Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Water jug tests

I'd give a toy to a five year-old and tell him to go outside and play. I wouldn't do that with a gun.

A gun is not a toy. No matter how many times you say it is.

Thank you for the concession about the range. It is pretty ideal for shooting water jugs when you get a private berm.

What brought this up on this forum was a question about the suitability of 165g SSTs for elk. I can't answer that based on person experience but I can say definitively that I won't use them based on various reports on that use, my results my hunting partners have had using thin-skinned bullets like the AMAX on game ... and my results with water jug testing. For the benefit of those wondering about SSTs, I offered visual evidence of 95g and 165g SST going to pieces compared to other cup-and-core bullets, using both handloads and factory fodder. While I did not draw any conclusions as to their appropriate use by others, they are welcome to view the method and results and decide if they have any relevance for their purpose.

Based on your last statement I guess you think we should ban all dead animal photos for hunting forums and elsewhere?

Yesterday Daughter #1 and I were back at the range with the rifles my family will be taking antelope hunting and elk hunting this year. We didn't shoot water jugs this time. Instead we checked the zero on the rifles at 100 yards, then moved to the long range where we checked them at 300 yards. After splatting clay pigeons at 300 yards we moved on to 10" and 4" steel at 500 yards and 12" steel at 600 yards. I don't know what you would call the paper, clay and steel thingies we were shooting but I would call them 'targets'. It was a lot of 'fun', too. Daughter #1 even got to shoot a Barrett .50 BMG, as did a dozen or more Boy Scouts. She thought that was 'fun', too.


[Edited to add] The Boy Scouts thought shooting the .50 BMG was 'fun', too. Should have seen their smiles afterwards.

What kind of rifles/bullets have you used on coyotes?

Interesting. I carry a machete in the back pack because one time a buck fell off a little ledge into some blackberries. It took me fifteen minutes with a club just to get to the deer and another ten minutes to get it out. The machete is a tool. I needed it after I played with my toy and killed the best buck of my life. You can't see the spectacular four point antlers because they are all caught up in the blackberries. The rump of the deer is still against the vertical rock face.

Happy BD.

Interesting. I once ate a bean burrito from a Shell station and farted for two days straight.

A gun, by definition, is always a gun. Sometimes, by definition, it is also a toy - no matter how many times you say otherwise.

A toy, by definition, is always a toy. Sometimes, by definition, it is also a gun.

You're as FOS as a Christmas Turkey.

Find me any definition of a gun that includes "toy" in it.

.22LR handgun and rifle, both semi-auto
.22-250 bolt, 40g BT and V-MAX, 52g BTHP, 55g FMJ
.257 Roberts bolt, 75g V-MAX
7mm Rem Mag bolt, 160g XLC
.375 Win lever, 220g FP
.44 Mag revolver, 240g FP

Probably others as well.

Apparently you have a reading comprehension problem. I never said there was a definition of 'gun' that includes 'toy' in it.

What I have said is that sometimes a 'gun' also meets the definition of a 'toy'.

It is kind of like the terms 'wife' and 'whore'. Sometimes they both describe the same woman. Other times only one term is accurate. In any case, like the terms 'gun' and 'toy', they are not mutually exclusive.

I would not, but that exact topic is on the cover of Peterson's Hunting this month. I've shared some ghastly ones. I'd certainly try to be conscious of the audience. I'll admit that I have personally offended people with photos even when I thought I was trying to be pretty careful.

In the context where I used 'targets' I'm talking about referencing an elk as a target. Seems to diminish them to inanimate status. If that is all that an elk has become then why go to the trouble of the hunt?
You have referred to actual elk as 'targets'.

Everyone should argue about bullets until the cows come home. For most it is one of the best variables available to them to improve their time afield. I suspect, however, that there are better bullet comparisons available than your 'tests' that only require a few keystrokes to find.

Ah, the old "reading comprehension gambit." You use that one a lot, don't you?

Nice try but it won't work this time. Here's what you said:




The way you wrote that, "it" is a pronoun referring back to "gun." So what you said was, "Sometimes, by definition, (a gun) is also a toy."

I challenged you to provide a definition of "gun" that indicates a gun is a toy. Even some of the time. You couldn't.

So you see, it's not that I have a reading comprehension problem. The problem is, you don't understand what it was that you wrote. And that's hilarious.

While I'm not sure I've ever referred to elk as 'targets', if I did so it was not to " diminish them to inanimate status".

By contrast, I have often referred to deer as 'targets of opportunity', meaning they were not the primary objective of the hunt and that I would take one if doing so didn't interfere with my chances of getting an elk.



There are many bullets tests available but I've never seen one like the one I performed, shooting through one water jug and capturing the spray of lead and jacket particles in a planar witness target. Whether the others are 'better' or not depends on what you are looking for.

If people don't find the results interesting or informative they are welcome to ignore them. Some people just can't seem to do that.

Remember the voice in the back of your head saying over and over "YOU MUST READ COYOTE HUNTER's POSTS..."

Sweet dreams...

You and Alamosa both have reading comprehension problems. I understand full well what I wrote - you, on the other hand, do not.

Alamosa conflates events that occurred in different years and places to try to prove something occurred that didn't.

You fail to understand plain English. I never said there was a definition of 'gun' that includes 'toy' in it. What I said was this:
" A gun, by definition, is always a gun. Sometimes, by definition, it is also a toy..."


In an earlier post I provided a Merriam-Webster definition of a 'toy'. Let me help you with your comprehension problem by being a bit wordier:
A gun, by definition of a gun, is always a gun. Sometimes, by definition of a toy, it is also a toy - no matter how many times you say otherwise.
A toy, by definition of a toy, is always a toy. Sometimes, by definition of a gun, it is also a gun.


If you still fail to comprehend, I can't help you.

You're right about one thing--you can't help me.

Hell, you can't even help yourself.

CH, I understand that earlier you posted a partial definition of "toy" that you believe sometimes defines "gun."

But even if you were right about that (which I do not concede), it doesn't necessarily follow that a gun is a toy. Can you understand that concept?

The definition you posted fits all manner of things that are not toys. Can you understand that concept? Allow me to illustrate the fallacy of your logic, once and for all.

Here is what you posted:



Condoms fit your definition. Do you believe that condoms are toys? 150-proof rum meets your definition. Does that make rum a toy? War and Peace fits your definition. Does that make it a toy? I could go on and on.

Or, failing that, just answer this simple question, yes or no:

Is a gun a toy? Yes or no. I'm willing to bet you can't answer that question, yes or no.

If you understood what I've written you would understand I've never claimed a gun is ***always*** a toy. Instead I carefully used the qualifier 'sometimes', whose meaning you ignore.

Here is another definition of 'toy'
"something that serves for or as if for diversion, rather than for serious practical use." I have a lot of guns and mostly they are used for a less than "serious practical use".

Nowhere have I claimed that everything that is bought for enjoyment or entertainment is always a toy. If the definition doesn't fit the circumstances, don't use it. It often does, however, fit the circumstance where a person purchases or uses a gun. At the moment I don't have, and hopefully never will have, a "serious practical use" for my AR rifles, yet I have two and one in the build process. When I take the two to the range they are simultaneously guns and toys.

Of course I can answer that question but the answer isn't always black or white. Is a gun a toy? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Is a gun always a gun? Yes.

reads like "grumpy old farts"....

Holy [bleep]... I take it you guys won't be elk hunting together anytime soon

Not likely...