Starman,
Your results are classic "examples of one," and are flawed in other ways, since obviously original bullet weight and muzzle velocity were not the same.
MD,
you yourself compared a 200NP to the 168TSX for penetration
their MVs and original weights are also not the same, should we consider it a flawed comparison?
A couple of thoughts here.
First, “examples of one” are often good representatives of “examples of many”. If there is any consistency in outcomes, which is often both desirable and the actual case, there are sound statistical reasons why this is so. Some people foolishly believe you need to shoot a large number of animals to determine how a bullet will behave. This is often not the case at all. For example, if a bullet fails to perform as advertised on the first use and again on the second, what are the chances it will perform as desired for the next 98 uses? Put another way, if the bullet will fail 2% of the time, the chances that both failures will occur on the first two uses are 4 in 10,000. For myself, if a bullet fails on first use it may never get another chance – there are way too many good and well proven alternatives. My first elk was taken with my 7mm RM and a 162g Hornady BTSP InterLock. I was not impressed with its performance and switched to 160g Speer Grand slams instead. The Grand Slams performed flawlessly for two decades. When Barnes introduced the XLC bullets I tried the 160g version in my 7mm RM. After a miserable first use experience involving a very unfortunate buck antelope, the rest of my XLC’s were relegated to target duty only. No regrets and the replacements (North Fork SS, Barnes TTSX and more Speer Grand Slam bullets) have worked flawlessly for the last decade and an half.
Second, Starman’s example of the 286g NP and 300g AF penetration is a quantitative data point – and certainly better than no data point at all. While bullet weights and muzzle velocities were undoubtedly different, the penetrations were what they were. Thank you, Starman, for presenting that information.
Lastly, “what’s good for the goose…” and “the pot calling the kettle black” come to mind…
I don't put much relevance in any of those other( non animal tissue) kinds of test media.
Since none of them accurately replicate the mechanical properties of animal tissue reaction to projectiles.
some of them give very misleading results.
But they sure are good for entertainment purposes and to easily impress the uneducated.
Ballistic GEL:
is often used to test bullets, but its actually a Non-Newtonian (shear thickening) media,
can you say animal tissue reacts with the same Newtonian properties?
For a start, blood itself reacts the exact opposite to the reaction one gets from ballistic gel,
blood gets less viscous(less resistant) when agitated while ballistic gel gets more viscous(more resistant) with agitation.
(to give people an idea of how important the Newtownian nature of a particular bullet test media is,
just consider that they are designing bullet proof vests with Non Newtonian-shear thickening fluids.
So its not something to ignore.)
Telephone book tests:
These tests make me laugh, simply because animal tissue does not at all react like wet paper to a rifle projectile.
Paper has very different shear and tensile properties to animal tissue. Wet paper also "wads -up" to form a
clump in front of a travelling projectile....as such it produces a larger frontal- larger wound channel and larger exit hole
in the paper than would be achieved with just a bullet passing through animal tissue.
We know that the greens found in an animals gut do (like paper)also wad-up and slow/stop a bullet considerably
So a sensible person would not use either of such type clumping-wading materials to simulate penetration of animal tissue
..or the common chest shot.
Water jug tests :
water is not like animal tissue because it does not compress.
Water is also not like blood or ballistic gel, because the Newtonian nature of water is that its viscosity does not change
with agitation.,
Water is at best a good bullet trap.
The fact that none of the target types accurately replicate the mechanical properties of animal tissue doesn’t mean tests using those other media are uninformative. I don’t use gel or phone books or old newspaper, but I do use a lot of water jugs, which, admittedly, is a “hard” medium due to its non-compressive nature. What I’ve seen is that bullets that come apart easily in the jugs also tend to do so in animals. Conversely, bullets that tend to hold together well in the jugs and penetrate deep into the water column also tend to do so in animals, although stopping them in animals can be problematic unless heavy bone is hit.
For example, consider my tests with my .338WM, Nosler 225g AccuBond @ 2742fps and 225g Hornady SST @ 2707fps. The AccuBond retained 140.1g or 62.3%, expanded to .628” and penetrated 6 water jugs. The first Hornady SST retained 98.2g or 43.6% but that weight was all in the small fragments that were recovered as the bullet came apart. Penetration was only 3 jugs. A second SST did better, retaining 126.5g or 56.2%, expanded to .743” and penetrated 4 jugs. The two loads shoot to about the same POI but based on these test results only the AccuBond go hunting – the less expensive SST are used only for target practice. Since that test I’ve taken two elk with the AccuBonds at ranges of 262 yards and 487 yards and, since they were pass-through shots, recovered none. While the first SST was an “example of one”, I didn’t need to shoot another 99 into water jugs to get the information I wanted.
The great thing about water is that it is highly consistent, readily available and dirt cheap. This is pretty much the opposite of animal tissue where angles change, bones and grass-filled gut may or may not be hit and shot opportunities may be limited to a few per year or maybe years or even one or two in a lifetime, depending on how often the hunter gets to hunt with a particular rifle and load.
