Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters MD have you tested bullets like this?

When the US Army started testing bullets that eventually lead to the adaptation of the .45 ACP in a Colt 1911, they had a unique way of testing that may be frowned upon in this day and age. The Army, which favored "shock value" in bullet performance hung cadavers by their heads and fired shots at them, recording the cadavers reaction. After much testing the .45 ACP beat out the .38 Caliber entry. They used a scoring system of 1-100. The .38 caliber entry scored between 50 and 65, the .45 caliber entry scored 80 or higher. They also used live cattle for the bullet testing.

BTW, after the .45 bullet was chosen, Colt and Savage pistols went into a head to head competition to become the US Armed Forces service pistol. Colt won the competition, which involved firing 6000 consecutive rounds, with cleaning after every 1000 rounds fired allowed. The Colt 1911 fired all 6000 rounds without a malfunction, the Savage suffered 31 malfunctions.

If interested in reading more about this pick up a copy of; The Guns of John Moses Browning by Nathan Gorenstein. It's a fascinating book about a firearms genius.

I've been testing bullets on live animals for four decades....

Were they hung from their heads?

I’m going to speak out of turn and go out on a limb that John did not test bullets by shooting cadavers hung by their heads….

I'll go further on that limb and say there are some in this industry he would like to try that on !

No, they weren't. But I'm not military. Only they do ridiculous shiit without consequence.

You ought to see the tests with monkeys and FAE (fuel, air explosive)

I saw those videos when I was in the Navy.

Well...no.

But have tested bullets on animals I'd already killed. This was in New Zealand in 2007, when several of us accompanied the late Walt Berger when he decided to test whether his target VLDs worked on big game as well as quite hunters were claiming. The primary "test media" was feral goats, which are so abundant (and the meat has just about zero commercial value) that they're essentially varmints.

Did shoot some Berger VLDs into already killed goats to see how the bullets reacted to specific "stresses," at near muzzle velocity....

LOL 😆

Who was the Alaskan guide who tested bullets on beached whales? I saw an article or two of him blasting a carcass and digging out the bullets to check expansion and depth of penetration.

They weren’t hanging by their head though…