been entrusted with fireworks before becoming mature enough to do so.

My local range is one of those "‘gun club’ ranges" and no one has ever expressed any concern about shooting water jugs, let alone been " real nervous about" it.

Shooting water jugs is no more dangerous than shooting big game. In shooting dozens and dozens and dozens of water jugs over the years the only damage done has been to the jugs themselves, one wooden saw horse that got hit when my hunting buddy shot a bit low and one synthetic saw horse where the top rail was broken due to hydraulic pressure.

Guess you're not mature enough to ignore stuff you find no use for - because J'm living rent free in your brain and YOU MUST READ MY POSTS.

LOL

I do read some of your posts.
That was never a question.

I'm under no constraint to ignore something useless - although I can see how you would want that under the circumstances.

We've all sadly experienced the crap people drag out to shooting sites and seen the type of slobs that do it.

When elk become made of water maybe then there will be a place for this on an elk hunting forum.

I really don't care one way or another if you read them or not.

As to what people drag out to the ranges my biggest problem is what they don't pick up afterwards. We always leave the place cleaner than we found it.

While you may not find what I posted useful, others have. No, elk aren't made of just water (just mostly water) but that doesn't invalidate the test results. I never claimed the results would perfectly mimic what happens in an elk or any other animal. Nevertheless, I believe they are similar when it comes to expansion and fragmentation.

The test results were pretty conclusive - ALL of the lead core bullets sprayed lead. This happens in game animals as well as the lead not retained by the bullet has to go somewhere. Some people may see the results and decide maybe mono bullets are the way to go. I'm leaning more that direction every year.

Grow up and get a life? Says the guy wasting his time shooting water jugs.
And are you sure on that one lost elk story? I seem to recall another that ran across a property line after you winged it.

You guys yipping about the water jug shooting remind me of junior high kids trying to me in the "cool" club but just can't make it.

I shoot tv's and propane bottles when testing bullets.. oh and the occasional abandoned car.

one pretty relevant observation here, might be that tiny bits of lead, can and do, loose themselves from the remainder of the bullet (more so on common C&C bullets), and might very well end up in meat.

a shoulder shot is logically tougher on a bullet than water, and more likely to cause tiny lead fragments to come off the main projectile.

when we say "XXXX bullet had YYYY penetration and retained 65% of its original weight", that OTHER 35% went somewhere, yes?

Maybe CH's testing efforts highlight where some of that other 35% goes.

I've not had consistently stellar results with Barnes bullets (copper fouling, less than stellar accuracy, high source costs) but this does make me reconsider a bit.

As for wounded game commentary from the critics...... I cant cast any stones, having lost a couple deer due to poor shot placement.

I'm impressed that's never happened to BWalker, apparently. Good on you, sir. May you retain that trend.

Yes, grow up and get a life. You don't get to determine whether or not I am 'wasting' my time. For the cost of 6 water jugs that would have been shot later, my son-in-law and I had a lot of fun - so I consider the time well spent. I've wasted lots of time in my life but this wasn't one of those times.

In addition the tests confirmed exactly what I anticipated to be the case. All of the bullets expanded while passing through a single jug, including the 'tough' TTSX and the targets show not only did all the lead core bullets spray lead and/or copper jacket material, they demonstrated similarities and differences in the amount and just how wide the dispersal was. Do with that what you will.

Yes, I did wound another elk. It went down in head-high sage. As I approached it made it to and jumped a nearby fence onto private land. The elk didn't go far and in fact had already turned around and come back to the fence where it stopped, facing the fence. I don't know if it had the strength left to jump the fence again or not but the bull's strength was clearly fading. It seemed to me, based on watching other elk that have been shot, that simply standing was about all it could do at that point and I don't think that would have lasted long. A shot by a hunter on the private land made any such questions moot, as it went straight down an arm’s length from the fence. Had the other hunter not been there recovery would have been easy once I got permission to access the private land (the ranch house was a half mile away, maybe less). I don't consider that elk 'lost' as it never went far, was never out of sight and was quickly recovered by the other hunter.

ADFMDL