Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Water jug tests

In Iraq we had a abandoned car to shoot main gun rounds that got stuck in the breech. Car doesn't last long with 120mm HEAT rounds.

Personally,I still like to shoot at reactive targets.Tennis balls up against the back berm with a handgun or lever 22. spinner plates,hanging steel.
Heck,the whole idea of Cowboy Action matches are mostly reactive targets. Three gun competition usually includes falling steel ,falling plates or such. These are strickly hit or miss

Not all shooting is done for the sake of improving accuracy or marksmanship to be put to use for hunting purposes. Most shooting of any type will yield some results of that, though unintended.

There is a whole world of recreational shooting where scores are not kept. Youngsters, wives and newbies would most likely not continue shooting if everything was based on it.

At the gun club I belong to ( Same as CH) there are several things that are prohibited from being used as targets, but watermelons, pumpkins are a lot of fun to explode and can be found often in the trash bins. Clay birds set against the back berm are very common.

Any targets, set on the range floor are forbidden unless they are right against the back stop.

The membership is right at 1500 at present with a waiting list most of the time.There doesn't seem to be a big concern of nontraditional paper targets being used as long as clean up is done at the end of the shooting session

In fact, the traditional target shooters shooting at paper, ,on wooden target stands, usually consume most of my clean up time at the range. Removing used targets,replacing card board backing ,rebuilding target stands,etc.

Your reading comprehension skills are as bad as Alamosa's. And how much have you had to drink? That first sentence is literary garbage but there are enough words in it in the right order that I think I get the gist of the question.

Show me anywhere I've stated that the water jug results will be identical to results in flesh and bone. That said, yes, there will be similarities - which is the most I've ever suggested. Bullets expand in both. Both cause the bullets to lose weight. Etc.

Unfortunately, elk are hard to come by as targets. And when they are available they are invariably at different ranges, different angles, have different sizes and are expensive. Water jugs, on the other hand, are uniform in size, density, they are easy to come by, the range and angle are easily made consistent and they are recycled waste, meaning cheap as in free. I've used them to test bullets from .22 to .50 caliber and velocities from under 1,000fps to over 4,000fps.

I choose the test medium and the bullets to test and occasionally post the results. I don't tell people what bullets to use or guarantee any performance level in the field as a result of said testing but people are free to view the test setup and results and draw their own conclusions. Or not, I really don't care.

If you don't like it why the hell do you bother reading my posts?

I'll let you count the words. I have better things to do.

ADFMDL

saddlesore, I always respect your writing and contributions. Though my opinion may be different I believe your experience and thought always makes for worthwhile reading.

Everyone likes a good train wreck.

GFY

You never have been able to defend your position with logic or reason or facts.

ADFMDL

You out by the Butte?

This is hilarious. Especially given it's coming from someone shooting water jugs.

The guy did a valid experiment, kind of interesting even though the results were predictable it's still good to compare the common C&C bullets. Some people would bitch if they struck gold while digging a hole for an outhouse. Lighten up.

MM

Location will no be disclosed 😁

Thanks so much for the excellent report and post.

Posts like this are why I don't read much paper writings now.

I was thinking of perhaps getting some magazine like "Rifle" again but that paper format can't compete with this net and forums.

Congratulations. Once again you prove my point.

ADFMDL

You really should apply for a position in the Clinton campaign. Your stand for strict and total control of any/all shooting activities likely mirrors Hillary's.

A bowling pin is trash when it has completed it's life as a target. A paper target is also trash when it's thrown-away/recycled.

Do you dream of becoming one of those 'officers' at your club, determining/dictating childish shooting behavior?

Good lord, this thread must have had a run on tampons.....

It's quickly ballooned into a milk-jugs-lives-matter movement......

Nice to see someone look at fragmentation, interesting.

Most of the peanut gallery, not so much.

Growing up in Iowa and calling it home until after I got out of the service, I can tell you a lot of folks there shoot ‘trash’. When I was 6 or 7 Granddad had my older brother and I shooting the aerosol cans he had saved specifically for that purpose. As I got older he had us shooting the buttons on the cans before he would let us hunt squirrels in his timber or the rabbits that were everywhere, as he insisted on head shots. Also when we were older he would toss the tin cans into the air where we learned to hit them with fair regularity. You probably wouldn’t approve of shooting corn cobs as they float downstream, either, but we did a lot of that, too.



The range I use has 11 berms dug into a hillside, a 600 yard range and multiple ‘special use’ berms. One of the berms is set up for cowboy shoots where steel targets are used and a ‘lead only’ rifle range where again steel targets are used, a rimfire range where steel targets are used and a shotgun range where shooting clay pigeons is the norm. ‘Reactive’ exploding targets are also permitted. The club also supports events like NRA and IPSC shoots, among others. In other words, the range accommodates a wide range of member preferences.

One of the range rules is that for high power rifles the steel targets must be a minimum distance downrange. Not sure if the minimum is 300 yards or 400 yards but it the rule exists for safety reasons. You talk about the insurance. Officially sanctioned club events like Cowboy Action and IPSC contests are intrinsically far more dangerous than a couple of guys shooting water jugs.

You also talk about the ‘disrupting the members who were actually there for the established purpose – i.e., marksmanship’. While there are a lot of people who use the range to improve their marksmanship, there are also many for whom the primary purpose is to enjoy a day out shooting and that enjoyment is enhanced with the use of reactive targets – clay pigeons, exploding targets, water jugs and so forth. Moreover, because of the many berms available, this can be (and usually is) done without ‘disrupting’ the activities of other members. As long as the shooting is done in a safe manner, no ‘red flags’ are raised.

Contrast that to ‘members who were actually there for the established purpose – i.e., marksmanship’ who are often inconsiderate of others in the extreme, either because of their activities or their lack of safety precautions. Exhibit 1: A member sets up a braked .50 Barrett in the middle of the shooting line on the 600 yard range. Each shot blows items of the neighboring benches. Exhibit 2: A member uses a Marlin Guide Gun with a brake in the middle of the shooting line. Hot particles ejected from the brake hit members using the benches on either side. Exhibit 3: Members intentionally shoot the steel target stand bases, destroying them. Exhibit 4: During a ceasefire, when touching firearms is prohibited, a member drops a live cartridge into the action of a bolt rifle and starts to close the bolt. Etc., etc., etc. I’d much rather deal with the ‘disruption’ of someone in a different berm shooting reactive targets because that doesn’t disrupt my shooting at all – even when I’m there for the ‘established purpose’.

By the way, news flash to you – the range has many ‘established purposes’. Marksmanship is just one of them. Group events can be and often are disruptive to other shooters. In any case, you are not the arbiter of what the range is or is not to be used for.

And a question for you: What on earth does shooting water jugs at 20 yards have to do with shooting elk?



Maybe you didn’t notice, but the water jug shooting in this thread was not at all about long range shooting or even about marksmanship.

That said, I have used water jugs in lieu of steel or paper at extended ranges. The advantage of water jugs compared to boring paper is that a) hits are not boring and b) you don’t have to wait for a ceasefire and/or go hundreds of yards downrange to see the results. Some of the steel targets at my range are so heavy that even if you hit them there is barely any visible reaction, particularly if using a small caliber rifle. Not a problem with water jugs.

Funny how no one I shoot with has ever noticed that water jugs of various sizes are inappropriate targets if one is attempting to improve their long range marksmanship.




Another news flash for you. Shooting other than paper or steel is not ‘stupid’. If you don’t care to do it, no problem. My favorite targets are clay pigeons on the 500 and 600 yard berm. A few months back a shooter set 12 pigeons up on the 600 yard berm. He was using a .308 with a Nightforce scope. I asked him if 12 wasn’t optimistic given the gusty crosswinds. Later I looked up and saw all 12 had been hit. I guess he didn’t know only paper and steel could help him improve his marksmanship or that he wasn’t making ‘constructive use’ out of the facilities.

CH, you need to let it go, man, morons like to think they are condescending when actually they are showing closed minds.

You have done well.

There are some real tools posting in this thread.

I enjoy and appreciate him posting this kind of stuff.

Same here.